I came back from the convention to be swept immediately into busy days and a visit from family. So here is a rather belated and short Worldcon report.  I’m usually by myself at Worldcon, but my long-time friend Gisele from Florida (I met her over half my life ago!) and my partner Toni joined me this time.

Special moments:
I got to meet Alliette deBodard. I love her writing in the Aztec world. She is gracious and quiet in person. I also got to meet N.K. Jemisin and see Patty Briggs. Even established writers get their fan girl time at Worldcon.

Speaking of fan girl time, I am now lusting after Kim Stanley Robinson’s next book. I heard him read from it, and it’s going to be gorgeous. I don’t know if it has a pub date or even a name, but he is one of my favorite writers, and his next book is a return to science fiction.

I had a lovely dinner with Greg and Astrid Bear, the three of us (me, Toni, and Gisele), and Louise Marley.  We got to celebrate Greg’s birthday.  The Bear’s are some of the most gracious and brilliant people is the SF community, and I always feel blessed when I get to spend time with them.  I also saw many people from the Starry Heaven/Wellspring writing workshop community.

The Hugos were particularly well-done this year. A shout out to Jay Lake and Ken Scholes for that.  I know them both, and this was surely not easy for either of them.  Jay is busy winning his cancer fight and Ken is more shy than he appears.  They did great.

Special thanks:

The joint book launch for Mayan December and The Brahm’s Deception went incredibly well, and I needn’t have worried about it at all (I did, lots, but I’d never thrown a party at any con, much less a Worldcon). Food and drink were acquired easily and more passed to us from a Nightshade authors party, which we then passed to a George R.R. Martin fan party. People did come, and they even bought books. Mayan December is apparently hard to find in the wild, so I’m glad I had some there, thanks to my hugo-winning publisher, Sean Wallace (the Hugo was for the excellent work he does over at Clarkesworld). I do have to shout out huge thanks to my partner Toni and my friend Gisele who greeted and shlepped and decorated and organized and kept me functioning even though I was tired by then. Also a big thanks to Kay Kenyon for bartending.

The con was really well run.  The communication was great, the volunteers all fabulous, and the programing excellent.

The only bad thing:

The con was very mixed up with casino people (expected, based on location).  But twice I saw other casino guests of the young white male variety poking fun at con-goers.  They didn’t seem to appreciate the beanies of first-fandom very much, nor really much of the costuming in general.  There were a two times I really wanted a handy nearby Klingon.