Three Views of ArmadilloCon 32Three Views of ArmadilloCon 32

The bar scene at ArmadilloCon: Not quite as odd as the bar scene in "Star Wars," but still full of strange characters. Among them (left to right), SF Signal's John DeNardo, author Joe McKinney, Adventures in SciFi Publishing's Brent Bowen, and author/scholar Matt Cardin.

Joe McKinney

This year’s ArmadilloCon lived up to the legend of ArmadilloCons past. It’s one convention I never miss because it is so uniquely focused on books. I met with writers, fans, booksellers, old pros and new stars, but no matter where I went and what I was doing, the focus was on books. You just can’t get that kind of fun anywhere else.

My experience actually started on Thursday, a day before the convention itself got under way. I was set to be one of the instructors at the annual writer’s workshop the next day, and so, as a sort of welcoming party, the convention coordinators brought us all together at a great little Mexican restaurant near the hotel. As luck would have it, I ended up sitting between the convention’s Guest of Honor, Nancy Kress, and the writing workshop coordinator, the wonderfully talented Stina Leicht. Nancy is funny, insightful, and quite the authority on coffee, as it turns out. Our end of the table was having a great conversation…and then my dinner came. The waitress dropped this enormous platter of smoking fajita meat on the table in front of me, and of course it fumigated the room. Eyes were watering. People were coughing. Voices were raised to near shouting levels just to be heard over the noise my dinner was making. Afterwards, I went back to the hotel, got settled in, fired up the computer and a bottle of vodka, and got busy writing. All in all, a great opener.

The writer’s workshop the next morning was a real pleasure. It started with all the instructors assembling on the risers at the front of the room and going through a question and answer session guided by our coordinator, Stina Leicht. Afterwards, we broke up in groups. I was co-coaching Team Tolkien with very talented Melissa Tyler. It was my weekend, apparently, to meet up with genuinely cool people, of which Melissa Tyler is most certainly one. Here I’d like to give a special nod to the students in my group: Laura Beamer, Jennifer Daly, Raymon Daniel, Roger Kunshick, Salena Bargsley, and Teresa McWilliams. I was extremely impressed with my group’s work and their desire to get something out of the workshop. They were a real pleasure, and I think it won’t be too long before you start seeing some of their names in the major magazines.

Check after the jump for more from McKinney as well as Scott Cupp and Sanford Allen…

Afterwards, I met up with Sanford Allen (all around cool guy and a hell of a good writer), Matt Cardin (one of the smartest and coolest guys working in horror today), and Brent Bowen (one of the best interviewers around) and we made the rounds. We got something to eat at a local hamburger joint, then went back to the hotel to raise a little Cain with the other guests.

Saturday started with a hangover. Sanford and I went down for breakfast, then went back up to the room to write for about an hour. After that, my day got busy. I had two panels, one on researching and the other writing styles. The one on researching was my first ever turn as moderator, and despite the fact that I was about as nervous as I could be, I think the panel went really well. I owe this to the inspired contributions of Jess Nevins, Martha Wells, Cary Osborne, Robert Jackson Bennett, and Melissa Tyler.

Space Squid magazine's Matthew Bey lugs his books. (Photo by Lawrence Person)

Later that day, I sat in on a group signing in the dealer’s room and managed to sell out the books I brought. Actually, I was giving them away, so I guess I can’t really say I sold them out…but you get the idea.

Afterwards, I stuck around the Dealer’s Room and caught up with Mission Unknown’s very own Scott Cupp. I also saw old friends Lee Thomas, Nate Southard, Gabrielle Faust and Boyd E. Harris.

That afternoon I attended Stina Leicht’s reading from her new novel, due out in April from Nightshade books. I had heard that Stina is something of an expert on the Irish, and she certainly lived up to that reputation. Her reading dealt with the Bloody Sunday riots and was absolutely brilliant. She made a believer out of me, and as soon as her book comes out, I’m going to be in line for a copy. This lady is going places, folks.

Later, I got to watch Sanford Allen read his short story “Burma Jukebox.” He knocked it out of the park. If you’ve ever heard Sanford read, you know that smooth, country fried accent he can put on when he wants to….and brother, was he ever in good form. This is one of my favorite stories by him, a real Twilight Zone style twister of an ending at the end, and hearing it read aloud was an absolute treat.

After the reading, Sanford and I met up with Matt Cardin and Brent Bowen again and went to dinner. Matt had a panel on religion and worldbuilding right after dinner, so we all went to that. Matt was the moderator, and with some help from Matthew Bey of Space Squid Magazine, managed to put on a hell of a good panel.

The evening then turned into a party. Matthew Bey had a Space Squid party on the 8th floor, and we all ended up there. It got crowded and it got loud. Security showed up not once, but twice. The first time was a polite little warning to keep the volume down. The second time was a far sterner warning keep it inside the room. It reminded me of college, and, not surprisingly, was a wonderful time.

On Sunday, I had another panel, this one on worldbuilding. I was moderating, and again, things went great. I was especially pleased by the back and forth between Texas-based fantasy writer Steven Brust and audience member Matt Cardin. The audience really got into this panel, and I think it was one of the best I’ve ever participated in.

And finally, I finished off ArmadilloCon by reading my short story, “Survivors,” which I bill as a traditional zombie story…but it really ain’t. I was pleased to see the room was about two-thirds full, and I think I gave them a pretty good show.

