ellen_datlow

Got home tonight after an uneventful flight (although everything seemed to be delayed by hours from Laguardia, so I suspect I was lucky). I ran into Devi Pillai of Hachette and agent Ginger Clark on the flight--I hadn't seen them at all at Denvention...which was the big problem of the con. Too big, too spread out, the convention space was abominable--lousy acoustics and even within the convention center everything was totally spread out seemingly from one end of the huggggee hall to the other.

The panels I was on were not bad, but I think I'm done with the resurgence of the non-theme original anthology panel now. Attempting to stay on track --discussing "original non-theme anthologies" just doesn't seem very productive. Either someone insists on taking up more than half the panel on the history of that kind of anthology, or someone starts talking about reprint anthologies, or it moves back into theme anthologies or a marketing panel. Which was never my intention. Oh well. Presumably some sf/f historian will analyse why there has been a resurgence in the past 3 or so years.

The pre-Hugo party was in a sad-looking set of rooms but the snacks were tasty and the post Hugo party was sumptuous. The food was fantastic!

I was tired the entire convention and never stayed up past 1:30 or so --Pat Cadigan and I were sharing a room at the Courtyard Marriott downtown which was just off the 16th street mall's free tram, which helped hike to the convention center but in heels we often took cabs. Even if we'd stayed at the Hyatt next to the center, while there was a nice bar in that lobby where everyone seemed to hang out--the party hotel was several blocks away at the Sheraton. And for two evenings in a row there were monsoon rains. I'm glad that I saw those people I did see but there are tons more that I saw only the last night or not at all. Thank god for cell phones--I'm glad I set up most of my meals in advance.

Karen Haber and I spent a couple of hours antiquing on stretch along Broadway. At the last minute Greg and Astrid Bear joined us, but only after we threatened Greg with death if he interfered or whined about our shopping...He was very good -in fact, I was impressed with his shopping skills ;-) Karen scored some interesting items and so did I --I found two Japanese wood block prints of unknown date. They were from an estate with a large number of prints--some by recognizable names and most with no prices on them. The material had been bought by a dealer and hadn't been appraised yet. I was impressed by a series of prints, many of which were of workers...and obviously all by the same artist. One of the two I was interested in had a tag of $40 on it, which I thought very odd. Astrid and Greg liked a more modern one by another artist and that had no tag on it. We brought them downstairs and the women who ran the mall said they'd just come in, the owner hadn't priced them but she was coming over soon...would we wait? We finished browsing and the woman had arrived. She looked at the prints we wanted and told the Bears that she couldn't sell that one yet. She further said that whatever prices were on the prints were the original prices from 37 years before (long story of where they came from). So I'm figuring, oh great 1) I can't buy them and 2) even if I could they're probably at least double if not triple what's marked which would mean 3) I couldn't buy them ;-)...But... she said I could have them for $40 each. So of course I bought them. Perhaps Greg and Astrid will get the one they wanted....Now to figure out where to hang them once they're framed.

But finding out just before I left for Denver about the WFA nominations helped assuage the pain ;-)

Short Fiction: On It's way out or a way to break into the market
Thur 10:00

Breaking into SF: The Big Guns Thur 16:00

The Comeback of Original Anthology Collections Sat 10:00

I will also be doing the "walk with the stars," which I mentioned previously, plus an autographing and I hope, a kaffeeklatsch.