Convention Reporter

The tweets continue to pour in apace, for which many thanks to everyone at the convention. Blog updates are happening too. In this morning’s Google search I found new posts from Karen Wester Newton and Alan deNiro, plus coverage from Gayle Surrette of SFRevu.

We have created a Flickr Group for photos of World Fantasy. Currently it has contributions from Kevin Standlee and Jean Martin. If you want to see the photos, or add your own, go here.

Some people are now starting to blog about the convention. You may have seen Karen Wester Newton as she is on our reporter list, but you might also check out J.A. Pitts, Matthew Kressel and Alan deNiro.

The convention is now well under way, and huge thanks are due to Kevin Roche and Andy Trembley for providing magnificent service in the Hospitality Suite all night. If you check out Kevin’s blog posts you can see some of the artwork that was used to decorate the place.

The tweets that we have seen two of the main topics of conversation are the size of the book bag and the size of the hotel rooms. I have uploaded a set of photos taken by Zoran Živković that includes a short video tour of his hotel room. Obviously, as a Guest of Honor, he’s in a suite, but the other rooms are not that much smaller.

So, here we are at the Last Drink Bird Head launch party. That’s actually the short version of the name because Jeff is launching two other books here as well: Booklife and Finch. They have cakes, each one decorated with the cover of one of the books. Very nice touch.

The party is taking place in the Hospitality Suite, which is very nicely decked out as the departure lounge for Mr. Poe’s Great Trans-Pacific Balloon Trip Hoax. We are not allowed to talk about this, or the party, or the awards, on the main WFC web site because of the Blue Meanies.

Live coverage of the award ceremony will begin at 9:00pm. In the meantime you may want to amuse yourselves by checking out the tweetwatch. Someone called raingraves has just said, “Best. Con Hotel.” Yay!

I haven’t actually managed to get to the Hospitality Suite yet, but everyone I have spoken to has been very positive about wi-fi access so I have gone ahead and created a CoverItLive event. Last I heard Jeff was planning to start the awards around 9:15pm, so I’m planning to go live from 9:00pm. Hope to see you online then.

One of the events that is taking place tonight is Ann & Jeff VanderMeer’s Last Drink Bird Head party. Assuming that the wi-fi continues to work in the Hospitality Suite, I’ll be covering the awards ceremony live (I’m planning to go check that out as soon as I can get someone to mind the office for me). In the meantime, here’s John Anealio’s song which he has written especially for the book launch.

Hi everyone. I am now at World Fantasy and settled into my office here. I have an excellent Internet connection and am looking forward to the convention.

I spent yesterday in San Francisco, including the mass signing at Borderlands Books. That turned out to be rather more exciting than planned. Details here.

Several people are busily tweeting away from the convention, including John Picacio, Mary Robinette Kowal, Jay Lake and Rani Graff. I have a few people I hope to add to the Reporters list today.

And finally, if you are in the Bay Area and would like a membership, we’ve had a few last minute cancellations. See here for details.

World Fantasy Con 2009 starts in a week’s time. We will be there. We’ve currently got 11 reporters who will be at the convention. Fábio and Kate will definitely be around as well to bring an off-site perspective.

If you are going to be at World Fantasy and what to have your reports listed here, please see our sign-up instructions.

There will hopefully be some good things going on with the official convention web site, because Kevin and I are running it. We certainly expect to have live coverage of the World Fantasy Awards. If we have wi-fi in the hospitality suite we’ll cover Jeff & Ann VanderMeer’s Last Drink Bird Head Awards on this site, otherwise we’ll tweet the winners.

We already have a live tweetwatch running as people are starting to talk about the convention online.

There may also be some pre- and post-convention reporting happening. Borderlands Books are doing some big multi-author signings that we intend cover.

So, sit back and enjoy. We hope you have a good convention.