Scott Cupp

It is always hard to pick out key moments from the convention because, I always have fun at each one I attend. ArmadilloCon 32 was no exception. Watching Kasey Lansdale perform on Saturday was certainly a highlight, especially when she invited Mark Finn, Master of Monkey Foo (or is it Poo?), up to sing a song he wrote for the Violet Crown Players’ performance of King Kong a few years ago. The piece was called “Don’t Shoot That Monkey Down” and it was a Dadaistic masterpiece (or something).

Stina Leicht and Elizabeth Moon enjoy the revelry. (Photo by Lawrence Person)

My panels were fun, especially the cross genres panel, which had Don Webb, Michael Bishop, and others on it. (Forgive me others. My brain is still fried from the convention.) And the Review/Criticism panel with Derek Johnson, Lawrence Person, Rick Claw, Martin Wagner, and Nancy Kress on it. And the vampire panel where I got to reiterate that there was nothing sexy about vampires. (They are undead Satan-spawn with no redeeming qualities and should be killed on sight!) I was also on the Welcome to ArmadilloCon panel with Karen Meschke and con chair Elizabeth Burton. I had a pleasant interview with Fan GOH Elspeth Bloodgood, which no one attended so we caught up on the last several years’ activities. And, unfortunately, I was unable to make my scheduled reading due to a conflict with selling books.

What is generally fun for me at the conventions is making new friendships or renewing old old ones. Among the old friendships renewed were with Michael Bishop, with whom I had spent a hectic day in Dallas some 20 years ago for an ill-fated book tour that fell apart that day. We had fun, but few books other than mine got signed that day. I also caught up again with Mark Nelson, an artist I had not seen in way too many years. I got one of his art books with a nice doodle inside. I talked some with john DeNardo of SF Signal along with Derek Johnson. I found out my short story “Thirteen Days of Glory” had been listed as one of six influential Texas science fiction stories by Don Webb in the previous Sunday’s Austin American Statesman. I spent some time with Mike Walsh of Old Earth Books, Mike Bishop, Mark Finn, Jess Nevins. I also saw Cary Osborne, an old friend and dancing partner from ArmadilloCons past. She is now in New Mexico and seems to be happy there.

As usual, I picked up great books, including the limited editions of SON OF RETRO PULP TALES (edited by Joe R. Lansdale and his son Keith) and THE REALITY DYSFUNCTION by Peter Hamilton. I got some reading copies of things like Lafferty’s PAST MASTER, Ed Bryant’s CINNABAR, Lawrence Bloch’s THE SCORELESS THAI, and other titles. I also picked up the ultra-limited lettered edition of Lansdale’s FOR A FEW STORIES MORE, which contains an extra novelette not printed anywhere else. I have one of the best Lansdale collections in the world including some items limited to fewer than 100 copies. Normally, I would pass this by (it was bloody expensive), but Joe and I have a collaboration in this one, so I needed it for my shelf of cool stuff.

I went to several parties including ConDFW and Texas in 2013. I managed to have dinner with several great friends, Becky and Jeff Haynie on Friday and Ed Scarbrough, Sam Hudson, Nina Siros, Willie Siros, Charles Siros, and Jonathan Miles. Of the seven of us there, three had birthdays within a one-week period around the convention (Nina on Thursday before, Ed on Sunday and Willie on Tuesday).

Sanford Allen

I attended my first ArmadilloCon three years ago, after decades of staying clear of the SF convention circuit. My memories of cons past were of people in badly fitting Star Trek costumes haggling over toys and packing into hotel rooms to watch sixth-generation copies of anime shows.

If that’s also your memory of SF cons, listen up: ArmadilloCon is not that. Not by a long shot. It’s a con for writers, aspiring writers and people who love SF, fantasy and horror literature and art. Sure, there are a handful of people walking around in steampunk duds and few toys on sale in the dealer’s room, but mostly it’s about the books.

I spent a good deal of ArmadilloCon 32 hanging with author and Missions contributor Joe McKinney, podcaster and whisky expert Brent Bowen and the brilliant horror scholar and writer Matt Cardin (who also records eerily beautiful music, it turns out). The three of us put down unhealthy amounts of booze and spent quite a bit of time talking about our favorite obscure horror films. I also enjoyed hooking up with old friends Nicole Duson, an up-and-coming Austin writer, and John DeNardo of the brilliant SF Signal website.

This was the first year I participated in panel discussions, and they turned out to be a blast. During a panel on the New Weird, Neal Barrett Jr. and I agreed that there probably isn’t a New Weird, per se, since many writers — including Neal — have been weird for a long, long time. I also enjoyed my panel on the challenge of writing short stories, where I ended up between luminary authors Michael Bishop and Howard Waldrop (how the hell did I end up so lucky?). Finally, I ended up on a panel about H.P. Lovecraft’s enduring legacy with Matt Cardin and Don Webb, who displayed amazing knowledge of the author’s work. The always witty Joe R. Lansdale made a great case (and one I agreed with) that horror authors can learn far more from writers like Ray Bradbury, Robert Bloch and Flannery O’Connor.

Between all the panelizing, socializing and drinking, I managed to fit in a few readings. Stina Leicht read from her upcoming novel, which mixes Celtic mythology and the complicated politics of Northern Ireland. Can’t wait for that one to hit the stands. Joe McKinney’s Sunday afternoon reading of his story “Survivors” proved a great capper to the con.