Well, it's been... a con.
We drove across a sleety and snow-surrounded Snoqualmie Pass last Thursday as guests in a friend's van (I could have probably handled the pass conditions, but I was just as glad I wasn't driving) and arrived in Pasco at around 6:30 or so PM. First thing that happened - after checking in at main desk of the Red Lion in Pasco - is someone hollering my name from the restaurant as
The School for this Con was Kennewick High, and three of us - myself,
But we went out at 8 and we came back closer to 2 and that was already a full day's work, really. And I had the by now semi-traditional "Tea with the Duchess" that Radcon has now put on for the third year running which was due to happen at 3 PM - except that I discovered that the nice boardroom which was the usual venue - the one with an actual, you know, TABLE around which one could sit and have said tea - had been handed over to kiddie crafts and was overrun by rugrats brandishing coloured paper and glue sticks. We, the tea, were relegated to the room next door - which was set up as for a panel, with serried ranks of chairs, hardly conducive to a social occasion. So we just scattered the chairs around in a more informal wise and did our best - and people did drop in and out, nothing like the 20-odd who all turned up AT ONCE last year much to my astonishment but hey, we had a lot drifting in in pairs or as singletons all through the two hours of this, and some of them were even actual FANS who had read my books so it all worked out fine. Except for the fact that we had to chase down the teacups without which, you know, it might have been hard to drink the tea. And by this stage
We had opening ceremonies at 7, which made me acutely aware that one of the people whom I associate with Radcon,
More socialising, then bed, then up fairly early cos I had panels all day Saturday. They ranged from writerly topics like "how to pitch a novel" and plot and pacing to something that actually had me rather nonplussed as a topic on which I could possibly have any kind of contribution to make - pre-teen SF and Fantasy, who was writing in that field, who was doing well, what was available - I don't particularly write for audiences that young and even when they pick me up it's the precocious ones who read "older" so I was wondering what I could possibly have to say on the matter - but it turned out to be a panel of two (our third panelists was a no-show) and an audience of five, and turned into a fascinating discussion about all SORTS of things... except the topic of the panel itself, other than indirectly. Two good things that came out of this aside from the unexpectedly enjoyable experience itself was that I made a good contact with a librarian who WANTED new YA books (here sits the author, waving!) and the breathless 11-year-old who skidded into the room five minutes before the panel ended asking if this was the pre-teen SF&F panel. It was just as well that she hadn't been there for the most part - but we did get to send ONE pre-teen out with a list of recommended books which she should pick up to augment her reading. Somewhere in the middle of all this, over lunch, they had the group booksigning thing - where I wound up sharing a table with the likes of GoH Ellen Datlow, Larry Niven, and CJ Cherryh. Some cons are just awesome like that.
Then we went down for another group restaurant session with The Clique, this time augmented by the sparkling presence of
We hung out in the small press room with
And fell into bed early. And slept for eight hours STRAIGHT, then woke, and went back to sleep for another hour and a half.
The cats are happy. We're home. I need to get busy on stuff over the next two weeks. But in the meantime... that was Radcon 2010. Thanks for another great con,
See you next year.