Posted by
Maria Alexander # 1:45 PM
And Now the Long-Awaited WHC 2008 Highlights
Such as they were, in no particular order. Subject to change.
1.
Had a successful round of pitches, including one to an unanticipated publisher, Mirrorstone Books. The editor Stacey and I were chatting happily when she asked me if, by any chance, I had a children's book. As it so happened, I'd written one about 8 years ago called
Monsteria, starring a little girl named Anabelle, who is like a miniature Mary Poppins. I told her about the story, which is
Where the Wild Things Are but with a girl protagonist. This seemed to make Stacey enormously happy. We'll see how that pans out.
2.
Sold and signed stuff.3.
Read a bit of Caitlin Kiernan's fiction for the "Male or Female?" panel-come-gameshow. One contestant said female, the other male. I asked them why they thought the author was either male or female. Gary Braunbeck offered the generalization that men write more about the external world while women write more about their internal world. The passage I read was definitely more about the external world, but then Monica Kuebler had stumped Gary earlier with passages from John Shirley and Jack Ketchum, proving that generalizations are only that.
4.
Met lots of great folk, including
the very gracious Scott Edelman, up and coming writer
Scott Browne, the incredibly sweet Paul Genesse and the delightful Australian writer Rocky Wood, not to mention the awesomely talented Marge Simon. Her husband, the Grandmaster of Poetry Bruce Boston, wrote the introduction to my poetry collection.
Biting Midnight. Meeting Marge had been long in the coming. The convention staff were all terrific people, I should add.
5.
Strutted around in some utterly frivolous and girly outfits, especially that amazing pink 1940s suit that I bought from
Sabrina Belladonna.
6. Read my latest poem, "Uncle Nietzsche with Anchovies," to an appreciative audience in the Poetry Reading, as well as "Le Menteur" and my French and English versions of "Petite." (Now, is it just me, or should poetry make fucking sense? All that poetry I heard loaded with random adjectives and hyphenated bullshit seriously needs to meet Mr. Shredder. Most came from one Vogon in particular.)
7. Ground my teeth through most of the Bram Stoker ceremony as I witnessed more "club awards." However, I was there to support friends, to which I must say "Mission Accomplished," and besides the emcee was quite funny. I enjoyed watching Sarah Langan win Best Novel. The best part was when Gary Braunbeck mentioned one of my favorite movie moments of all time -- the ending of Prince of Darkness -- as one of two iconic John Carpenter moments. Yay! It's not just me!
8. Made a complete ass of myself in the audience of the screenwriting panel I attended. Lisa Morton knows I'm insane and Bill Breedlove still wrote "Maria Alexander is a goddess" on my martini glass that night, so I suppose they forgive me. The other panelists might not. I do repent my ass-like behavior. Alas!
9. Had a lovely sushi dinner with Loren Rhoads.
10. Said other apparently strange and shocking things whilst on one of the networking panels, as I recall a jaw or two dropping. Oh, how I do love being provocative! (Did I mention I also apparently love the taste of my shoe?)
11. Seemed to sexually traumatized every male in the room with "Pinned" at my reading. (Well, I had warned them about the kinky sex on the advertising flyer. Silly boys!) Later sold a copy to the sweet gal who wandered in late but heard enough to want to read the ending.
12. Survived hotel horrors, including two power outages the first night that caused my room to drop to sub-arctic temperatures, skin ailments galore because of the dryness, and finally some kind of food poisoning that nearly cripped me from packing and leaving the hotel. Can I say that I hate Salt Lake City and the Radisson with equal measures of peevishness? Yes, I certainly can.
And there you have it.Labels: bad hotels, bram stoker awards, jackass, poetry, radisson, salt lake city, world horror convention
I need to get out a word about my surreal adventure with Delta Airlines. It's not so much that I almost didn't get a seat on my own flight because they decided to shuffle a bunch of people from LAX who'd had canceled flights. Oh no. The most bizarre thing happened when I went to pick up my luggage at baggage claim.
I was wearing bad shoes that were hurting my feet, so I decided to grab my bag, open it in the baggage claim area, and put on another pair of shoes before dealing with taxis and so forth.
When I wheeled the SmartCart with my bags over to a row of chairs, I sat and bent forward to yank the zipper, only to discover that a lock I didn't recognize had been put on my two main zipper flaps, which meant I couldn't open my bag.
Some jackass with Delta or TSA had grabbed another person's lock -- one of those little Dear Diary numbers that needs The World's Tiniest Key -- and slapped it on my bag.I never use locks anymore. The only time my bag is out of my sight is when it's with the airline and I can't use "real" locks on those bags anyway, so what's the point? Also, where did they get the lock that wasn't TSA-approved? They had to have taken it from someone else's bag -- perhaps from a pocket, or maybe it was hanging unlocked from a zipper -- and put it on my own. The locks that came with the suitcase were in the top pocket with the matching keys. They certainly didn't get this thing from me.
I wheeled my bags back to the baggage claim office and showed them the problem, trying not to explode with expletives on them because I figured that wouldn't help me in Mormon Land. Unable to find bolt cutters, one guy molested the key opening with the pointy end of a pair of scissors. When that didn't work, he said, "Sorry, but there isn't anything else we can do."
I said, still trying to restrain Pele, "Yes, actually, I believe there
is more you can do. Could you please take me to TSA and ask them to use bolt cutters on my bag? If I walk there myself, they're going to think I'm a lunatic, when in fact this is probably Delta's fault."
The scissor guy just stared at me. But another Delta guy who'd been listening -- tall, Lurch-like, but with a sweet smile that showed off large, straight teeth -- cheerfully offered to take me. "I'll go with you. It's no problem." I thanked him profusely and off we went.
We wheeled over to TSA, where he spoke with someone as I waited by the cart. After we started to wheel over to another part of the airport, he eyed the bag and stopped suddenly.
"Can I try to pull on the lock?" he asked.
"Sure! Please!" I said, eying his massive hands.
With that, he reached over and wrenched it off. I hugged the life out of him.
No thanks to Hellta Airlines, I finally got to my hotel and not a moment too soon.
Labels: delta airlines, jackass
Posted by
Maria Alexander # 10:58 AM
The World, It Weighs On Me
Just a warning to everyone that I've exceeded my 24-hour limit of jackasses, hacks and
frauds. Why don't they just put themselves in the ground
rather than other people? (And is this happening
every other fucking day now or what?)
Oh, and
Margaret B. Jones can triply fuck herself, as well as the gullible dopes at Penguin who didn't fact check her story, making it more difficult for someone with a real story to tell.
Salopes et cons touts.
Labels: fraud, hack, jackass, memoir, murder
