A View From Corona #6

Jeremy Lassen | May 1st 2002 at 11:25 am

“The solitary, steep hill called Corona Heights was black as pitch and very silent, like the heart of the unknown. It looked steadily downward and northeast away at the nervous, bright lights of Downtown San Francisco as if it were a great predatory beast of night surveying its territory in patient search of prey.”

- Fritz Leiber, Our Lady Of Darkness

A World Horror Con 2002 Special Report: World Horror came and went… and I miss it already. The Hotel was shitty (something was wrong with the AC and climate control… After spending two hours in the hotel, I was dehydrated, and my lips were chapped. The dealers room alternated from each day from being a sauna to being a freezer, etc.), there wasn’t any good food for miles, and I didn’t see any part of Chicago. But I loved the convention. World Horror 2002 was the best! I flew in to O’Hare on the red-eye, and expected to get some sleep before things got rolling, but that never happened. From the moment I arrived at the hotel, the adrenaline was pumping, and it didn’t stop until I got off the plane Sunday night in San Francisco. Rather than bore you with a blow-by-blow account of what happened I will simply list some of the things that stuck out in my mind:

* Scott Wyatt brought a limited edition print of Ken Kelly’s artwork for Night Shade’s forthcoming Kane omnibus, God’s in Darkness, and he allowed us to display it at our dealers table. Seeing a high quality print of this artwork simply blew me away. I can’t until June, when the book comes out.

* Philip from Fedogan & Bremer gave me an ARC of the new Donald Wandrei collection The Eerie Mr. Murphy… It is a beautiful looking book that shouldn’t be missed.

* I got my first look at Excitable Boys, the anthology I published under the fREAk pRESs imprint, which was edited by Kelly Laymon. The printer had drop-shipped a couple of cases directly to the convention so I would have it in time for the show. Gak’s artwork looks great, and I got to reacquaint myself with the gross-out stories Thursday morning over breakfast. Not the smartest idea in the world. Most of the contributors to Excitable Boys were at the convention, and I shanghaied a bunch of them Sunday morning to sign a LOT of copies – thanks to all the contributors and Kelly Laymon for taking time out of their morning to sign an obscene number of books. If anybody wants signed copies, please try ordering from Borderlands, Realms of Fantasy, Dream Haven, or Stars Our Destination.

* Tom Roche, a fellow San Franciscan and writer/editor/renaissance man turned up on Friday (He came in on the red-eye as well) and I ended up rooming with him. He got much more sleep then Jason or I, but apparently, with a new girlfriend back in San Francisco, he needed the sleep. The lucky dog.

* Night Shade Books hosted its first official convention party Friday afternoon. The convention staff generously provided a driver, and I snuck away from the dealers room long enough to buy booze and food, most of which was consumed by rabid party-goers by the time we were told to vacate the con suite. Good job! Some-time Night Shade cover artist, and all around kick ass guy, John Picacio (Who received an IHG award for best artist the next night), and Tom Roche both went above and beyond the call of duty, hauling ice before the party got started, ensuring that everybody’s drinks were cold. Thanks you guys!

* At the end of the Night Shade party, early Friday night, David Hartwell wandered in, and Jason and I began picking his brain. For those of you who don’t know, Mr. Hartwell is an editor extraordinaire who has been working in the field longer than most of the WHC attendees have been alive. He edited the Bible of modern horror, Dark Descent – If you haven’t read this book yet, run out and do so now! He was also one of the men behind the famous small press line, Gregg Press, which published a lot of classic SF and horror in hardcover editions. If you’re a book collector, you know about Gregg Press. During the short amount of time we spent with him, he generously, and unpretentiously shared his wisdom and experience. Definitely one of the high points of the convention. Thanks David!

* One of the funniest moments took place at the Tor party. It seems that many of the pro editors there (David Hartwell, Melissa Singer, Ellen Datlow and others) are big M. John Harrison fans, and are very excited about Night Shade’s forthcoming collection of his fiction. Of course they all made it clear that they couldn’t touch M. John Harrison, because he won’t generate the kind of sales that Tor needs to justify doing a book. Two years ago, I would have resented the fact that a brilliant writer like M. John Harrison can’t get a book published in New York, but now… I realize that these weird economies of scale create a niche that allows Night Shade to do a lot of cool and interesting projects. I still think it’s enormously unfair that Mike isn’t being published in America by a New York house – I just don’t resent it anymore. New York does some things well, and independent publishers like Night Shade do other things well.

