I never did remember to bring my camera, so I got up from my booth for a few minutes Sunday afternoon, ran around, and snapped some god-awful poor pics with my cell phone, just to get a flavor of Authors Row. Came out a little something like this:
Yeah, I know, they're blurry and awful. Whaddaya want? Better pictures? Better truck on over to the official Festival Facebook page.
Word around the campfire is that we had about 1700 attendees, and I've heard nothing but praise from the other guests who attended. Had a pretty good time myself, as a matter of fact. Somehow I got the very first booth down the aisle on Authors Row, but I never figured out if that was good or bad. I did sell me a few copies of Summer Gothic (the proceeds of which I quickly blew in the dealer's room) and spent a lot of time getting to know my next-table neighbors, John Durden and Cam Crowder, author of Electus. Never did make it to an Adam Baldwin panel, but I hobnobbed with most of the other authors and watched Doctor Osborn make balloon animals, balloon hats, balloon firearms, balloon Ghostbuster particle accelerators, and yes - a man-sized balloon dragon skeleton.
Oh, and they let me sit on panels. (The fools.) Most of the time I felt like a college freshman rubbing shoulders with PhDs, but it was fun. Other guests on the author track included Lou Anders, J.F. Lewis, Kimberly Richardson, Allan Gilbreath, Van Allen Plexico, Bobby Nash, Jennie Breeden, and others whom I'm sure I'm forgetting. Topics I spoke on included two Steampunk panels, one on Pulp, one on marketing, one on what editors want, but the most fun was the "Dead Author Society," in which Kimberly, Van, and I pretended to be Edgar Allen Poe, Carl Sagan, and Robert E. Howard respectively and answered audience questions on their behalf.
Will I go back next year? You betcha. Will they let me? Wait and see.
