Month: July 2004

Westercon57

Westercon57

Westercon57 was held at the Wigwam Resort in Litchfield Park, Arizona.

I drove from Las Vegas down to Litchfield Park which is somewhere near Phoenix.

The convention was very relaxed — I think partly from the heat and partly because all the hotel rooms were casitas. I was lucky in that I had only a fifty yard walk (if that) from my casita to the main building where all the programming occurred.

I was quite happy to make the acquaintance of Dameon Willich and Darragh Metzger who are part of the Seattle Knights. We were on a panel together discussing horses and how far they really can travel in a day.

I also got to meet Jan Howard Finder, the famous Wombat, whom I’ve known for a very long time now. It was Jan who first introduced me to Lois McMaster Bujold’s marvelous Miles Vorkosign series.

I’d agreed to do a writer’s workshop at Westercon but hadn’t seen any submissions so I had thought that no one was interested. It turns out that there was a bit of a snafu and there were two interested parties at the convention. I was quite happy to give their works a good read and, bolstered by my recent experience with the Writers Blocks, hopefully gave them both good and useful comments.

The autographing session went well and I got to meet Diana Gabaldon who wrote Outlander.

I also bumped into Walter Hunt again and we discovered that we have the same literary agent (Donald Maass of the Donald Maass literary agency). Walter very kindly sent me a copy of the photo that was taken of himself, myself, David Brin, and Robert Silverberg at ConDor XI — which I’ve posted in my photos page.

I met, and succumbed once again, to the wares of Scott Merritt’s Pegasus Publishing which makes printed and embroidered t-shirts and polo shirts, including some licensed materials from David Weber’s “Honor Harrington” series and Lois McMaster Bujold’s “Vorkosign” series (my favorite is the so subtle “Sieglings: Vorbarr Sultana”).

I had a final panel discussing what comes after the X-prize and spent much of the time happily listening to Mitchell Burnside Clapp discuss the plans of Rocketplane.

All in all, it was a pleasant weekend.

Writers Blocks

Writers Blocks

Astute and/or frequent visitors to my website will notice that I attended Westercon57 over the July 4th weekend. You may also have noticed that I’ve been a bit lax in keeping this blog up to date recently.

I figured I’d tell you why. First, let me assure you that, unlike J.K. Rowling (not surprisingly), I am not pregnant. Congratulations to Ms. Rowling, all the same. If you haven’t checked out her website, follow the link above — it’s really quite enjoyable.

Before Westercon, however, I was in Las Vegas. Let me tell you that, oddly, Las Vegas is probably my least favorite place in the world to visit. However, I wasn’t there to gamble and can proudly say that during my whole stay, I gambled not one penny.

Instead, I was working with a group of writers from last year’s WAM writer’s workshop — Angel, Debbe, Diana, Joan, Larry, and myself. We spent a very productive three days and I think we all came away feeling that we’d accomplished a great deal.

On the last day, we came up with a name for ourselves — “Writers Blocks.” And, of course, a logo.

Letter from Novashannon

Letter from Novashannon

Dear Mr. McCaffrey,
Just wondering if you and your mom (whose books have given me hours of reading pleasure since i first read Dragonflight) will ever be on the East coast signing books. Maybe in Eastern Pennsylvania or Western New Jersey?

I have done my best to introduce my siblings, nieces, and nephews to the Pern books!

Gee, I’d be happy to sign on the East Coast. However, Mum’s only out in LA (where I live) because of the kindly enticements of the Writers of the Future. I begged her to consider some signings for my local bookstores.

The last time Mum did a major signing tour she signed in 28 cities in 31 days and took six months to recover! I think that was nearly twenty years ago. At 78, she doesn’t have the stamina she used to have — not that you’ll get her to admit it!

Mum will be signing at Dragon*con in Atlanta this Labor Day but I think barring some other “kindly enticements,” she probably won’t be doing any other signings — certainly not this year.

Cheers,
Todd

Letter from Kathleen

Letter from Kathleen

Hm… Hotel room turned cheap Inn. Sounds good. Now if only I could find fifty other people then it wouldn’t be a probably. LOL.

Well super news I’ve finally finished book one and had it looked over by my friend and myself after not looking at it for a month and happily finding my errors. So now I can take a sigh of relief and move on at last! ^_^

Kathleen,

Congratulations on finishing the book! And I’m glad that you managed to put it away for a month. That should give you a fresh perspective.

Sadly, the usual hotel sharing arrangements tend to collapse at much over four people in a room — and the hotel management notices such things and adds a surcharge (not to mention that no one will get sleep/shower/restroom).

Cheers,
Todd