Philcon, Part the First

It's been a few days, so I thought I'd better get on with a Philcon write-up.  My year would've been complete having met one of my literary idols, Howard Waldrop, at Readercon in July.  The chance to meet a second idol in the same year, Peter S. Beagle, was just too good to pass up.  So, here's what happened...


1

The first thing I had to do was get there.  Readercon took a lot of planning and a months-long allocation of resources.  This time I didn't have the luxury of taking vacation days off on both side of the con, and being able to get my own hotel room to recharge my introvert points.  Let alone figure out how the hell I was going to get to Cherry Hill, NJ and back to work by Monday.

Enter one of my newest and truest friends, Cthulhurotica publisher Carrie Cuinn and her rented chariot, who was gracious enough to pick me up and take me home, all for gas money and as many meals as she would let me pay for.  Totally worth it! 

2
Saw some of the Lobbycon stuff going on Friday night, but was too tired by the time we got to the hotel to really check it out.

3
Saturday morning, after breakfast at Panera, I hit my first panel, "Do You Write with a Reader in Mind."  Y'know, I think I'm going to post my panel round-up next time...

4
The schedule of author signings was conspicuous by its absence.  Afterward, I trolled through the dealer's room and there he was, signing...

 

And after talking with him for a few minutes, I hit the jackpot: A signed copy of Magic Kingdoms: The Best of Peter S. Beagle, which io9 calls "a storytelling masterclass."

5

This is the point at which I embarrass myself and admit that I've never read Beagle's novel The Last Unicorn.  Had I read it, I would've immediately known that the scheduled reading titled simply "Schmendrick The Magician - Reading of Unpublished Stories" was, in fact, Beagle reading unpublished stories based on a character from the novel.

6

After Beagle's reading was another panel that I ended up leaving early, so I had a couple of hours to hang out and grab a nap.  Did some hanging out, but no sleeping.  Oh well, why else does one go to cons, right?

7

Actually, next up was Beagle's G.O.H. speech.  There's a lot I want to say about this, so maybe this'll be a separate post, too.

#

So, there was more but this post is getting too long.  I guess I did manage to cram a lot into a Saturday, huh?  My day didn't end there, that's for sure.  More tomorrow.