Notes on World Fantasy, 2024

I had the good fortune of attending this year's World Fantasy, held in Niagara Falls, which is basically a big river that goes over a hill.

It was an odd convention. In some ways extremely smoothly run, in other ways an absolute disaster (as these things often are). A huge thank you to anyone who picked up an advance copy of my new book, and I'm sorry if I couldn't think of anything witty to write above my signature. Most of you got a variation on 'I'm so sorry, Sam'. 

Thank you also to those folks who were in my panel on neurodiversity in fiction, and who attended my reading (sorry, Beth). 

Two things from the convention are lingering in my mind a little more than any other (actually, three things, the third being the line for cheesecake): 

1. The fact that they haven't yet paid me for the books of mine they sold on consignment, and the fact that I can't seem to get a hold of anyone to pay me said money. 

2. The panel on Monsters for which I was in the audience, largely to support my wonderful friend Ai, and in which I found myself having to ask one of the panelists, microphone in hand, why she felt the need to defend a rapist. In the aftermath of said question, mostly I received thank-yous, but for the 2 or 3 of you who felt the need to say that I was somehow in the wrong for calling out a rapist, I'll repeat what I said in the moment: Go fuck yourselves. There's no place in our community for criminals of that ilk, and nor should we still be putting on entirely racist panels moderated by old white men on the subject of work written by people of color.

Now that I come to think of it, it was perhaps more of a disaster than average.

It's almost Kickstarter Time

In other news, we're about to start begging you for money, because what the arts are these days. Sorry. 

We have a new story up, written by the wonderfully talented Emmie Christie. It's on a subject we love: The cosmic horror found deep within the mundane irritations around us, if we stop to pay them some attention. Enjoy.