7-9 February: A Capricon 45 post
Somehow it’s Saturday night at Capricon already. I’m holed up in my hotel room, happy as a clam in the sand, with a Winterfaire evening, dealer setup, four panels and hours of great conversations already behind me, one wake up and a final day of Dealer Room hangout time ahead.
The Geeky Gardening panel idea I suggested back in the autumn before my life fell on my head went REALLY well. Sue Burke is always a delight to panel with, and she was a perfect choice for the panel what with her series of books about intelligent alien plants & and her major houseplant collection.
Kim Kofmel, rounded out our trio of geekiness, and she was also Quite Perfect for geeky discussion of plants. She shared fabulous real-life stories about such things as accidental psychotropic balcony gardens and trumpet vine takeovers.
I was the “moderator” of the three of us, and I only hope I didn’t talk too much. I think everyone had a good time. There are so many different ways the topic can be spun, I’d like to di it again and pull one of the folks who was in our audience today to be up on the panel. We had a long chat in the hall after the panel, bonding over our shared love of the Field Museum and making havens for pollinators in urban spaces.
ANYway. I met cool new people, learned things, and had fun.
My other panels — Science in the Kitchen & Magic IN The Age OF Social Media— were also fab, but I only have the mental silverware to share the one, tonight.
The con attendance still feels really low for the size of the hotel public spaces but it somehow also seems high for the size of most of the rooms we’re using for panels.
As for the Dealer Room, there were a fair number of first time vendors, but not a whole lot of vendors overall. And traffic in the room & art show areas never feels…full. I have to wonder how much the downtown location & expenses factor into the dearth of vendors. The load-in/load-out situation also isn’t great, and the con rate parking is supposed to be a reasonable price, but…communication and execution. is spotty, and it’s extortionately high if you’re not getting the con rate.
A bright attendance spot is that I no longer feel like the youngest person everywhere I look around. Because when someone who’s passed a half century is anchoring the lower end of your demographic, the event is in dire need of a new audience.
A bit of happy news: looks like I’ll be able to bring books to sell to MiniCon again this year after all. The MiniCon folks were here at Cap, and productive conversations occurred, to use my best corporatespeak. Clarifications were made, and prior communications corrected.
It’s still a bit anxiety-producing since the con will be in a new hotel this year (back to an old hotel technically, but new to me & the rest of the Chicagoland crew) but the four of us who will be vending there should be able to be together in a reasonably sized space, and that’s the important part.
And I got to speak to Lisa Freitag who’s in charge of MiniCon programming, so I have some belief that I’ll be on some panels as well. Spring in Minneapolis is looking like it’ll be a fine time.
Random bits: I love my little 1.5 qt travel hotpot. Having hot water on demand has to be one of the cornerstones of civilization. It meant I could have chicken noodle soup, crackers & tuna salad for supper tonight and didn’t have to venture out into the sleety night at all. (I had cake for dessert because I got 2 servings worth when I collected hot buffet supper from Whole Foods last night.)
Downside: I have had very little exercise today. Tomorrow will make up for it, though, what with hotel checkout and load out.
Having a Target store AND a Whole Foods w/in a block’s walk of the hotel is definitely a strong plus for the hotel location. Lots of restaurants w.in a few blocks too. Doesn’t make up for being smack in downtown, and the walking accessibility to affordable restaurants isn’t super, but still. I do love the WF Festival Of Prepared Foods.
Random con pics!
Two photos of the dealer room table, and an obligatory “hotel window” photo.
The fish pic is an original art piece I bought from our booth neighbors Sarah and Sara. (Sara Root is the artist. Sarah Goodwin makes tremendous shiny sparkles and has written a steampunk-inspired chunky fantasy novel called From the Wreckage, Raise The Atalanta Book I that I’ll be able to tell you more about after I’ve read it. It looks good.)
Anyway. Sara is from Central/Southern Indiana and has also written original folk/fairy tale stories, so I asked if she knew Dr. Jeana Jorgensen, who works at IU and teaches folklore…welp, they car pooled!
Small world, right? That’s part of the magic of conventions. I have multiple other examples just from this weekend, but that was the bestest. And that’s a good place to wrap.
Until later.
But lastly here’s a Pippin pic, provided by Spouseman, who is taking good care of our floofy boi while I’m gone. He’s happy and tenderizing Spokesman’s leg in this photo.
What’s on your bookshelf?
This is the part where I talk about my books.
Relics From A Traveling Show
The newest of the new! A collection of all my short fictions in one handy volume, available now from your favorite booksite or local shop.
Or! OR! if you like your local library, you could request a purchase. Free for you, sale for me, everyone wins.
Most libraries need the following info for ordering print books:
Title: Relics From A Traveling Show
Author: K. M. Herkes
ISBN: 9781945745201 (paperback)
Every library system does things a little differently, but most want their collections to serve their communities, so most of them are very responsive to patron requests.
If you like novels more than short stories, I recommend my series The Rollover Files for hopepunk tales of about an alternate world where moms with midlife crisis superpowers have been saving the world and making the military nervous since 1943.
I also have a completed, quirky slow-burn science fiction thriller duology with a romance chaser: The Stories Of The Restoration.
All my titles are available from Amazon, Apple, Kobo, Hoopla, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, Overdrive and many other fine booksellers.
Support your favorite independent bookseller! Find a local shop via Indiebound
Be a potato.
" Fear is strange soil. Mainly it grows obedience like corn, which grows in rows and makes weeding easy. But sometimes it grows the potatoes of defiance, which flourish underground."
Terry Pratchett (Small Gods)