* One of the scariest moments came when I realized that, at the same Tor party mentioned above, every one of the Tor editors seemed to know who Tim Lebbon was, and was eager to exchange a few words with him. I told Tim that he wasn’t allowed to talk to any editors in the room, but I don’t think he listened to me. I’m glad to see Tim getting the respect he deserves, and when (not if) a New York publisher comes along and offers him far more money than Night Shade can, I will only be happy for him.
* The Gothic.Net crew was out in full force, and they put on an excellent party. For those of you who don’t know, Gothic.net is one of the best online horror magazines around. They publish an ENORMOUS amount of quality short horror fiction, and they pay pro rates. Gothic Net is in the middle of a very intense subscription drive, and they definitely deserve your support. I ended up talking a long time with Seth, the gothic net fiction editor, and at some point during the conversation, Seth and I both waxed poetic about how cool Fritz Leiber’s Our Lady of Darkness is. Bird’s of a feather…

* Also at the Gothic Net party, I met one of the coolest Goth/horror action figures I have ever seen. She was decked out in Sand Man-ish goth pixie gear, and was bouncing around the party like something from the fairy lands. It seems that she is living the dream – she related the story of how she got her first job out of college at Tor, and what a wonderful place Tor was to work at, and how cool it is to work with all those big name writers and editors at the world’s biggest genre publishing companies, etc etc. I was a little bit jealous. If I had gone to college in New York instead of San Diego, that might have been me (well, me if I was 150 pounds lighter, and a lot cuter than I currently am… but you know what I mean.). But, If I had gotten my start in the New York end of the business, I wouldn’t be an owner of Night Shade books, so all’s well that ends well.

* It seems that the hotel bar was a hit or miss kind of place to be. Friday and Saturday night at the bar featured an Elvis impersonator, and a Beatles cover band, respectively. I don’t know how many people were chased out of the bar because of this, but I heard a lot of grumbling. The Chili’s restaurant down the road did pretty well because of the bars uninhabitableness.

* Saturday Night, I was regaled by Paula “Dark Echo” Guran’s first hand account of how Stealth Press managed to successfully throw away $6 million in 2 years. (I could rant about Stealth Press for an entire column, but will refrain from doing so… No use kicking a company when they are not only down, but have spent the last 2 years throwing themselves down wells).

* The Dealers room rocked! Thanks to the Con organizers for creating a great mix of vendors that drew a lot of people willing to buy stuff. Other than the bad climate control system, the dealers room had only one downside: Somehow, a merchant of pirated and bootleg video’s and CD’s got a table and was playing a bootleg of the “Buffy the Musical” soundtrack the whole convention. This wasn’t nearly as bad as the fact that this bootleg scam artist was selling copies of things that either have, or are going to have legitimate releases – things like VHS bootlegs of The Lord of the Rings, etc. I’ve bought my fair share of bootlegs of things that simply don’t have and are not going to get legitimate releases, but this scam artist was going above and beyond the normal range of import bootleg stuff. I hope the organizers of WHC 2003 keep people like this out of the dealers’ room.

* I was on a small press panel, where I basically tried to scare everybody away from doing something as crazy as starting their own small press – because frankly I don’t need the competition – stay away, all of you! It was very interesting to hear how American Fantasy Press and Design Image Group got started, and I ended up talking extensively after the panel with Forrest Aguirre from The Ministry of Whimsy Press. He’s a very smart guy, and Whimsy’s stuff is definitely worth checking out.

* I talked until 7:00 in the morning with Pam Keesey, who I hadn’t really spoken to in a couple of years. In addition to being one of the best editors of horror (erotic and otherwise) around (Daughters of Darkness, Women Who Run with the Werewolves, etc.) She’s got a really cool website called The Monster Zine which is definitely worth checking out.

* Brian Keene, and many of the regulars at the annual gross out contest got (from Brian’s own lips) “….their asses handed to them.” Congrats to all the new up and comers who managed to bury those old farts.

