jimhines

Rape Center Fundraising Update: Over the weekend, we passed the $1000 mark, which means one donor will be getting a cameo in Libriomancer. Thank you all, and I’ll be adding a 4th prize if we hit $1500 by the end of the month.

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I have survived my second-ever Guest of Honor gig, this one at ConStellation in Lincoln, Nebraska.

The hotel left a bit to be desired, but overall it was a wonderful weekend. My TSA experiences at the airports were thankfully grope-free (though they did have to search my bags and examine two very suspicious pewter figurines). I arrived early Friday afternoon and promptly tried out the miniature carousel in the hotel.

I’m still figuring out the whole GoH thing, but in my mind, the guests of honor are there both because the con staff think they’re pretty darn cool, but also (and primarily, in my mind) for the other attendees. So I figure my job is to be entertaining, to share what knowledge and experience I’ve got, and to try to add to everyone’s weekend. I did my best.

Panels were fun, and thanks in part to Matt Rotundo, we’ve now conclusively established that fantasy is better than SF. You’re welcome. It was a smallish con, but panels and my readings were well-attended. I read “Creature in Your Neighborhood” and “Mightier than the Sword,” both of which went over well. Particularly Creature … nothing I’ve written tops muppet werewolves for public readings

And there was cake! Artist Guest of Honor April Lee and I were both born on April 15, which was properly celebrated. And yes, that does say “Jon and April” … but misspelled names do nothing to decrease the deliciousness of cake!

Media guest Christopher Mehm was born 10 days too late, but we allowed him to share our cake anyway.

April and I judged the masquerade together, which was a lot of fun. For a small con, ConStellation had a good number of people in costume. April and I were masquerade-judging newbies, but fortunately we were able to get help and advice from the folks running it.

Basically, I got to spend the weekend hanging out and having conversations with wonderful people, being taken care of by a very hard-working con staff, eating too much (especially the Saturday night pizza and ice cream trip!), signing lots of books, and basically having a good old time.

Somewhere there should be a few thoroughly entertaining pics from the GoH photoshoot after the masquerade. One is here, but it’s got a bit of cellphone-blur. Still fun, though! I’ll post links to others when and if I see ‘em.

My thanks to ConStellation for the invite, to the con staff for taking such good care of me, and to everyone who attended for making me feel welcome and just generally making it a great weekend. (Thanks also to my father for driving me to the airport at butt-crack-of-dawn o’clock on Friday!)

Mirrored from Jim C. Hines.