What to say? What to say? TrickConTreat was the most laid-back convention I’ve been to. There wasn’t a lot of programming, and what there was often didn’t happen, or began at least a half-hour later than expected. There weren’t many people there, and that’s a concern. I sure hope Ivarr and his merry crew didn’t lose so much money on the event that it won’t happen again.

Was it fun? Hell yeah! Okay, nobody really showed up for the reading. Or the panels. Typically, the authors would gather and we’d talk amongst ourselves. Usually somebody would come in for a while at the end, and that was cool. Only one event I was in was well attended, and that was the Halloween Who’s Line Is It? There will be video someday. Yes, I performed as an improv comic. Yes, my jokes mostly came from the gutter. What can I say? It was a lot of fun.

The best thing about the con was just hanging out with friends. Craig Wolf had been out of touch for a while with a health issue, so it was nice to see he was still sucking wind and motivating. Sadly, his sweetheart of a daughter (oh, I know somewhere the little goth cringed when I wrote that), anyway, she’s been battling her own health issues. It was great seeing both of them. Bev Hale, who has had a terrible summer and early fall, wasn’t able to go to FenCon because she wasn’t feeling well Friday, but she got over it and made it out to TCT. It was good seeing her again, and here’s to hoping all her bad stuff is in the past.

Bill Allen came in from the Tulsa area. Bill’s a man of extraordinary tastes. We seem to share a lot of common interests, most of which will not be named publicly here. He’s a damn fine writer, too. You should check him out. Oh, he kicked butt at the improv thing, too. All those years of performing in the Traveling Yard Dog Show paid off for him.

Sara St. John, author of Blood Atonement and more was there with her grown kids. Sara is one of those people who cannot possibly have an enemy anywhere on this planet. Super nice lady! This was her first con. She sat through my attempts to videotape her introducing herself, then an attempt to do a podcast of her talking about her book. The podcast seemed to fail, but I"m happy to say it was captured and I do have it in MP3 format now. I’ll get it put online soon. The video intro is there, too. It was my intention to do a short video of all the Okie Horor authors introducing themselves, and get a podcast from each one. Didn’t work out.

Sara seemed to enjoy herself, and she really summed up what is so great about conventions like this: "Everybody’s just being themselves and nobody’s been judgmental." It’s true. From chicks with bright orange hair to guys with fangs and lace shirts, tattooed people with more metal than a World War II German tank in their faces to folks who got a little tipsier than they could really handle, nobody was made to feel unwelcome or freakish.

Well, okay, the female collegiate rowing teams staying at the hotel had some problems with us, but they weren’t part of the con, so they don’t count.

One of my students came to the con. I won’t name her, but it was great seeing her there. She kind of surprised me. She’s a very quiet, VERY good student who dresses like a normal teenager, so seeing her in a corset and studded dog collar was different.

Dr. Fear, Mr. Grimly and Trinka were there, along with Dr. Fear’s significant other, who probably has a part in his show, but I can’t remember it right now. Nice to see the folks from my hometown. Dr. Fear has a new season of shows all ready to go. I’ll have to watch them on YouTube since they’re not aired in the city. Count Gregore was there for a while, too. What a nice guy!

There were metal/punk/industrial/whatever bands there, but I’m sad to say I didn’t get to see a single performance. I also missed the Haunticon Ball and masquarade party. I had a contact lens in inside out early Saturday, which caused a headache that kept getting worse even after I fixed the lens, so I left early that day.

Hmm. I think that covers about everything. We were all disappointed more people didn’t show up, but it was a lot of fun. This was my last con for this year. It was definitely a good year for conventions, even though I really missed being at Horrorfind and FenCon.