Gary won both the Stokers he was nominated for! Whee!

Off to parties now .... :)

Just finished the book pitch over lunch, and it all seemed to go well. The editor liked my synopsis and wants to see the novel when it's done, so I've got a lot of writing to do over the next couple of months! I'm more and more glad that I dropped the one class I was taking this quarter.

Linda Addison's coming by our room in an hour so that Gary can record her reading his story "The Queen of Talley's Corner", which appears in Five Strokes to Midnight ... I expect he'll be putting the reading up on his site within a few weeks.

Stokers tonight! *quiver*

So far, the con goes well. Dinner last night with my agent was good; I got to catch up with rdansky and meet Steve and Melanie Tem and a new client of Bob's named Carl. Bob told me where we're at with Spellbent in terms of who's seen it and who's made positive noises looking at it and I'm very hopeful that it will find a good home fairly quickly.

We had the mass signing, and that was utter chaos for a bit but once they got enough tables out it was a lot of fun. Afterward was the Leisure Books party, where I got my palm read and got to catch up with Lisa Morton.

Today is Gary's reading, my novel pitch, and the Stoker Awards.

Gary and I arrived in SLC a bit later than we expected, but other than weather-delays on the ground in both Columbus and Chicago the trip was pretty uneventful. On the plane, I read a big chunk of Tom Piccirilli's Hellboy novel Emerald Hell and I'm really enjoying it. He's a fabulous writer. You don't have to be a fan of the graphic novels to understand the book, and while it's completely accessible, it's also got more actual literary meat than several of the regular mainstream SF/F novels I've read lately. I think people who enjoy southern gothic tales would particularly like this one.

Anyhow, back to the con :) So far it's been great -- we had drive-by conversations with a bunch of people, and I found dealers willing to carry my books. But sadly I bonked midway through the evening (12-hour work shifts since Sunday and 2 hours of sleep Wednesday night took their toll) and I had to get some sleep. But I'm feeling pretty well rested today, and much looking forward to the rest of the day.

Edit: Nanci, got your message, and we'll definitely be able to pick up books for you.