TusCon 52 After Action Report
The ironically named TusCon (a trick on people who misspell Tucson) holds a warm place in my heart because TusCon 4 in 1976 was the first SF Con I attended outside my home town of San Diego. Since this is my blog, I’m going to indulge in about 10 paragraphs of nostalgia. If all you care about is what happened at this year’s TusCon, feel free to skip down the page.
I was a couple of years out of college and writing and submitting stories to SF magazines and whatever other magazine I could convince myself might take a story from a newbie SF writer. I was serious about my writing career, so I subscribed to Writer’s Digest, the magazine that purported to tell you how to write and, even better, how to sell. Their sister publication, the hefty Writer’s Market book, was my trusty bible for addresses to send stories to along with a mandatory Self-Addressed Stamped Envelope (SASE) to return your inevitably rejected manuscript for sending out to the next magazine.
I typed out the stories I wrote in my barely legible longhand, on my trusty 25-pound IBM electric typewriter that I had treated myself to on my graduation from college. No, not a quiet Selectric with its fancy balls that even had different fonts. Those were way too expensive. It was the traditional arm levering its way forward to strike the platen with a satisfying bang, followed by the eventual manually pressed carriage return that shook my whole desk with a thud as the roller flung itself back to the right to reposition at the left edge of the paper. Yes, writing 50 years ago was a very kinetic experience. Newspaper offices were renowned for the overwhelming din of dozens of typewriters as deadline approached.
Most of my memories of that Con have drifted away with the desert wind, but I’m sure I drove out to Tucson in Whiskey, my trusty 1960 Chevy BelAir. I’m also sure I was too broke to stay at the hotel, so I imposed on my cousins, the Swaims. Bob was an architect of local renown, and Donna was early in her career as an English Lit and Humanities professor at the University of Arizona. She was also the only adult who ever approved of my writing ambitions. I remember her gushing over the paragraph I wrote for the end of my proposed novel. (It took me 50 years to get around to finishing that novel, so I could finally get to that ending.)
The Con was held by what I remember as a motel by the side of the road. The only thing I remember about TusCon 4 was a late night bull session with about 20 of us. It was a large room with, inexplicably, no furniture. We all just squatted on the floor with our backs against the walls. Among the 20 were Thea Alexander, a self-published writer. Back then we called it “vanity publishing” because there was no market for such self-directed endeavors. Also memorable was an imposing man who went only by his Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) name of Baldrich. He wore his hand-made chain mail shirt, and had ambitions to be a security guard on the first space station.
I finagled a position next to one of my heroes, guest of honor Ted Sturgeon, and somehow awkwardly mentioned that I wanted to be a professional writer. He smiled and said, “If you want to be a published writer, I have a guaranteed method.”
“Please, tell me,” I responded eagerly.
“Write 50 stories in a year. By the end of that year, I guarantee you will be a published writer.”
It took me 2 years, but I did sell my 32nd story. That is another tale involving one of my other living writing heroes, Ray Bradbury. Some other time. 🙂
But now I promised to tell you about TusCon 52. I left San Diego at 6am for the 6 hour drive to Tucson. Actually I arrived 7 hours later because of the time change. I got there before the Con folks were ready to do check-ins, but the hotel was happy to let me check in to my room before the eventual rush. So after stowing my stuff, I sat in the lobby and had a pleasant conversation with Fergie POKK who is a professional Santa. POKK stands for Property Of Kitty Kat, which he said was to discourage young women from flocking to him to grant him their favors. I have no idea if a man who could pass for Santa even without his suit normally attracted that kind of attention, but it was an SF convention, and we all deal in 3 impossible things before breakfast, or we aren’t doing our job. When the Con started operations, we still sat there just enjoying our conversation and waiting for the line to dissolve. I noted that I couldn’t find any real way to contact the TusCon folks from their website, so I had no way of telling them ahead of time that I was a pro. No doubt because I had waited until September to sign up. Santa, er I mean Fergie, introduced me to Joe Palmer, the program guy, who assured me he’d have me on the pro list for next year. I just shrugged and didn’t push it further even though I had hauled a box with about 20 paperbacks with me, just in case ;).
Of course my paperwork somehow hadn’t made it to the registration folks, so I retrieved my hard copy receipt. They probably would have taken my word for it, but I’ve found it pays to bring the receipts. So they ginned up a badge, and I made it to my first panel at 3pm. That panel was about how writers can trick themselves into finishing their stories. Unfinished stories are a pervasive problem for beginning writers.
The next panel was Personal Branding for Authors. Two of the authors personified the topic. Gail Carriger dresses like one of the steampunk heroines you might find in her books and noted that she’s had people recognize her from across the room to run up to get her autograph or just say how much they like her stuff. Chaz Kemp is a thin framed, well dressed fellow with a pink bowtie who writes gay fiction chapbooks. Actually they’re not really gay fiction, just humorous adventures which happen to feature characters who are gay. I bought his Paranormal Anxiety #2, Night of the Living Lettuce which featured carnivorous lettuce and included chapters such as Lettuce Out, Lettuce Prey, and Lettuce Romaine Calm, so you get the idea. I had already decided to live out my own personal brand. My business card features me wearing my black cowboy hat, and most people take one look at it and say, “Great hat.” So I resolved to wear my hat indoors as well as out. If nothing else, it covers my bald spot. I did sell a couple of books, but probably bought more than I sold.
The rest of the night was wasted because I was a little woozy. I had donated blood the day before (actually platelets and plasma) and figured I’d be fine. I had eaten breakfast at 5am, so I could leave on time and had eschewed snacks because it was Friday and I’m supposed to “fast” on Wednesdays and Fridays. “Fasting” for us lay Orthodox actually means abstaining from meat, fish, dairy products, and liquor and eating nothing between meals. Then there were a couple of panels I wanted to attend, so I had gone 12 hours without food by the time I got around to a dinner of coconut shrimp. (Yes, shrimp, oysters, and lobster are deemed ok by the Orthodox powers that be, just no butter on that lobster. Deal with it.)
Saturday I kept busy all day with panels about writing (while avoiding the ones that sounded too woke) and intervals in the Con Suite. I also found time for the dealers’ room and art show, not that there’s any room in my place even for all the art I already own, but I like to look. Had some good conversations, sold a few books, apparently due to my irresistible personal charm. 🙂 Had dinner with J. L. Doty’s better half at the restaurant/bar. We chatted at the bar while J. L. was chatting with someone on the other side of the couple. She’s a professional artist and regaled me with stories about the amazing ups and typical downs of an art seller’s career. She talked me into signing up for LosCon in L.A. in a few weeks. I had been on the fence about going to that one, but, as my best friend pointed out, it’s what I do now. At my age what do I have to lose? I also enjoyed an hour or two of filking and walked away with one CD.
All in all, it was a fun Con with lots of friendly people and blessedly free of politics. Just lots of folks sharing lots of interesting stories about our journeys through life. When I talked to the local Arizona fans, I talked up Son of SilverCon coming up next July in Las Vegas.
Musings of a Restless Mind 