After four years, I’m back in California! Yay!
Okay, now that I’ve got that out of my system (because California is, without a doubt, the most awesome state in the union), let me just say that the first day of World Fantasy 2009 was most excellent.
For Cavan, Alex and me, the day began at about 4:30 am, when we woke up early to road trip it out to San Jose. The salt flats near Dugway were very beautiful in the early morning light, as were the mountains. Nevada stretched on forever, but a little bit of Ennio Morricone helped it pass enjoyably. After Reno, we descended through the Sierras, passed Sacramento and the Central Valley, crossed over the gorgeous bay area mountains and arrived in San Jose without incident.
Well…there was one incident. We got a little lost finding Alex’s friend’s house, and pulled a U-turn that ticked off one of the local drivers. She honked her horn and shouted out her window: “go back to Utah!”
California, I love you. You haven’t changed at all since I left. 🙂
We’re staying with Alex’s friend, within walking distance of the downtown area where the convention hotel is situated. No, really, we couldn’t have planned it better. Alex’s friend is way chill.
After we registered, we scoped out the hotel. It feels a lot like the hotels in Cairo–big and grand, with lots of marble and large open spaces. We browsed around the dealer’s room, saw lots of small publishers, some of whose books I’ve reviewed for Leading Edge. Everyone was very friendly and easy to talk with.
The only panel tonight was on the Google book settlement, and it was very informative and helpful for someone as clueless on this issue as me. Some very choice words were exchanged between the president of SFWA and a Google employee in the audience, but most of the panelists had the same opinion–that the settlement would set a terrible precedent for copyright law and should be fought tooth and nail. Interesting, timely stuff.
We heard about a party on the top floor, so we decided to check it out, and low and behold! Practically the entire convention was there. Ran into some familiar faces from LTUE and CONduit; it turns out that there are one or two dozen people from Utah at this convention, and most of us already know each other. How awesome is that?
Let me just say, I am so happy that I have friends at this convention. All that networking in Utah over the last two years is really paying off. It’s so much easier to meet new people when you’re working together as a group. I’m starting to get an idea of the editors/agents here that I should contact and how to approach them. I’m also meeting a lot of other aspiring writers, making new friends.
In short, the party was not only productive, it was lots of fun. Met new people, reconnected with old friends from the Utah scene, got the scoop on Dan Well’s Serial Killer book and the pending sequels (which I’m eagerly anticipating), and just had an overall great time.
An excellent finish to a very eventful day–and the convention has only just begun!
