YESTERDAY, I SPENT the afternoon at Chicago’s Printers Row Book Fair, where the streets teemed with eager book collectors surrounding dozens of tents and tables of local booksellers peddling both old collectible volumes and new small press releases. Twilight Tales sponsored a table, and I did a signing with Robert Weinberg from 2-4 p.m.
It was a kick to sign and sell a handful of books to passersby who had no idea who I or Twilight Tales was, but it was even more fun to sit and talk to Bob about his career and experiences. A couple hours after the signing, he won a Stoker Award for his recent comic book work (he didn’t get to accept the award, however — the Stokers were given out in New York City).
I also got to chat a bit with Chicago area novelists Jay Bonansinga, Robert Walker and Joe Konrath, which was great fun. Tomorrow night, Twilight Tales will host a debut party to celebrate the release of my collection Vigilantes of Love.
Last month, I drove up to Madison, WI, for WisCon, an excellent feminist SF convention – perhaps the most organized con I’ve ever seen! My main reason for going was to read an excerpt from “Spirits Having Flown,” a story of mine which will appear in Karen Joy Fowler‘s MOTA 3: Courage anthology, due from Triple Tree Publishing this fall. It was a thrill to meet Karen, as well as Terri Windling, and to hear Ursula LeGuin talk on her writing career.
Just the week before WisCon, I’d been up in Boston on business and dropped off a handful of copies of Vigilantes of Love to Pandemonium Books, where I found an old Pulphouse copy of Karen’s “War of the Roses” on the shelf. I picked it up in Boston, and a few days later in Madison, she signed it for me after our MOTA reading (which ended with a toast of glasses of champagne!) Turned out I was the only reader out of eight who hadn’t attended a Clarion Writer’s Workshop (not that I hadn’t wanted to). Weird!
