We are back from a most excellent Farpoint. The 20th anniversary edition of the convention went spectacularly well. The Boogie Knights concerts (the mini-concert Friday night as part of opening ceremonies, and our usual Saturday-at-11am show) were awesome, and we sold almost 40 copies of our new CD, Wasted Days and Wasted Knights. (I will have copies for sale at MystiCon this coming weekend as well....) One of my three panels and my reading were well attended and entertaining, and lots of people came by for my autograph -- the other two panels were somewhat disappointing, though, as only a few people showed up for them. In fact, the "Writing Media Tie-ins" panel, which featured two New York Times best-selling authors (David Mack and Michael Jan Friedman), as well as two award-winning authors (Aaron Rosenberg and I), only had an audience of two, one of whom didn't really count (Richard C. White, a buddy of ours and fellow tie-in writer), the other of whom didn't show up until halfway through.

I also got to give Felicia Day a copy of SCPD: The Case of the Claw (y'know, she'd make a good Detective Milewski....) and see Lee Arenberg again. I also want to give props to Phil Giunta, who did a superb job running the writers track, and I especially liked Farpoint doing their version of Shore Leave's Meet the Pros party Friday night, giving the authors all table space to meet, greet, and scribble on books.

Saturday night was a highlight, as I got to, at various times, hang out with John Billingsley, Kathleen O. David, Bonita Fredericy, Marty Gear, Bob Greenberger, Rebecca Marcus, Kelly Meding, Nick Minecci, Keith Shikowitz, plus Lee, Andrea, Andrea's boyfriend, Angie, and lots of other people I'm forgetting because I'm a dumbass.

Farpoint is like home, both as a Boogie Knight and an author, and there's a great feeling of family there -- plus lots of new people. It was tremendous fun, with the added bonus of Dani & Mike McPhail being there with the Dark Quest table, so I had a home base in the dealer room as well. (Dani & Mike were excellent roommates, too....)

But the absolute high point was Friday night when Peter David -- who had cancelled his appearance at the con due to his suffering a stroke at the end of last year -- showed up, cane in hand, to a standing ovation in the midst of opening ceremonies. Peter took it easy, sitting at the Crazy 8 table and attending a few things, and going back to his room to lie down a lot, but it was just good to see him. He even did the C8 panel.....

Just a fine fine weekend. Oh, and every single convention ever should have Billingsley and Fredericy (who are married to each other) as guests. I've seen them individually at various cons over the years (notably Bonita at Farpoint a few years ago and John at Trek Expo a few more years ago), and they were each fantastic, but being on stage together just metastasizes the awesome. They are hilariously funny, witty, wonderful, and nifty. And they were just sittin' there in the bar Saturday night hanging out with folks.

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: "Hero's Day Off" by Boogie Knights