The HNS conference, as I mentioned, was awesome. Getting there, however, was a pain in the ass. I was supposed to take the red eye from SFO to Chicago, and thence to Albany. The plan was to make it in by lunchtime, so I could have plenty of time to hang out with my friend Heather, and enjoy the start of the event at a nice, leisurely pace.

It was not to be. Thanks to thunderstorms in Illinois and American Airline's incompetence (on a truly magnificent scale), I ended up sleeping on the floor at SFO and catching a 6:15 a.m. flight (my original flight was scheduled for 11:30...then 12:30...then 2:00...then 2:30...). Once I finally reached Chicago, I had to sprint between gates, just barely making my connection - they were about to give my seat to a standby passenger. Good deal, right? I made it, phew! Except...with all the machinations to get me to Albany, one thing was missing: my luggage. Yep, I got to the hotel at 5:30, without my luggage.

Thank heavens Heather had extra clothes that I could borrow (especially since I couldn't pick up my bag until lunchtime the next day). It's good to have girlfriends who pack extra, "just in case". The point of all of this? They just posted the Historical Novel Society conference photos and we were captured in a few of the shots. She looks great (as always), and I'm not looking too bad, considering.

word-hoard
nasute "having a keen sense of smell; having a large nose; sharp, astute"

Whooo, busy! Heading home today after 3 days in New Orleans at the IABC* Conference. My team and I won a Gold Quill award, so I was here to pick that up at the gala on Monday, as well as attend some sessions at the conference. Good stuff overall.

Luckily, this also means that I have 3 hours of uninterrupted plane time from DFW to San Jose to work on the final edits for a short-short that's going to be published in an online journal (yay!) and work on another short story that's been poking at me. And then, I need to figure out what the heck I'm doing for NaNo this year. Yes, I know it's only almost July, but that means I've only got 4 months to figure out what I want to do, and then plan for it. :)



*International Association of Business Communicators - professionals in PR, marketing communications, and employee communications

word-hoard
duffifie: "to lay a bottle on its side for some time, after its contents have been poured out, that it may be completely drained of the few drops remaining. Elsewhere, one is said to 'make the bottle confess.' Aberdeen. (~John Jamieson's Etymological Scottish Dictionary, 1808)"

word-hoard
ait: a small island in a river or lake

Paradox Magazine, Speculative Literature Foundation

If you're at all interested in historical fiction or speculative fiction, check out Paradox Magazine. "In each issue of Paradox, you will find an abundance of short historical fiction, as well as fantasy, science fiction, and horror with historical themes—e.g., alternate history, myth, time travel, Arthuriana."

I picked up a copy when we were at HNS and while not all of the fiction is awesome, a couple pieces really stood out - check out the samples in Issue 10 of "Marathon" by Bruce Durham and "Somewhere, Sometime on the Nile" by Stephanie Dray.

Also, if you're at all interested in speculative fiction, check out the Speculative Literature Foundation. According to their site, "Speculative literature is a catch-all term meant to inclusively span the breadth of fantastic literature, encompassing literature ranging from hard science fiction to epic fantasy to ghost stories to horror to folk and fairy tales to slipstream to magical realism to modern myth-making -- and more. Any piece of literature containing a fabulist or speculative element would fall under our aegis, and would potentially be work that we would be interested in supporting."

Historical Novel Society Conference

Returned from my trip to the Historical Novel Society conference last night (after a side-trip to visit at friend on the North Shore in MA).

The conference was excellent. There was a good mix of programming, networking time, and agent/editor meetings. The bookshop was great, and the author signing session was wonderful. My only quibble would be that they didn't have enough programming - I'd like to see another 2 or 3 sessions added (perhaps with less time between sessions).

Overall it was a great experience. One experience I'm tired of repeating came early: at breakfast on Saturday, one woman asked what I wrote, and I said, "I write magical realism with threads of history interwoven" (or something like that, significantly less cogent given my lack of sleep and caffeine) and when I said "magical realism" I could see in her eyes that she was already gone. I mean, this is a historical fiction conference, and STILL there is the genre (or interstitial?) hate. Oy.

Went to a session on "Fictionalizing the Already Famous" and "Finding the Story in History" which was very interesting, and also went to a panel by Bernard Cornwell on writing historical fiction. Lots of good stuff in both, and of course Bernard was very entertaining. And also, very out of the loop in terms of the industry. Someone asked how it is he's written 46 books in 32 years, and he basically said he writes from 5:30 to 5:30 every day with a break for lunch. Um. Bernie? Some of us actually have to work for a living. I'd love to see a panel on how published authors do it while still holding down a full time job.

I was very impressed by the agent/editor meetings. The set-up was MUCH more civilized than any other writer's conference I've been to. Rather than that speed dating BS, everyone got set appointments, and there were only 2 agents (or editors) per room, so it was much more personal and much easier to just chat. I got requests for partials for both of my novels, from both of the agents, so I count that as a very successful day spent.

All in all, the conference was very good. It wasn't focused on Here's How To Get Published, but more on the special challenges of writing historical fiction and topics of interest to history buffs. I think I'm spoiled for any other writer's conference now. The only drawback was the fact that there weren't as many sessions as I'd have liked, but the opportunities for networking and the agent meeting set-up alone were worth the money.

Next year's conference is in York, England. I'm saving my pennies now.

Historical Novel Society conference

I'm taking the red eye from SFO to Chicago tonight, en route to Albany, NY and the HNS conference. I'm excited, and nervous, and not overly thrilled about my 3-hour layover at O'Hare. Alas. What I *am* excited about?

* Hanging out with my friend Heather all weekend
* Seeing Bernard Cornwell speak Friday night during the opening dinner
* My two agent meetings
* The workshop on fictionalizing the already famous
* Getting The Only Life That Mattered signed by James Nelson
* The session on writing short historical fiction

Should be a grand time. Catch y'all next week.

word-hoard
parbreak "to utter or pour forth recklessly or offensively; to vomit forth (1400s-1800s)" (Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1909)

Word-hoard
oxythymous: quick-tempered; easily riled