* At some point during the convention, I almost killed Wayne Allen Sallee. It’s a funny story. I had been working in the dealers room all day, and a camera crew from a local TV station was making the rounds, asking to interview the various WHC freaks for a local news segment. While said camera crew was interviewing me, I noticed Wayne Allen Sallee. Wayne is a kick ass writer, and long time resident of Chicago. So when they were done interviewing me, I told them “There’s famous Chicago horror writer Wayne Allen Sallee… You HAVE to interview him… he does a great stupid human trick.” Wayne has this amazing ability to turn himself into a giant human penis, and he had done it several times at World horror in Denver a couple years back. He does something, and his face turns purple, the veins in his head pop out, and he looks like a giant Penis! Its amazing! So they interview him, and ask him about the stupid human trick during the interview. He looks over at me and says “You mean the ‘vein’ thing” and I nod encouragingly. So he does it, the camera crew freaks out. It looks spectacular. I’m impressed. I figure all is well. Then a couple minutes alter, Wayne comes up to me and says “You know, I’m not supposed to do that any more. A year ago, while doing that, a vein burst in my face… and I could die if the wrong vein bursts.” I’m immediately horrified, and apologize profusely for putting him on the spot, but Wayne says not to worry about it. I’m just glad I didn’t end up killing one of my favorite writers.

* Saturday night, I ended up in the bathroom at the Borderlands “speak easy”, with a posy of young, hungry writers, including Mike Oliveri, Mikey Huyck, and others. The Bathroom, you ask? Yeah, the Bathroom. We were staying close to the beer, which was in the bathtub. I ended up letting it slip that Night Shade was talking with Tom Piccirilli about publishing a novel of his – and received an email about it from Pic Monday afternoon… damn news travels fast. At some point I realized that Mikey and I had our World Horror Con cherries popped the same year, in ‘98 in Phoenix. I must be getting old and jaded, because I spent part of the conversation comparing the quality of the various hotels that World Horror has been held at over the last 5 years. I don’t mind being stuck out in the airport suburbs at all, but damn it, the bar better not be overrun by Beatles cover bands! That’s almost as bad as it closing it at midnight (Atlanta, ‘99). During this conversation, we all managed to agree that World Horror was combination of alternate reality, and extended family… every year the same group of people get together, and continue the conversations they had started the previous year. You end up trying to pack a year’s worth of conversations and carousing into one weekend. And the next year, you pick up exactly where you left off. It’s sort of like Farmer’s Dayworld, I suppose… You only get to live one weekend a year… the rest of the time you are a zombie, just punching the clock at the day job until the next convention.

* Saturday night seemed to be the night where the Con Organizers of years past try to convince drunken con goers that they would LOVE to host a World Horror Convention, and that they should show up at the business meeting Sunday morning to make a pitch. I heard that both London and San Francisco are in the running for 2004. We’ll see. I have nothing but respect for the people who put on these conventions. They are even crazier than people who try to publish books.

* Convention regular Denise (who, mysteriously, only shows up at conventions when Bill Shaffer is in attendance) showed me her cloak Saturday night. No. That is not a euphemism. It was a cloak… a very cool cloak, high quality wool, hand sewn, double stitched, satin lining etc. It was so cool in fact, that I bought a cloak of my own for the upcoming Night Shade wedding celebration. If you’re looking for a cool cloak, check out Texas Body Hangings. They do good work. Besides pimping fine cloaks, Denise managed to scare Peter Straub with real life horror stories from her day job – these stories involved massive birth defects and environmental pollution in former soviet republics. Industrial pollutants suck.

* I spent Sunday afternoon in the bar with Tim Lebbon and various sundry folk such as Feo Amante, Jack Haringa and others… Tim and crew were on a quest to get a Chicago style pizza delivered from a real Chicago pizza restaurant, and were still waiting for it to be delivered when I had to leave for the airport. I was in such a hurry to get going that I think I ended up forgetting to pay for my burger and drinks. Thanks to whoever picked up the tab! I’ll get you next year.

* At the airport, I think I literally ran into Willie Brown, the Mayor of San Francisco. I was trying to hustle my two rolling trunks (full of books) to the ticket counter, and I accidentally slammed them into a very stylishly dressed African American gentleman in a fedora who was a dead ringer for “Da Maya”. Sorry ’bout that, Willie.

* The Plane ride home was made bearable by the presence of Christopher Treagus, Bay Area resident and all around cool guy. We talked at length about bookstores (he works at one, as do I), the small press publishing scene, and its relationship to New York publishing. Our conversations lasted the entire flight, and kept the “convention-high” going until I stumbled off the plane. I arrived home exhausted, having slept for a total of 6 hours during the previous 5 days. After finally getting home to my own bed, I slept for 16 hours (after calling in sick to the day job). I can’t wait for next year!

Filed in Editorials. You can subscribe to the RSS feed for this entry to keep track of comments. You can also use to trackback.