Sunday, August 16, 2015

Necronomiconduits

My memory of that evening is hazy now, but I'm certain it went something like this:  Tom Breen and I were walking along by the Providence River (or was it the Moshassuck?) after Waterfire (there was a night gaunt on a raft, wasn't there?) and talking about the self-published book called Dead Air that I'd put out through Blurb.com in 2008. Dead Air had glossy black pages with white print, was obviously created from templates, and consisted of stories I'd been writing on and off since 2005, as well as scans of old daguerreotypes and pictures I'd taken around town. I'd been thinking of doing another book, something affordable, more widely available, maybe even through Amazon. A trade paperback. We joked about it being "discovered."

We drove separately to Rhode Island, having booked a big suite at the Biltmore for two nights. Tom wasn't too big on the panels, the talks, and the readings, and the weather was glorious, so we spent much of two days we were there spending money in the vendor areas and at Cellar Stories, walking around Providence, and eating, though we did go see a talk and a panel or two. After one of the panels, Tom introduced me to S.J. Bagley, who he knew mainly through Livejournal. We went to dinner at a Korean barbecue place. Bagley was (and is) personable, opinionated, and fiercely bright. I enjoyed his company immensely.

Necronomicon was the highlight of the summer of 2013.

A lot has happened since then. In a few days I'll be returning to Necronomicon. My books will be available at the New England Horror Writers' table and at the Dim Shores table (where I, Scott Nicolay, Jeffrey Thomas, and Michael Bukowski will be signing books at 2:45 on Saturday). I'm excited at the prospect of meeting people I've known only online in the two years since the previous Necronomicon: writers, artists, publishers, aficionados of the Weird, old, new, and Renaissance.

What follows is my (very likely to change) itinerary for Necronomicon 2015, the panels and readings I hope to see, etc., hastily typed into a Word document yesterday:

Thursday
where the day takes me



Friday
9 am Ramsey Campbell interview
1030 Author Readings (both 17th floor Biltmore)
1 pm annotations of madness (omni) and/or author readings (Biltmore)
230 author readings
4 pm New Weird Grand ballroom Biltmore 17th floor
530 author readings

Saturday 
9 am Small Publishers
1030 Ask Lovecraft and/or Secondhand Mythos
1 pm author readings
245 Dim Shores signing
4 Lovecraft/Racism
530 Author Readings

Sunday
9 am Clark Ashton Smith
1030 Future of Weird Fiction (BAGLEY!)
1 pm author readings and/or religion in lovecraft

 I'm looking forward to this oasis of the Weird. I hope to see you there.



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