MythosCon: The Return (Part II)

[ankh_hpl]

And now a list, in more or less chronological order, of some of my favorite events during this four-day wallow in all things Lovecraft!

 Thursday, Jan. 6th
 

• Opening Ceremonies, or rather pre-opening ceremonies, where I got to meet a couple of Lovecraftians I'd only known via-email & re-meet others I hadn't seen since the last Necronomicon in  2001.
• Survived my own half-hour  poetry reading & actually had an encouraging audience -- even though I was reading at 5 PM opposite Robert M. Price.  (Wow.)  S.T. Joshi, Wilum Pugmire, Donald Sidney-Fryer, & Fred Phillips were among the attendees.
• Attended Fred Phillips' poetry reading, celebrating the release of his first collection of dark verse: From the Cauldron (Hippocampus Press).

Friday, Jan. 7th

• Ramsey Campbell's reading --  at 9 AM, but a lot of seats were filled & I feel sorry for anyone who slept in.  He read an incredibly witty Mythos piece which had the audience howling.
• Was actually asked to sign stuff while prowling the dealers' room later that morning. 
• Survived panel on Contemporary Mythos Tales, which I wasn't supposed to be on but got drafted for.
•  William F. Nolan's reading of dark SF tales.  We're talking the father of Logan's Run, here.
•  Peter Cannon's reading of a gentle but deeply Lovecraftian tale.

Saturday, Jan. 8th

• The Cthulhu Prayer Breakfast, conducted by Robert M. Price with hymnal assistance from Darrell Schweitzer.  If you are Lovecraftian & have never attended one of these events, I pity you.  This was my second, & I still have a little of my sanity left!
• The H.P. Lovecraft On Film panel, with Sean Branney & Andrew Leman of the HPL Historical Society talking about the upcoming release of The Whisperer In Darkness.  I cannot wait for this one!
• Survived panel on Poetry of the Lovecraft Circle & Beyond.  I knew I was going to be ON this panel.  I did not know I'd end up moderating it.
• Mass Autographing night, where my long-suffering husband ran around getting our books signed while I actually sold a few of my poetry collections and wrote my name far more often than I'd expected to.

Sunday, Jan. 9th

• The Contemporary Mythos Writing panel -- another 9 AM challenge -- which offered a lot of excellent information from such notables as Lois Gresh.
• The Lovecraft's Letters panel, with Lovecraftian scholars S.T. Joshi, Steven J. Mariconda, and Darrell  Schweitzer.  I was taking notes like mad during this one.
• The HPL's Revisions panel.  S.T. Joshi, Steven J. Mariconda, Robert M. Price -- and the scribbling of many more notes.
• Donald Sydney-Fryer's "Fantastical Poetry" presentation -- half an hour of material from the West Coast CA Romantics (including Clark Ashton Smith), half an hour of Edmund Spenser's "The Faerie Queene," dramatized.  From memory.  Jaw-droppingly lovely.

For my third & final MythosCon report, I'm hoping to post a list of the books and chapbooks (many of them signed)  I acquired at this event.