Another good time at a great convention! Tim Miller and his crew put on a really good gathering and it’s always fun to join them. Usually I’m there on Saturday and Sunday, but this year I went for Friday and Saturday. I was on several panels Friday, including one about how vampires and better than werewolves. Yes, Bev, I said it: Doggy-style. Of course, that isn’t the only reason werewolves are better than those dirt-sleepers, but it’s a big reason.

Later Friday was the liar’s panel, or whatever it was really called. I was a little nervous about, as it was all improv. Folks seemed to really enjoy it, and it was a lot of fun to do. Drop Rosemary a line and ask her about gay trucker porn.

There was another werewolf panel on Saturday, this time I was the moderator and we talked about werewolf mythology and such. I knew that C. Dean Anderson was a good egg; we agreed about our favorite werewolf film being The Company of Wolves. Love that movie!

Most of the members of the Oklahoma Speculative Fiction Syndicate were there and it was nice seeing them again. There were a lot of HWA members present, too, which was nice, particularly since FenCon gave HWA a panel this time. We had dinner together Saturday, where topics ranged from the Web site to bylaw changes to ornery squirrels and hermaphrodites. Don’t ask.

As always, the best part was just seeing people again … Chris and Angie Fulbright (or his that Hawkes-Full-bright?), Craig Wolf and family, Rhonda Eudaly and the rest of the apocalyptic redheads, Jason (I can’t remember your last name right at this moment, BeerDiablo), Charlee and Jim Jacobs … Well, it’s a long list. It was especially nice to meet Mark Worthen in person for the first time. And, as always, Deborah LeBlanc, who is really just too kind.

I sold some books, too, which was nice. I haven’t taken inventory, but I know I sold right about half my stock of Seven Days in Benevolence and a couple of werewolf books. I haven’t heard much response on Seven Days; I’m still interested to see what people think of it.

This week at school I’m going to launch a unit I hope my juniors will enjoy. I”m looking forward to seeing what they write for their persuasive essays. A couple of them may be reading this, so I won’t say what we’re doing just yet. I spoiled this plan last year by mentioning it early. Let’s just say I hope to really get them thinking. The sophomores, on the other hand … we’re doing remedial work on sentence fragments and run-on sentences as we plod through Things Fall Apart. I thought that would be a fun book for them, but they’re really struggling with it; only a couple in a class of 25 will admit to liking it. We start Part 2 of the novel tomorrow, which means we’re about a week behind where we should be. It’s hard to move on when about 23 of those 25 hadn’t read the assigned chapters when they were supposed to. Now that I’m using the audiobook, we’re moving faster. Things Fall Apart is really a good book, but I’m dealing with students who refer to Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird as “gay,” “racist” and “the most boringest book ever.” Yep, this is our future.

Do I sound like Dick Vernon, or what? (Let’s play Name that Allusion!)