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[NY Day 9ish] World Fantasy Convention part final
This is brought to you by a grant from the Western Australian Government Department of Culture and the Arts. This isn’t quite a convention wrap-up, but I am writing this as the train speeds south to New York City along the Hudson River, with Saratoga Springs behind me. But I’ll do a proper wrap up later. I’ll start by saying how chuffed I am that pal and Aussie Angela Slatter won a World Fantasy Award for her collection Bitterwood Bible. It was a strong field of 5 fabulous works this year, and it’s great that she came away with a trophy. I’d say that the dealer room is the elephant…
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[NY Day 7ish] World Fantasy Convention part 2
WFC Day 3 Brought to you by a travel grant from the Western Australian Department of Culture and the Arts. There’s no hiding from it: the dealer room this year is quiet. Too quiet. The talk around the room is that it’s among the quietest ever. It’s not that people aren’t buying, more that people just aren’t coming into the room to browse. I’m told that this con has full attendance, so around 1,000, but I’v seen busier rooms at cons of 200. The crazy part of the low sales is that, comparatively, we’re doing okay. We’ve sold out of a couple of titles that started with 6 or so…
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[NY Day 4] World Fantasy Convention part 1
Day 1 of the World Fantasy Convention, brought to you by a grant from the Western Australian Department of Culture and the Arts. Itwould be fair to say that I was alittle slow this morning. Late night + alcohol + early morning = not the best start. It toof a full breakfast, with extra bacon and a very deep bottomless coffee to bring me to some semblance of life. Day 1 of the convention was a little slow in trading, but was marked by higher value sales. We sold almost all of the limited edition hardcovers I packed, making me wish I’d paced a few more. Sales of the standard…
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[NY Day 3] Heading upstate
Today’s the heading out of NYC to Saratoga Springs Day. Go north young man and all that. I didn’t necessarily feel so young dragging all my suitcases across the road to Penn Station, and through the crowds to where I had to board. When it comes to finding and boarding cross country trains, I think the UK does it better: their stations are better sign posted, and platforms are more easily found. I managed to walk past the right queue while I was looking for where I had to go, because a random queue next to an escalator going down doesn’t immediately say “this is where I board the train”…
