Lunacon 2008 Trip Report

I got back from Lunacon on Sunday, and I want to tell you all about it, but first things first...

The Contests Are Coming!!!

In the year and a half that I've been keeping this blog, I've yet to host a contest. But that's all about to change. Over the next few weeks, you will have not one, but two (and maybe even three) opportunities to win free books! And, honestly, what could be better than free books!?!

Contest #1 -- The Narnia Contest -- will start this Monday March 24th. What's in it for you? Two copies of the new BenBella anthology, Through the Wardrobe: Your Favorite Authors on C. S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia, in which I have an essay. What's in it for me? I'm gonna make you be funny to earn your prize.

Contest #2 -- The Out of the Wild ARC Contest -- will start on Thursday April 3rd. What's in it for you? An ARC (Advance Reader Copy) of Out of the Wild, the sequel to Into the Wild. What's in it for me? I'm gonna make you be creative to earn your prize.

Rules, deadlines, and all details will be revealed on those start dates. Stay tuned...

And now back to my Lunacon recap.

Lunacon Trip Report

You can count on two things if you attend Lunacon (a fantasy and science fiction convention in Rye, NY):

(1) You will meet lots of super-friendly people.
(2) You will get lost in the hotel at least twice.

The Rye Hilton (aka the Escher Hilton) is famous for what is fondly known as the "transdimensional corridor." You start out on the fourth floor, walk down a seemingly level hallway, and discover that you're suddenly on the seventh floor without ever climbing any stairs. And if you lose focus, time shifts as well as space, and you can find yourself momentarily transported to Victorian times, where people will mock your lack of a corset but admire your fine dental hygiene.

I had a marvelous time. I spoke on five panels, plus did a reading and a signing. I also got lost three times instead of the standard two, but then I've always been an overachiever.

A few moments from Lunacon really stick in my mind. One is Josepha Sherman singing Memory in the original feline ("Meow, meow! Meow-meow-meow meow meow..."). Another is my panel "The Novel That Changed My Life." For this panel, we talked about the one novel that played that pivotal role in shaping who we are today. My choice was Alanna by Tamora Pierce.

I first read Alanna when I was ten years old. My friend Gillian had taken it out of the Northboro Public Library, read it, and then handed it to me saying, "You'll love this book. This is your kind of book." Since the book was out on her library card, I was absolutely petrified the entire time I had the book that I would return it late to the library and my friend would be blackballed from ever taking out another library book again and she'd never forgive me and no one would want to be my friend because word would spread and... I was a somewhat anxious child.

Anyway, I read it, loved it, and returned it on time and disaster was averted. But that's not why this book is important to me (though I am glad that I did not cause my friend to be declared a library pariah). This book is important to me because this was the book that made me say, "I want to do this. I want to write books like this. This is what I want to do with my life. This is why I'm here."

And it's also the book that first told me that I could become a writer, if only I tried hard enough. Alanna is about a girl who, by sheer force of will, triumphs over near-impossible odds and achieves her dream. I like that message. A lot. And I believe in it with all my heart. The key component to achieving any impossible dream is not talent or brains or even luck, though they all help. It's sheer pig-headed stubbornness.

So that was my answer. How about you? Is there a book that played a pivotal role in shaping who you are today? What novel changed your life?

Lunacon 2008 Schedule

Upcoming Event

This weekend, I will be a program participant at Lunacon, a science fiction and fantasy convention in Rye, NY. (Click here for my trip report from last year's Lunacon and then scroll to the bottom to read the report in chronological order.) Here's my schedule for this year:

FRIDAY (3/14)

8pm Panel - Sarah Beth Durst, Louis Epstein, Virginia McMorrow - "Harry Potter Goes to Hollywood"

SATURDAY (3/15)

12pm Panel - Sam Butler, Sarah Beth Durst, Josepha Sherman, Delia Sherman - "Danger in Children's Fantasy"

1pm Panel - Sarah Beth Durst, Hildy Silverman, Lew Wolkoff - "The Next Generation"

6pm Panel - Ellen Asher, Sarah Beth Durst, Jennifer Heddle, Jeff Lyman - "Faeries in the Alleyways"

9pm Panel - Mark L. Blackman, Sarah Beth Durst, Sharon Foster, Alexis Gilliland, Andre Lieven, Jonathan Maberry - "The Novel That Changed My Life"

SUNDAY (3/16)

12pm Autographing - Sarah Beth Durst

1:30pm Reading - Sarah Beth Durst

Hope to see you there!

Public Service Announcement

Worried about the Wild invading your hometown? Here are two examples of early warning signs:

Photo courtesy of Christina Gonzalez. Thanks, Christina!

Photo courtesy of the LOLcat site I Can Has Cheezeburger.

If you suspect the Wild is invading your town, please email me your photos and/or drawings.

Lunacon Trip Report (part 3 of 3)

Sunday at Lunacon was a very full day. Here's the play-by-play:

8am - Wake up. Jump into shower before the official wake-up call from the hotel. Listen to the phone ring endlessly until I hop out of the shower and pick up the dratted thing. Wonder if it would have rung all day if I hadn't answered.

