This past weekend I was at Ad Astra http://www.ad-astra.org for their 30th anniversary.
For those of you who don't know what Ad Astra is, it is one of Canada's premier Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror literary convention that takes place in Toronto, Ontario. Because it was the 30th Anniversary there were many, many, past Guests of Honour, such as Ben Bova, Julie Czerneda,Eric Flint, Ed Greenwood, David G. Hartwell, Tanya Huff, Guy Gavriel Kay, Todd McCaffrey, Tamora Pierce, and Peter Watts. Mercedes Lackey and Larry Dixon made their first Canadian convention appearance too, though I didn’t get a chance to meet them.
There were other wonderful authors there as well such as Stephanie Bedwell-Grime, Marie Bilodeau, Robert Boyczuk, Erik Buchanan, JM Frey, James Alan Gardner, Nancy Kilpatrick, Adrienne Kress, Lesley Livingston, Derwin Mak, Stephen B. Pearl, Douglas Smith, Rob St. Martin, and of course, myself, just to name a few.
It was a fantastic weekend, for me the highlight was the Friday night where I launched my newest book in The Chosen Chronicles – Shadow of Death: Book Two of the Chosen Chronicles. I want to say thank you to the folks of Ad Astra for allowing me to take over the Con Suite to throw the party. It was a wonderful success. Lots of friends and family showed up and many others from the convention did as well. I did two readings from Shadow of Death and the little Chibi Chosen that I made were a complete success. Thanks to everyone who came out to make the launch so wonderful!
The rest of the weekend was great. On Saturday, my friend, Derek, helped out at my table, so I wave a thank you at him. People who couldn’t make it to the launch came by and bought books. I got to moderate a panel on “Writers and Relationships.” The panel went extremely well. It was nice to discuss these sorts of issues, but when we took a poll of the panelists as to relationship experience we found that all of us were part of long term committed relationships with creative folk. It would explain why we tended to agree with each other.:) We did remark that it would have been nice had someone who was an author and who was single on the panel to get their take on things.
I also participated in the large group signing that afternoon. It was fun. I got to sit with Adrienne Kress and Lesley Livingston. The place was packed with authors and artists signing for so many people.
Later that evening I was on the Vampires of the Future panel. By that point I was so punch drunk tired I don’t recall if I made any sense or not. I do remember it was a great panel moderated by Nancy Kilpatrick. After that I went home and crashed.
Sunday, the last day of the convention, was wonderful. Despite everyone being so tired I think many of us would have liked the convention to continue longer. I know I would have.:)
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