MidSouthCon/DeepSouthCon 2004

keltora · Post by **keltora** » Tue Mar 30, 2004 5:13 pm

It was a Good News/Bad News sort of weekend. The con itself was wonderful...

Started out Friday, stopped at the CU, grabbed cash and made good time...

Until I got to the far side of Nashville where three lanes became one and with no more than 1000 feet of warning. So naturally, the world slowed to a near crawl for about nine miles of road...

But I got through it, and still reached Memphis around 2:30 their time, which for me is doing good considering that I left Knoxville at nearly 9:00 am my time.

Black Beauty was performing well, of course. And for the most part staying clean--until we hit those swampy areas between Jackson and Memphis... The bugs were apparently in mating mode. Oddly enough, a lot of the victims of the windshield collision were those yellow butterflies with the black trim on their winds... They make Really Big Smears when they hit. I spent a great deal of the last 50 miles turning on the wipers to clear a spot to see...

Ah, but we made it to the convention. I found parking, and went on inside. Since I was there so soon, I was not sure if there would be a hotel room waiting for me yet (since I was sharing with Selina Rosen and her partner Lynn). So I went to the registration table, got my badge, then got asked to fill out a form as they had no mailing address information on me in their computer.

There was a really long line at the Not Yet Registered section. Good thing I was a guest and considered pre-registered.

Got my badge and my bag, and Selina and Lynn showed up. Lynn informed me I was definitely on the room and I could just go and get my key. So I did, dragging my stuff into the hotel.

The good news is I packed light enough to need only one trip.

Headed for the dealer's room once I was settled and ran into the Meisha Merlin Crew and others, including Lee Martindale and David B. Coe and Robert D. Brown and Gary Jonas and Bill Allen. Was informed by Stephe Pagel that he and I needed to talk, so a meeting was set up for 4:30...

There was where I got the bad news. I will not relate all the details, as I don't think MM wants them related, but suffice to say, they are cutting back their publishing program for the year. They were going to put out 12-15 book and they are cutting that back to about 8, and delay others for later years than originally anticipated...

The good news is I am one of the eight who will come out this year, and I am still in the pipeline, but until certain matters are settled, DRAGON'S TONGUE will not be released in May as originally planned. We're looking at later in the summer.

As soon as I know, I will let you know.

Meanwhile, I had a panel at 6:00, so I rushed over to the ConSuite and got myself some vittles, and then made my way to the dealer's room to wait until then. Chatted with Alan and Lynn.

First Panel was FOUR BUBBAS OF THE APOCALYPSE. Yep, it was a Yard Dog Press panel wherein we discussed what terrible disease...I mean marvelous inspiration made us want to write these bubba stories. Suffice to say it was well attended and well liked. Selina is always a hoot.

I was supposed to be at opening ceremonies, but instead, I went to dinner with my publisher and got the opportunity to make the acquaintance of his two newest assistants. Lynn the Younger (as we decided to call her, not to mistake her with Lynn the Elder of YDP) and Joy.

Then on to a quick smooze at the Meet the Authors, and then back to the large conference room for a panel on MEISHA MERLIN. Alan was moderator, and Stephe chose to sit in the audience and watch (and heckle). Mainly, it was a "what the future holds" for MM projects, including the new imprint they have taken on and the anticipated project of possible MM titles as audio CDs (not set, but in the works...)

And then... The Yard Dog Press/Meisha Merlin party began. Jane Fancher then talked me into "the play" and I agreed (it was late) so we had a little session of me, Jane and Lynn Abby (yes, there were Three Lynns at this point), and I managed to stay alert until around midnight when my inner pumpkin decided to emerge and I returned to the room to go to bed...

Woke up Saturday early because I had a 9:00 panel on PARANORMAL ROMANCE. Myself, Charlene Harris, David B. Coe, Jana and one other person (I am terrible with names and do not have the list) discussed romance in fantasy and SF and how we worked it into our own books. It was well attended for an early morning panel.

I snagged some stuff to munch on and went back to the dealer's room briefly. Then I met Lee Martindale for a business lunch. We were eventually joined by Charlene Harris and Lee Killough and had fun chatting. I had to leave because I wanted to make another trip to the dealer’s room to see if I could promote myself. Sat behind the table with Lynn and Alan for a time.

We had autographing to do and one woman actually brought every copy of Sword and Sorceress that I was in to get autographed. That did a lot to boost my ego. Signed some copies of the Bubbas Anthos and a couple of copies of my novels.