8:30am - Prance around the hotel room practicing reading scenes from INTO THE WILD. Time myself on each scene. Discover that all my chapters take exactly 10 minutes to read out loud. Think that this is weird.

9:30am - Eat breakfast in the Green Room with Lucienne Diver and Roger MacBride Allen. Discuss the publishing business. Marvel at how coherent they are so early on a Sunday morning.

10am - Serve on the "Children's Fantasy" panel with Tamora Pierce and Catherynne Valente. Fail to remember the names of any formative books in my childhood with the exception of Tamora Pierce's. Though to be honest, her ALANNA books were extremely formative. Manage to make the audience laugh a couple times. (I prefer to think of it as laughing with me, not at me.)

11am - Serve on the "Danger in Children's Fantasy" panel with Tamora Pierce, Patricia Bray, and Amy Goldschlager. Talk more. Afterwards, meet the writer guest of honor, Christopher Moore (who is very nice).

Dangerous Writers
(Patricia Bray, Amy Goldschlager, Me, and Tamora Pierce)

12pm - Race to the bathroom.

12:02pm - Race to the water fountain.

12:04pm - Race to attend Tamora Pierce's reading. Listen to a chapter of MELTING STONES. Try not to be nervous for my reading.

12:30pm - MY READING!!! Read three scenes from INTO THE WILD. Enjoy myself immensely.

1pm - Eat lunch with Tamora Pierce, Tim Liebe, Emily, and Penelope.

2:30pm - Catch a taxi to a train to another train to a ferry.

6pm - Wait for the ferry staff to figure out how to dock a boat.

6:15pm - Disembark! Home!

Lunacon Trip Report (part 2 of 3)

Saturday at Lunacon began with a quest for coffee. Not my quest. Josepha Sherman's quest. (I don't really like coffee unless it has so much milk and sugar that it's really just warm ice cream.) Elaborate plans were laid involving Lawrence Schoen's stuffed buffalo, but in the end, Jean Elizabeth Krevor saved the day with a call to the hotel staff. So Josepha, her coffee, and I were able to proceed to our 10am panel "Writing Fairy Tales," where we were joined by Catherynne M. Valente and Pauline J. Alama. For 10am, it was quite the lively panel. The subject of Disney came up, and I think it's fair to say that my fellow panelists have little fondness for old Walt... But no matter what anyone else says, I still love the Mouse! (Special thanks to Ernest Lilly of SFRevu for pointing out that Disney heroines have come a long way since Snow White.) Seriously, though, it was lots of fun. And afterwards, I chatted with artist Roy Mauritsen, who has painted some kick-butt fairy-tale themed paintings.

I then had lunch with Anne Sowards and Jessica Wade, two editors from Penguin, and fellow Penguin-author Mark del Franco. All very cool people. Go, Bird!

At 2pm, I attended the Broad Universe group reading. I joined Broad Universe just a few days ago -- it's an organization devoted to supporting women science fiction and fantasy writers. Afterwards, I met Sue Lange (the reading organizer) and talked with Ellen Kushner and Delia Sherman. Delia (author of the super-awesome CHANGELING) was supposed to be in Florida, but her flight was cancelled due to snow. For the first time, I was happy for Friday's weather.

Next cool thing that happened was that I talked with Jim Freund, producer of "Hour of the Wolf," a radio show on WBAI (a NYC PBS station). I will be the guest author on his June 16th show! Eeeee! I've never been on the radio before. Very exciting. Hope I don't accidentally cluck like a chicken.

I then went on to attend half of the "Women in Comics" panel, after which I had a lovely time talking with Tamora Pierce, Tim Liebe, and my two new convention friends Emily and Penelope. Then it was time to eat again (yay!). Tamora Pierce, Tim Liebe, Delia Sherman, Ellen Kushner, and I had dinner together... [Brief pause while I bask in the coolness of my dinner companions...] Ellen and I split some steak thing with really yummy fried bananas.

After dinner, I returned to my hotel room to pick out which chapters to do for my reading on Sunday. And then, because I had come all the way here and didn't want to waste a minute of the convention, I went out again at around 11pm to track down a party. Found one, thanks to Rowena, the woman who designed the impressive Lunacon program scheduling software, and got to chat with her and also to thank Leigh Grossman (who was responsible for programming) for my magnificent schedule.

Coming next, Sunday at Lunacon, in which Sarah talks a lot.

Lunacon Trip Report (part 1 of 3)

It became spring the Monday before Lunacon. Birds chirped. Sun shone. I even saw a yellow crocus in bloom.

So naturally, on Friday, the first day of Lunacon, it snowed, it sleeted, and it hailed. Goodbye to plans to drive to Lunacon. Hello to public transportation. One car, one boat, two trains, and one taxi later, I arrived at the Rye Hilton. Yay me!

I then promptly got lost.

