Balticon 44 Review – Glorious… ity… ness. Yeah
Normally I would record this, but work this week has been crazy and it’s already been almost a month since Balticon ended. So here’s the brain dump. I hope you enjoy it.
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Balticon 44 was simply… glorious.
Thursday:
Drove to Hunt Valley, MD, a little northwest of Baltimore. The trip up can be best summed up in two parts. Part 1 was the 6 hours it took me to drive from Charlotte to I-66 around 30 miles to the west of DC. Part 2 was the 3 hours it took me to drive the last 85 miles. These two parts were broken up nicely by a young bear, probably four or five months old, trying to cross the interstate. I avoided the bear and I believe he made it back to the woods. I could just imagine the other young bears saying “Do it. Do it. You wuss. What are you, a fawn?”
But arrive I did, and after relaxing for a bit in the hotel room, the greatest roomies in the world, Chooch and Viv, arrived. If you listened to the interview I did with them on Into the Blender, you know how much I love these guys. And our friendship only grew stronger through the weekend, even though I snored loud enough for Viv to yell at me to roll over (from the other bed, of course). And since Patrick McLean didn’t arrive until Saturday night, I had a bed to myself for the first two nights (always a bonus).
Friday:
Friday I spent my first hour at a dealer table, trying to sell Murder at Avedon Hill (and other wonderful Dragon Moon Press titles). I would have stayed longer, but I had my reading at 5 pm (I’ll be releasing the audio from the reading soon). 
I figured five people would be there at most, considering Mur Lafferty and Jonathan Maberry had readings at the same time.
But to my wondrous surprise, the room was pretty full–so everything after that was, again, bonus. I was a little worried because I only had my iPad, and all I had was my novel on it (available on the Kindle for $2.39 people! 
); I was afraid people might be a little tired of me reading from that, but Tee Morris was in the audience so I pulled him up to the front and read 40 minutes from a chapter that featured Father Jorrus (the vampire hunt). He voiced Father Jorrus and everyone seemed to enjoy the reading.
When I was done I went to the end of Mur’s reading, two rooms down from mine, and she had a full room as well! Podcast Novelists for the win!
Later that evening I was on two “live show” panels. The first was for Geek Radio Daily. Billy Flynn and The Flynstress were there of course, with me and Podcasting’s Rich Sigfrit. We talked about the convention, did segments on gaming, new media, and focused on Murder at Avedon Hill, which again, was a bonus. They played the NSFW promo I did for the book release with Mark Yoshimoto Nemcoff, which got a lot of laughs. Hell, I was happy just sitting between the Flynstress and Rich, listening to his impressions… actually, I was just happy sitting beside the Flynstress. 
I just noticed that they haven’t released the audio from the Live Show. Hope it wasn’t lost like the live show at Dragon*Con last year…
The last event for Saturday was a Live Into the Blender, which is Chooch and Viv’s show. Christiana Ellis and Command Line (Thomas Gideon) were also on the panel. We talked about movies, the ongoing trend of remakes/reboots, and gaming as well. I got to share my story of Patrick McLean trying out Red Dead Redemption at my house, which included him shooting my horse multiple times just for fun.
Saturday:
…was a busy day. I was on an expanded panel that Paulette Jaxton and I did last year called “Herding Cats,” which was about producing a multi-voiced podcast novel/audio drama. 
As expected, I had the most voice actors of any podcast represented on the panel.
Later that evening was Book Launch party for Murder at Avedon Hill. I was proud to share the evening with Nathan Lowell and Patrick McLean. The party room was full, and instead of simply schmoozing with everyone (which was our plan), someone suggested that we read from each other’s books. Nathan and I read from Patrick’s book, Patrick read from Quarter Share, and then Nathan Lowell read the prologue from Murder at Avedon Hill. Hearing one of the great voices of podcast fiction reading my prose was a highlight not only of Balticon but of my short history as a writer. It was a wonderful event, and more than one attendee came up to me on Sunday saying that they thought we should “take our act on the road.” Too bad Nate lives in Colorado, or I’d like to.
My only regret from the launch party? We had a room full of podcasters, and no one recorded the event.
After the launch party we had the New Media costume party, hosted by my roomies Chooch and Viv. It was a lot of fun, and for the first time I spent money and wore a killer costume.
Sunday:
Sunday turned out to be a great day as well. I had the pleasure of interviewing Artist Guest of Honor Howard Tayler, which I released earlier this month. Later that afternoon I was on a panel that turned out to be the most fun of any panel during the convention. It was a music panel called “From Story to Song.” It featured readings from five authors, and songs sung by various filk singers, songs about the author or inspired by fiction from those authors. I got to do a five minute reading in front of around sixty people that had never heard of MaAH:
[flash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwhxCavPtWg w=480 h=385]
And then Kim Fortuner sang the “Damn You Holyfield” song:
[flash http://www.youtube.com/v/7-xdUS_RgBg w=480 h=385]
To say she rocked it doesn’t do her justice. And on top of that the last reader was Convention Guest of Honor Tanya Huff, which made the panel even more special.
Later Sunday night came what has become a yearly event, the live Evo at 11 podcast.
I got to sit in with Evo and his wife Shelia, along with Patrick McLean and Ms. Information, the lovely Donna Mugavero. I got to add some snark to the podcast, and everyone had a great time.
The evening (and the con) ended with a party at our hotel room.
We had a good room for a party, with access to a deck outside our back door. I got to spend time with too many people to mention by name, and as always, there was not enough time to spend as much time as I would have liked with anyone.
S
o, as always, Balticon was a great experience, but with Murder at Avedon Hill just coming out in print made Balticon 44 the best convention I’ve ever had the pleasure of attending.
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Oh yeah, I also got to sit at the Dragon Moon Press dealer table, sell some books, and spend time with Philippa Ballantine, Tee Morris, Christiana Ellis, and Valerie Griswold Ford. Ah, good times.
So, what’s coming up on the podcast? First of all, I’ll be releasing the audio from the Balticon reading this week. Then we’ll have the next episode of Tales of the Children, which is a story by Philippa Ballantine called Love and Fire.
As always, thanks for reading/listening. See you soon.
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Some more photos from Balticon 44:
Gail Carriger, author of Soulless, et. al.
And for even more photos from Balticon 44, please check out the photo “pool” over at Flickr.com
Some of the photos in this blog post were taken by two wonderful photographers I know, Bruce Press and Sheila Unwin
Author, Podcaster, Father - P.G. Holyfield's first novel, Murder at Avedon Hill, was published by Dragon Moon Press in May of 2010. He passed away on August 20, 2014 in his home, surrounded by family and friends.
Behold the Steampunk Sheriff / Tesla Ranger, my candidate for Best in Show at the SciFi Prom! (Not to mention #2, the Steampunk DJ.)
Suddenly I feel like a poodle in the dog show.
By the way, I didn’t yell until the first few attempts failed. When you woke and said “What?”, you then giggled in a self-satisfied way before going back to sleep. Incorrigible.
Your book launch party with Patrick and Nathan was one of my very favorite experiences this year, truth be told. It was heavenly hearing you guys read from the different works.
And don’t be too sad about there being no audio, as it is now Legendary.