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Penguin Imprint Focus: Ace and Roc go to the World Fantasy Convention

Wed, 12/05/2007

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Ok, so I know I said I would tell you all about A Week in the Fabulous Life of Ace and Roc, but right now I'd like to take everyone on a quick flashback... far into the mists of history...actually last month... it's our time travel trip to the World Fantasy Convention in Saratoga Springs, NY on November 2^nd-4^th! I thought it would be fun to harken back to this little trip that many of us Ace/Roc editors took a few weeks ago because you will get to see a) if we play well with others and b) some keen pictures that I forced our authors to pose for, with firm promises that they would appear on the internationally renowned Penguin blog.

So here goes...

Friday, November 2^ndPenn Station, 7:45 A.M.
Cigarettes: 0, Calories: 0, Manuscripts in my neon-green wheelie suitcase: 2 [Will I read these manuscripts? Of course not, but everyone knows that carrying work around is almost as commendable as doing it...]
I am late to meet Ace/Roc editor Anne Sowards. She is punctual and chipper. I am tardy and disheveled. Despite the fact that it takes 14 minutes to get a bagel, I somehow make the Amtrak train. Anne and I discover that the Saratoga car is a veritable Hogwarts express-with half of the science fiction & fantasy editors in town on board (Devi Pillai from Orbit, Diana Gill from Eos, and many more!). We arrive in Saratoga around noon. Anne gets stressed out when going to conventions in new cities because she has a slightly challenged sense of direction (sorry, Anne!) so she makes us go on a reconnaissance mission to figure out where the hotel bar is (believe it or not, it is a little hard to find) and where the restaurants are. Then we go to lunch and subsequently take appointments in the hotel bar for 72 hours straight.

Kidding! But Anne and Ginjer Buchanan and Susan Allison and I do take a lot of meetings with agents, authors and booksellers. Most people who attend the World Fantasy Convention are involved in the industry in some professional capacity or other, so it's not as full of costume parties and L[ive]A[ction]R[ole]P[laying]ing as other cons you might attend. But it is a chance to get facetime with lots of people you need to know and a chance to meet lots of my authors. (It's a strange facet of the author/editor relationship, but I have not met the vast majority of my authors, so it's amazing to be able to meet them face to face.)

The convention is at the Saratoga Hotel, and I still get pretty excited to see all these luminaries wandering around. George Martin is holding court in the lobby. Oh, that's just Charlaine Harris checking in. And here comes Tamora Pierce (I still re-read her Alanna series ever year because it is A...wait for it...mazing). You can see the whole list of attendees here, but suffice to say, seeing all these authors together in one place, happily chatting away to each other is almost disorienting, like you're in some weird mash-up dream where Keanu Reeves, your mom, and a lemur are having a tea party. Not that I've ever had that dream. Ever.

Anyway, on Friday I have a couple of meetings at the hotel bar, then have dinner with author Anton Strout (this is fun, but not such a novelty, as he works down the hall from me...more about that later). Anne and I meet up with Eos editor Diana Gill who very kindly stored our ENORMOUS World Fantasy swag bags (full of a ton of great books, some keen Ace and Roc samplers, and a box of chocolate chip cookies) in her room. We lug them up the hill to the Marriot we're staying in... and pass out.

Saturday, November 3^rdThe Saratoga Hotel Bar, Roughly...all day
Cigarettes: 0, Calories: let's not talk about it, Beverages consumed as part of ritualistic business custom of "having a drink together": 13
On Saturday, Anne and I are both up bright and early for breakfast meetings in the hotel bar. Can you chain meet? If so, we do. A meeting with agent Jennifer Jackson segues seamlessly into one with Borders sf&f buyers Morgan Burns and Brent Stringfield. Anne and I escape the h.b. and have lunch with Sarah Monette and Elizabeth Bear, who are collaborators and friends and very fun to have lunch with. We return to the h.b. and hang out with Ace/Roc editor-in-chief Ginjer Buchanan and take a couple more meetings. Orbit books has a really fabulous cocktail party. Three minutes into the party Anne does what she's secretly always wanted to do... in move that appears craftily un-premeditated she gestures wildly and pours an entire glass of seltzer on me! Luckily I dry quickly, and am outwardly very magnanimous, but I am still plotting my revenge. In the corner we spot Ginjer, who is multi-tasking, simultaneously attending the Orbit party and having dinner with Ace author Sharon Shinn.

I take Jeanne Stein out for dinner, and we have a blast. Jeanne tells me something I never knew-that her Anna Strong series (which is about a bounty hunter who turns into a vampire) was originally not a paranormal series. It was a straight thriller about a bounty hunter, and someone suggested that she add in the vampire element. It's so seamless in the current books I can't believe it, but Jeanne is an honest person, so I have to...

I return to the hotel. Anne has just come back from dinner with Roc author Anne Bishop, who told her about the new Black Jewels novel she's working on (so exciting!). Despite the fact that we ate large, filling dinners, we manage to consume a sickening number of chocolate chip cookies. They were free though, and in my world that equals non-caloric.

Sunday, November 4th
The Saratoga Hotel Ballroom, 2 pm
Banquet meal eaten: 1; Chocolate chip cookies consumed: 14; Manuscripts read: 0
Sunday is a two breakfast meeting in the hotel bar with author Diana Pharaoh Francis, who makes me snort my OJ by referring to the movie Master and Commander as ship porn. (This is in the context of discussing her new Crosspointe series. The first book, The Cipher---which is not really ship porn but will feed your crack-like Dickens addiction---is out now!) Then it's the World Fantasy Award presentation and banquet. The food is pretty good for banquet fare. After a slight snafu where--ye Gods!-- it appears no one will be able to drink (the hotel apparently only accepts cash for bottles of wine... ) disaster is averted, and both wine and good cheer begin flowing. I get to say hello to Jane Yolen, who will be collaborating with Midori Snyder on a novel called Except the Queen for Ace. (It's based on their novella in the splendid collection The Fair Folk.)

The toastmaster is Roc author Guy Gavriel Kay. He gives a superb speech. I am linking to it here and you should totally, completely, 100% go read it. It is about a million times more worthy than my blathering. Half is a serious and moving tribute to Robert Jordan, author of the Wheel of Time series, who recently passed away, and it's also a contemplation of the place of popular fiction in our culture. The other half... well, I guess you had to be there, but basically Kay cleverly (and gut-achingly punnily) wove all the names of WFA recipients into fable...and asked the audience members to rap on their glasses with their cutlery when they heard a name. Basically a lot of glass tinkling and hilarity ensued... Diana Wynn Jones was a lifetime achievement award winner, and her incisive and lovely speech was read in her absence by Sharyn November, Firebird editor-in-chief. You can see the list of all the winners and guests of honor here.

And then it was over. Exhausted, Anne and I reboard the Hogwarts express, headed back to New York, Penn Station. Our heads are weary, our hearts are full, and our resolve to never set foot inside the hotel bar of the Saratoga Prime is strong.