Readercon report!

Readercon 20 was my first Readercon, and it was definitely a fun experience. Unlike my previous convention trips, I wasn’t solely at Readercon as a fan. Adam Golaski of New Genre magazine enlisted me to help out at his bookshop table, so I got a spiffy green dealer’s badge and everything! It was way cool.
Anyway, here’s how it all went down:

Thursday
Met up with Adam on Newbury Street and vroom vroomed off to the Burlington Marriott. We got some coffee, thankfully not in the really loud restaurant, and talked school, etc. Then we went to see Laird Barron read, and then I went to You Don’t Know Dictionary, which was full of many fancy words and whatnot. Aaaand then Adam drove me back into Boston and I went home.

Friday
I got up wicked early and braved the MBTA: bus from my apartment to Maverick, Blue Line to Government Center, Green Line to Park Street, Red Line to Alewife, bus to Burlington. Oy. Once I snagged my program, I took a few minutes (and by that, I mean about an hour) to sit outside and look over my options. Concrete is, as I probably should have expected, not much fun to sit on. Oh well.

I met with Adam to discuss pricing (the bookshop wasn’t due to open until 6, but being prepared is a Good Thing), and then I headed to Novels You Write vs. Novels You Talk About in Bars. It was an interesting panel, though it wasn’t quite what I thought it’d be. To the panelists, novels that they talked about in bars (and never actually wrote) were ones that were “too grand in scope.” I thought it’d be more of a “Duuuude, I have this great idea for a book. There’s an interpretive dance team, a chinchilla, a child prodigy, and bunch of aliens, and they all fight crime together! This is going to be legen--wait for it--dary!”
But then again, I have never been in a bar and consequently have no real knowledge of the conversations that take place within one. I can only imagine.

Next up was Hacks Anonymous vs. The Art Police. It was really cool to see what writing people do when they’re trying to pay the bills. I would totally write movie tie-ins or wrestler biographies if given the chance.

The next panel I went to was How to Review, which featured the late Charles Brown as moderator (I was shocked to hear that he had passed away shortly after Readercon. RIP). The panel itself was great because of the diversity of its participants--people from both genre and non-genre publications were there, and I thought that that added a nice range of viewpoints.

Next I met up with Adam and went to see Elizabeth Hand talk about how she wrote Wonderwall. I proceeded to have the Oasis song stuck in my head for the entirety of the talk. She talked a lot about her research methods, including her use of Google Books, which I thought was cool. I was suddenly reminded that I had read some Rimbaud in high school, and although I couldn’t recall many specifics, I enjoyed her discussion of events that may or may not have sparked the writing of “The Drunken Boat.”

Afterward, Adam and I headed over to the bookshop to begin setting up, only to be told that the bookshop was opening early. We quickly unloaded all our stuff--New Genre magazines, Adam’s collection Worse Than Myself, experimental poetry books--and were still setting up when the doors opened, but it was all good. I met Victoria Blake, publisher of Underland Press, with whom we were sharing a table. I also met Eliza, Adam’s intern, who arrived at some point during the chaos of bookshop-opening. We were speaking in unison by the end of the night. Good times!

After the bookshop closed, the three of us had a tasty dinner at Legal Seafoods (I got grilled scallops with onion strings and jalapeno cheddar polenta) and then went to the Meet the Pros(e) Party, where there was cake. Oh yes, there was cake. It was good cake. I only collected ten or so stickers due to awkwardness, but Eliza assembled a very impressive set. Gotta catch ‘em all!
We were all very tired at this point, so Eliza went back to her hotel room and Adam drove me home. We got a bit lost, so I didn’t get dropped off until around 1 am. I proceeded to collapse.

Saturday
I once again braved the bussubwaysubwaysubwaybus and arrived at the hotel shortly after the bookshop opened. Eliza and I proceeded to sellsellsell for a while before going to Boom and Bust in Genre Publishing and the Economy. The talk of certain forms of media “killing” other forms of media got “Video Killed the Radio Star” stuck in my head. It’s still there. Good panel, anyway.

We spent the rest of the day in the bookshop, closed up at six, and went to the mall for a while. I had my first ever taste of Chick-fil-A and was reasonably satisfied.

Finally, we headed back to the con for The Kirk Poland Memorial Bad Prose Competition Tournament of Champions. Oh my. I had not laughed that hard in a while. It was an experience, an event, a happening. It was A WALL OF STINKING JELLY.

Didn’t get lost on the way home, thankfully. Bed was, once again, a wonderful thing.

Sunday
I made my trip easier by getting of the bus earlier and walking for a bit, rather than waiting for it to go all the way to the mall and double back.

I spent the day in the bookshop, trying to sell as much as possible in the last few hours. We did our best to entice people with candy, which worked occasionally. I ended up taking the leftover candy home with me, so yay!

When the bookshop closed, I picked up my copy of New Genre 6 (the latest issue), which I’ve really been enjoying so far. If you didn’t purchase one from us during Readercon, they’re also available online (hint hint). I also snagged a copy of The Pilo Family Circus from Underland, which I haven’t gotten the chance to start yet.

And just like that, Readercon 2009 was over. I was sad. I had a fabulous time selling New Genre, obsessively monitoring #readercon on Twitter, and talking to all the people who stopped by the table, and despite my tiredness, I did not want to go home so soon. Oh well. There’s always next year!




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