WORLD HORROR CON 2015 was a strangely quiet convention for me. I’m not sure why, really — maybe because I was so burnt out from the crazy weeks that led up to it — but it was almost like I was an “observer” at the convention. I just never… quite… engaged. While I did spend some good times with old friends, I also ended up having a couple meals off on my own. And everybody…
AT THE START, it always seems like you have all the time in the world… and then suddenly, it’s over and everyone’s on a plane back home. World Horror Convention 2013 in New Orleans was no different… this was my 11th World Horror Con, and a special one for me, since my novel NightWhere was a Bram Stoker Awards finalist for best novel (the awards were held Saturday night). THURSDAY I flew in Thursday morning…
I HAD A GOOD STRING of World Horror Convention attendance going — 9 in a row all told from 2000 to 2008. But when the con crossed the ocean to go to Brighton, UK in 2009, I just couldn’t justify the expense and had to sit out a year. And then they went out of country again in 2010 — to Winnipeg, Canada… where basically nobody registered to go. Including me. So… after missing World…
LAST YEAR, FOR NO good reason, Bill Breedlove and I decided to roadtrip to WHC in Toronto. It was a great time, and somehow we didn’t kill each other over the music selections for the trip. So this year, when we decided our press Dark Arts Books was going to run both a party at World Horror and a Dealers Room Table, we opted to road trip again… despite the fact that the trip was…
SO, AT SOME POINT, this year’s World Horror went from a standard annual convention to… a Road Trip (capital R). Initially I thought… what the hell. It’s an 8-9 hour drive from Chicago, right? I can listen to a lot of good albums at full volume during that time, and honestly, if I flew, door-to-door from home to hotel was probably 6 hours anyway, right? And then there were all those worries with customs. I…
BAD BOOKENDS So, on my way to the airport on Wednesday morning, there’s such a ridiculous traffic jam, that I almost miss the plane (even though I left early) and at 6 a.m. on Thursday, the first morning of the con, I’m woken up by my wife who tells me that there’s an emergency back home. Then a couple days later on the way home, my bags decided to take a vacation in St. Louis.…
WHEN MY PLANE landed at LaGuardia Airport on April 7, 2005, my heart leapt — it felt like I was coming home. It was the first time I’d been back to Manhattan since I spent a summer there as a magazine intern in NYC 18 years ago, working on 52nd Street and living down near the East Village in an NYU dorm. It remains one of my favorite times in my life. And when I…
IF YOU THOUGHT Kansas City’s World Horror Convention in 2003 seemed the quietest WHC, then you weren’t in Phoenix. Oh that’s right, of course you weren’t. Nobody was! OK, that’s not strictly true. Some of us were. But this was the poorest attended con of any I’ve been to, and it showed. Programming was sparse, and standard WHC events like Editor Pitch Meetings, Loren Rhoads‘ Morbid Curiousity Open Mic and even the Gross-Out Contest were…
KANSAS CITY’S World Horror Convention seemed a much calmer con in many ways than past instances, perhaps because it was raining and hailing outside most of the weekend, or perhaps because a lot of key players were absent — old friends like P.D. Cacek, Gerard Houarner, Linda Addison, Shane Ryan Staley and GAK, among many others, couldn’t make the con. But it still was a good time. My wife Geri and I got to spend…
WELL, IT’S TAKEN me nearly two months to finally recap WHC Chicago…but I think I’ve finally recovered! This year I took lots of pictures, since it was on my own home turf…I’ve set this site up so you can click any of the thumbails to see a full-size picture. Hopefully that will help download times to stay reasonable. World Horror Con 2002 started in 2001 for me; I volunteered in the fall to handle publications…
