Only six more days to go until Flight or Fright is officially published, although Cemetery Dance has been sending out copies to advanced purchasers for a while now. I took a box to Killer Con in Austin last weekend and sold most of them, including to Patrick Frievald, pictured here, who seems to have frightened everyone else off his flight with it.
We went to a concert/rally in support of Beto O’Rourke, the Democratic candidate for Senate, last Thursday. A few local bands got the crowd pumped up (we saw VODI and Wild Moccassins), then the candidate took the stage and spoke for the better part of an hour. It’s a standing-room-only venue, and it was packed. We were near the front and got to see O’Rourke up close. He’s passionate, energetic, and he’s running on a campaign that isn’t against anything or anyone (except, maybe Betsy DeVoss), but rather running for certain beliefs and tenets. He’s closed to within the margin of error of the despicable Ted Cruz, funded solely on small donations, no PACs, and he seems to be outraising Cruz by a significant margin. Here’s hoping all that enthusiasm carries into November.
On Friday, I drove to Austin for KillerCon, a convention that Wrath James White launched in Las Vegas that he has now migrated to the Texas capital. It’s a small, intimate weekend with a single-track schedule, which means you never have to miss something in favor of something else. I registered very late, so I wasn’t included in any of the programming, but I had a terrific time nonetheless. It was good to catch up with people like Brian Keene, Mary SanGiovanni, Kelli Owen, Jeff Strand, Edward Lee, Joe, Keith and Kasey Lansdale, as well as meeting a number of new people. The two highlights of the programming for me were the “hot wing” challenge, in which several authors consumed progressively hotter sauces while doing things like coming up with alternate endings for their work or reading one-star reviews of their books. It was hilarious. Then there was the always entertaining “gross-out” contest, in which authors have three minutes to read a gross but funny story. Comedy gold. As with any con, though, the social aspect is the biggest draw. I ended up staying up really late on Saturday night talking to people in the con suite, fueled in large part by a killer Cuba Libre mixed by Stephen Kozeniewski. I haven’t been up that late in ages.
We watched a couple of movies on the weekend. First was Won’t You Be My Nieighbor? the Fred Rogers documentary. He was an amazing, motivational, inspiring guy, and this film does him proper service. His life had a terrific trajectory and he remained true to his beliefs all the way through. Highly recommended. Then we saw Oceans 8, a decent caper film in the tradition of the Danny Ocean movies. The scheme is well crafted and executed. My biggest complaint is that there weren’t any significant wrinkles along the way that made them wing it. It was smooth sailing all the way through. There was a little surprise near the end, but I would have like more stress and trouble. Maybe even some double-dealing and deception within the group. I also saw the finale of Sharp Objects, based on the novel by Gillian Flynn. A difficult story, bleak and vicious, but well done. The ending was very much in keeping with the show’s dreamy, subliminal style.
Last night was the first night of the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office Civilian Police Academy. It’s running for 15 weeks, and we’ll get the inside scoop on just about everything that entity does. I did the Houston Police Department’s academy a number of years ago. It’s terrific research material for my writing, since I’m concentrating mostly on crime fiction these days.