The Rye Hilton is also known as the Escher Hilton. To reach anywhere in the Hilton, you must go down three ramps, up four sets of stairs, down five corridors, and across three states. I checked into my room, then merrily trotted off to register -- and ran into a dead end. Retracing my steps, I encountered many kind souls who explained the key to the Escher Hilton: the fourth floor is the same as the seventh floor. To reach registration, I had to go through what is fondly known as "the transdimensional corridor," a down ramp that leads from the fourth floor to the seventh floor. I kid you not. Here's the floor plan for the hotel:

Escher Hilton

I was one of the lucky ones. Some Lunacon attendees have been lost in those corridors since the last time the con was held there three years ago. As you pass through the transdimensional corridor, you can hear them, forlornly filking for all eternity...

I had a light at the end of my tunnel, though: the Lunacon Program Participant ribbon. I could not afford to stay lost with such a prize waiting for me at the end of my journey. Remember how I kind of obsessed a wee little tiny teeny bit about my program participant ribbon for Boskone? Well, Penelope (one of the aforementioned kindly souls) had apparently read that blog entry, and she was in charge of putting together many of the participant packets for Lunacon. So when she saw me wandering in the halls, she told me that she had double-checked my packet to be extra-sure that it had my ribbon. How cool is that? Very cool.

After going down the ramps, up the stairs, over the river, and through the woods, I obtained my glorious golden ribbon and embarked on the following activities:

First, I checked out the Dealer's Room. The Dealer's Room at a convention is where various vendors sell books, jewelry, fancy swords, cute statuettes of dragons wearing bifocals and holding umbrellas (I own the one with an umbrella and a rubber ducky), more books, juggling sticks, T-shirts with clever and/or obscure statements (such as, "My name is Bambi. You killed my mother. Prepare to die."), more books... You get the idea. I didn't buy anything, but I did get to chat with the lovely Lucienne Diver, who was selling jewelry, and I loaned a copy of my galley to a nice librarian named Carol who promised to return it before my 7 o'clock panel. It felt like loaning someone my baby, but she returned it in time and said nice things so all was well.

Second, I had my first panel of the convention! It was called "So It's Your First Con," and my fellow panelists were Keith DeCandido, Elizabeth Glover, Victoria McManus, and Lois Fitzpatrick. All of us have been to lots of conventions and had lots to say, so it was a really fun panel. Our basic advice boiled down to: drink lots of water, don't forget to eat and sleep, and please shower. Really, I think this is good advice for life.

Lastly, I attended the "Meet the Pros" reception and the Art Show Reception. The conference organizers gave a free drink coupon to all the pros, so we showed up in force. The Art Show Reception involved free food for all the pros, so we showed up in force there too.

Throughout the evening, I talked with many very nice and very cool people, including but not limited to everyone I mentioned above plus John Joseph Adams, Roger MacBride Allen, Barbara Campbell, Douglas Cohen, Esther Friesner, Leigh Grossman, Glenn Hauman, David Honigsberg, Jean Elizabeth Krevor, Terri Osborne, Josepha Sherman, Andrew Wheeler, and several others whose last names I don't know, such as Emily, Mark, Scott, and Seth. (Once again, I feel the need to point out that I didn't actually talk to them in alphabetical order.)

Coming next, Saturday at Lunacon, in which Sarah talks to many more people and remembers to eat, sleep, and shower.

Lunacon Schedule

This weekend, I'm off to another fantasy/science fiction convention!!!

For some reason, as I'm writing this blog entry, this song keeps running through my head.

Yes, there are frequently Muppets singing in my head. It's fun in here.

Inside Sarah's Brain

Anyway, the convention is called Lunacon. It's in Rye, NY. And I will be a program participant. Yay! You can check out my schedule here on Lunacon's snazzy website. Or you could, you know, just read this:

Fri. March 16, 7pm - Panel - Keith DeCandido, Sarah Beth Durst, Elizabeth Glover, Victoria McManus - "So It's Your First Con"

Sat. March 17, 10am - Panel - Sarah Beth Durst, Josepha Sherman, Catherynne M. Valente - "Writing Fairy Tales"

Sun. March 18, 10am - Panel - Sarah Beth Durst, Tamora Pierce, Catherynne M. Valente - "Children's Fantasy"

Sun. March 18, 11am - Panel - Patricia Bray, Sarah Beth Durst, Amy Goldschlager, Tamora Pierce - "Danger in Children's Fantasy"

Sun. March 18, 12:30pm - Reading - Sarah Beth Durst

Cool, huh?

My first panel is with Keith DeCandido, an excellent writer and a great guy. I met Keith at the very first convention that I ever attended (so long ago that it fades into the dim recesses of memory), so I think it's particularly cool that I'll be on a panel with him at Lunacon and particularly appropriate that the panel is called "So It's Your First Con."

In the Dim Recesses of Sarah's Mind
(Yes, when you search Google Images for "dim recesses," it gives you a vampire squid.)

I have two (count 'em: two!!!) panels with Tamora Pierce. 'Nuf said.

Queen Tammy

And then I finish with a reading from INTO THE WILD! I can't wait!

Hope to see you there.