Barely enough time to get followed, but David and I were determined to have dinner and chat about life as it is and how we wished it would be. *g* He informed me that Clara of Galacticon had tried to get in touch with me, but her email never arrived. I will have to email her and assure her that I am not angry with her, and that I just never got her invitation... Which is true. In fact, I learned that Robert had emailed me and I didn't get that, and a couple of other folks were wondering why they had not gotten a response from me, so if you sent anything to my sff.net address, it may have been lost in the ether, and if you have not heard from me, come out here and tell me, or send me another email to keltora@yahoo.com...

I had a reading at 7:00, which looked like it was going to be a bust, but at the last minute a small audience gathered and I began...

I read bits of CHRONICLES OF THE LAST WAR and as I was reading, the audience grew. That was a nice feeling. Had a full room before it was over. Selina followed me, and I stayed for her reading. Lee followed her, but I had to duck out because I needed to get with the rest of the women who were in MICHAEL AND THE SEVEN BITCHES (the play). I had been handed a sort of script, but it was all to be adlib...

We were the opening entertainment for the masquerade, and it had the usual foibles such small plays tossed together have, but it was still fun, and the audience seemed to appreciate my performance as well as that of Selina and CJ Cherryh and Michael Sheard.

Then I stayed to watch a bit of the Masquerade before running off to find more food and then going to the LIAR's PANEL to watch Selina and others.

We learned in the middle of the LIAR'S PANEL that Robert's story "Savin' Ned" had won the Darrell for Best Short Story and there was much rejoicing. Poor Robert missed learning this because he had gone to bed (back pain). We called his room and left a message, which his wife got. She woke him up to tell him...

Brain started to melt at this point, and it was time to call it quits for yet another evening...

Sunday morning, I had a 10:00 panel on EDUCATION IN A SF UNIVERSE which I though was going to be a "future of education" but turned out to be a discussion of the schools as portrayed in Ender's universe, the Buffy universe, Hogwarts, etc... Had an hour to get my stuff out of the hotel room (checkout was noon) and then find munchies (growing scarce in the ConSuite) before heading for my next panel, which was SOUTHERN SPECULATIVE FICTION. A lot more Bubba discussion followed, wherein we compared literature in the north and the south, and even mentioned finding a voice in writing.

From there, I had to race to the next panel THE WOMEN OF TOLKEIN. We got a really good discussion going on how Toklein portrayed women, how they were interpreted by Jackson in his epic movie, and even Tolkein's relations with women. We cut that off an hour early, though as some of us wanted to hit the road.

Good-byes were said, and then I hopped in this yellow truck that used to be black (yes, it was that nasty pine pollen) and hit the road for Knoxville. Again, the only delay was the 30-minute crawl across a two-mile stretch of the I-40 just as I entered Nashville...

But I made it home safe and sound...

A good weekend overall, even with the tiny bits of bad news...

Laura J. Underwood

Lost Traveler · Post by **Lost Traveler** » Tue Mar 30, 2004 6:29 pm

yet again cool, sorry about the book delay, Bubba Anthologies (by any stretch have any thing to do with bubba hoteph?) do they every have anything like this in Knoxville?

keltora · Post by **keltora** » Wed Mar 31, 2004 9:35 am

ConCat, though I am not sure when the next one is going to be...

Nashville and Chattanooga both have regular conventions.

BUBBAS is a shared universe created by Selina Rosen. The premise is that in the year 2025, a virus called Yuppie 25 managed to escape the lab where it was created. It is believed to have been tracked out on the shoe of a scientist. Being as it was an airborne virus, it spread quickly, and because airfare was especially cheap that year, it soon spread throughout the world.

People died insane...

Not all people, though. First off, there were some people in which the virus mutated. They became "upwardly mobile" dressing in business suits and going to the office...they also liked to eat human flesh. They became known as Yumbies. In some places they were the shambling, rotting dead, while in others, they could pass for human--almost. This variation is thought to correlate with the amount of Brie consumed in their life...

The only people to develope an immunity to the virus were those who ate large quantities of certain types of barbeque sause slathered on meat and grilled--that's right. The Bubbas of the world were the only ones not infected, and so they live the life of luxury, eating Twinkies, Spam, brewing beer and just having a good time like they always did...

The stories in BUBBAS OF THE APOCALYPSE and FOUR BUBBAS OF THE APOCALYSPE are set in this world and not in BUBBA HOTEP...though I suspect all bubbas can appreciate BH.

My stories in these anthos include "Candylight and the Three Bubbas" (in BOTA) and "Why a Good Man Nowadays is Hard to Find" in FBOTA).

Watch the Yard Dog Press website. The next one is going to be INTERNATIONAL HOUSE OF BUBBAS and will tell what happened to those bubbas who happened to be in foreign places when the virus struck...

I'm debating writing one set in Scotland...but may go for some place more exotic...

Laura J. Underwood