Armadillocon 44 Day 1 and Day 2

The 2022 convention was almost back to pre-Covid glory. The first night and the second day and night were productive for us. Different from our previous attendance, Laurel and I did not split up for separate break-outs because fewer options were offered. 

 

Program cover by
Lauren Raye Show
with Sara Felix 

We both enjoyed the welcoming session (technically three hours into the con). Master-of-ceremonies Cass Morris stole the show, and the guests of honor—Darcie Little Badger, Ellen Kleges, Lauren Raye Snow, and Fonda Lee—were extroverted and engaging. You do not always get that with writers. (Snow was the Guest Artist.)

We spent an hour chatting with convention panelist Kurt Baty and his friends. Kurt and I met in 2012 in another context and it was Kurt who finally talked me in to going to Armadillocon 39. He is one of the long engaged fans and has been the Fan Guest of Honor. My impression of science fiction conventions was informed by two trekker cons. Kurt kept insisting that this convention is for writers, artists, and publishers and he was right. 

 

Laurel and I then attended “Fighting and F*cking: Writing Action Scenes of All Kinds.” For us, Armadillocon provides insights into the creation and production of literature, both books and cinema. Laurel’s genre is mystery; mine is science fiction. She is an avid fan; I am not. We got some general pointers for carrying action. Talking this out on the way home, we agreed that not every conflict of values is resolved with a fist fight. Also, their theories of sexual enounter were somewhat lacking given that the many aliens of science fiction and fantasy could include fertilization requiring five different participants, one of them non-sentient. Just sayin’… all they came up with was two people (humans) fighting or fucking, with more pointers for the combat than the love, to say nothing of how the one can become the other, as with Mr. & Mrs. Smith.

Guests of Honor receive tiaras.

Day 2 started late because our cat, Sunny, had a veterinary appointment. I spent the first hour in the dealer’s room. As important as the break-outs are, the dealers pay for the show and many of them are publishers or self-publishing authors. 

 

Ryan C. Bradley – Author of Saint’s Blood. For promoting his book, he bought pens that look like syringes with blood. They only cost 66 cents each on Amazon. He said that this book took five years to write and was inspired by his great uncle, Saint Rafael Guízar y Valencia, who was canonized in 2006. 

 

Kristina Downs, Ph. D. – representing the Texas Folklore Society which is now at Tarleton State University. Founded in Austin in 1909, they moved to Nagodoches in 1971 before adopting their new home in 2020. The good professor told me that folklore has no boundaries. It can be stories, music, crafts, or cooking; and it takes no special training to participate. Folklore includes the family saga: how they came to Texas. 

 

John Baltisberger of Madness Heart Press has 65 books in print and is looking to cut down on that. However, he is not abandoning his author Susan Snyder, a marine biologist who wrote the Encyclopedia Sharkploitanica and other books about all things shark.

Snyder, Downs, Baltisberger, and Snyder

Gretchen Rix and Roxanne Rix – author Gretchen and publisher Roxanne do business as Rix Café Texican. They sell their books through Amazon, contracting the cover art from Streetlight Graphics (https://www.streetlightgraphics.com) They have over 20 titles across several genres.

Allan Kaster – editor and publisher was someone I recognized from a previous convention when he was selling off the last of his books-on-tape audio cassettes. (He has been in business a long time.) 

 

J. Darrell Mitchell – was selling a book to Laurel when I approached. I remembered him, also, because he autographs his books with a very nice drawing of a bug of your choice. I got a scorpion a couple of years ago and Laurel got a firefly for her purchase. 

Rix, Kaster, Jacobs and Mitchell. Freddie Jacobs who was holding the fort
for his father, John Hormor Jacobs,
who was at one of the many panels he served on. 

Armadillocon 42 (2020) was cancelled for Covid-19. We attended Armadillocon 43 last year, 15-17 October, 2021, but I did not write it up. Recovering from Covid-19, the convention was much downsized and the presentations were less than stellar. Reviewing the schedule now, the only two that I remember were “25 Things You Didn't Know About James Bond” by Alan J. Porter on the first night and “Creating Realistic Medicine in SF/F” by Jen Finelli, MD on the last day. Even that as published (follow menu options from https://armadillocon.org/d43/) was different from my memory because I remember a different person speaking with great emotion about her recent experience as a combat medic. 

 

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

 

Armadillocon 39

Armadillocon 40 Part 2 

Armadillocon 41 

Armadillocon 41 Day 3: Dealers Make the Show