Readercon Revisited

We got to Readercon about 8 at night on Friday, rather dazed and hardly able to believe we were in Massachusetts. The drive up was unmemorable except for being stuck in rush hour traffic for 2 hours trying to get out of New York. Oh and also almost being rear-ended while stuck in traffic, cause the guy behind us decided that he would sit on our bumper, and speed up quickly every time we moved.

Anyways, we really were thrilled to be at the con—although there were moments of pure sheer terror. It didn’t help that we both felt out of our element and highly intimidated since everyone seemed to already know each other. Anytime I began a conversation with someone that I was a fan of, I felt as if I were an English major in the presence of James Joyce, utterly incapable of making normal conversation, and having the slight tendency to stare and blubber. Toss in the feeling that I can’t possibly say anything to them that would be interesting and the “I don’t know you, but I want you to like me” thing, and it makes for some uncomfortable situations. Luckily for the most part we managed to escape those moments by the sheer grace and kindness of the authors we met. As David mentioned, the encouragement and graciousness of the authors that we talked to really made our trip worth it.

Of course the panels and the interview with China Mieville was nothing short of amazing. I will make another post about the rest of Readercon, including my personal thoughts about the man who would not stop scratching his head or sitting in front of us when he did so! And I will definitley bring up the hilarious Bad Prose competition, a highly creative version of the game Dictionary. For those of you from high school, do you guys remember how much fun we would have playing that game at slumber parties? I still remember some of the definitions we made up strangely enough. I also feel a tiny bit sad, because I felt so much funnier and smarter back then =P.