Windycon 50 was a blast. This marked my tenth Windycon, and in addition to providing critiques for the ISFic Writers Workshop, I participated on 4 panels, read from my new story collection to an audience larger than just my beta readers, and got to hang out at a shared dealer table with the multi-talented and much-cooler-than-me quartet of Rhiannon Taylor, Dex Greenbright, Jamie Garner, & Wil Bastion.

Some snapshot happy memories I need to record so I don’t forget them forever:

• a reader taking their newly-purchased Relics down the table so they could collect the signatures of the editor (Jamie) and the cover artist (Dex) as well as the author. What an awesome moment. Made us all feel like stars.

• A retired librarian who’s been wondrously supportive every year since I started selling at Windy smiling from ear to ear as she presented me her copy of Relics From A Traveling Show for a signature.

• Enjoying a simple supper of pierogis with good friends I don’t get to see nearly often enough and having one of those long, meandering, deeply satisfying, “life, the universe and everything” conversations that make everything better.

• A reader informing me that they’d just finished the copy of Controlled Descent he bought from me at last year’s Windycon and now needed the next one in the series. And when I explained how Weaving In the Ends and Flight Plan fit together so they could choose which one…they just got both.

• Sharing new & classic books/series I’ve read & loved with a sleepy Sunday morning audience that started at 2 people (outnumbered by 5 panelists) but swelled to nearly two dozen by the end of the session. Scribbling down notes to add to my own TBR list.

• Brainstorming ribbon & sticker ideas for the next convention during slow times on Sunday. Ideas include but are not limited to “Potato of Defiance” (see the Pratchett quote, below) and “Every moment of creativity is an act of resistance,” which was a true thing Rhiannon said that we all decided was excellent & deserved to be shared.

• I wasn’t the only person wearing a mask most of the con! I’d say about 5-10% of attendees were masked, maybe as high as 10% on Saturday when even the lobby was crowded. And it was nice to never feel weird about being one of the masked minority. No funny looks, no comments about not being able to hear, just acceptance that people all do what they need.

• Coming back to the table after spending the morning in the workshop to find that Wil had sold not only multiple books, but also tea & coffee stickers! Huzzah!

• Getting to meet Chris M Barkley!!!! I’ve been reading his work since…I don’t even know how long. 2013 at least, when I discovered File 770. Most recently he had an absolute blazer of a pre-election column about Kamala Harris that I wish…well. ANYway, he came by the dealer table. I was, well, tongue-tied and hopelessly derpy, but he was wonderful to chat with. (He did make the giving-the-author-catnip mistake of asking about the Rollover badges & pins, but I restrained myself before I totally talked his ears off about alternate WW2 history worldbuilding. I think.)

There are a lot more. It was a good weekend.

It wasn’t perfect, of course. Far from it. There were many less-than-stellar moments, too. F’rex, the programming guide had me listed for a panel I had not signed up for & was in no way qualified to be on, while I was NOT listed for a panel I’d been told I was on. PRogramming Ops was fab, we got it fixed in time, and losing one panel gave me the time to have tasty dinner with friends…but. If I hadn’t spotted teh mixup myself in the online Sched, it might’ve been bad.

And while the hotel was improved leaps & bounds over last year, it still isn’t, hm, great. The public areas have utterly crappy HVAC, although they skewed cold this year rather than sauna-like. The elevators at least didn’t break this year, but they were slug-slow.

I need to remember for next year that floor 2 is actually 3.5 floors up and get a room on 2 so I never have to take the elevator. I picked floor 4 this year, and that was a hike. It’d be fine if one set of stairs went all the way up and down, but they…don’t.

Other low points: the hot water in the rooms was never truly hot, and I heard from others that some rooms had non-functioning heaters. My heater worked quite well I could keep the vent slots open on the windows, which was nice, because I did mention the crappy HVAC, yes? My room was missing a soft seating chair and its coffeemaker, so good thing I prefer to make my own tea and sit on the floor anyway. Speaking of flooring, the carpet was about 3 years past needing replacement, and the ceiling in the shower had acheived haunted-house levels of peeling paint scariness. Which didn’t stop me from enjoying my baths. I mean, I swim in lakes, and lakes are full of fish shit and surrounded by actual dirt.

Here’s hoping the hotel room floors get the same kind of updating and renovations the lobby got, or even more. because they really need it.

And that’s enough for one post (too much, probably) Have a Pippin pic for your reward.

Oh, one last thing — I didn’t come home with COVID this year, so that’s a high note to end on! Onward to the next adventure.

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.

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