ArmadilloCon 48 (Part 2): The Dealers Room

This was my seventh ArmadilloCon and the second time that I got a table in the dealers room. I have had tables at other kinds of conventions because it gives me a place that brings people to me. I did not have a table at the Trekker con in Michigan where I met Armin Shimerman, Quark on ST:DS9. Years later, here in Austin, at a different local club, my friend, Kurt Baty, kept inviting me to ArmadilloCon. (He has been the Fan GoH.) I finally said that I had been to a Trekker con once and it was all right but not compelling. He replied, “Mike, no one is going to be there in a Starfleet uniform signing autographs. ArmadilloCon is a literary gathering for authors, artists, editors, and publishers.” So, I went. And I had a good time. That was 2017. 

This year, I published an anthology of flash science fiction, Austin 2078. I paid nine authors, and following two defaults, I became the tenth. The ebook is free to read at austin2078.blogspot.com and was my gift to FACT and ArmadilloCon. (Volume 2 will be different.) As part of their payment, each author received five copies of the chapbook. No other hard copies exist. Each book is numbered and stamped with my hallmark. Over three days, we signed all of the books. I did not spend three days in a Starfleet uniform (though I have two) but when Kurt came by the table, I begged him for this photo-op and he was gracious.  

I met Hugo, Nebula, Clarke, and Compton award winner Elizabeth Moon at the pre-convention dinner. She earned baccalaureates in history and biology and after that enlisted in the Marine Corps to be a computer specialist in 1968. I did not know her work. The loss has been mine; I have some catching up to do. You can find bios at Wikipedia and TV Tropes. Her own website, MoonScape, is not current. Her newest book, Horngard (Baen Books), will be out October 6. 

I overheard the League of Women Voters say that they registered 56 and then 63 new electors. 

Rice University’s Woodson Research Center holdings include the Center for the Impossible, The History of Aeronautics, the History of Science, Egyptology, Texana, and more. Rice was new this year. In the past, Texas A&M brought information about their special collections. Every library has them and they are where you find archives of comic books, political tracts, and other ephemera. 

With 145 line items on the schedule, the con started on Friday morning with the Writer’s Workshop, an all-day tuition seminar for nominal newbies hosted by a cadre of professionals. The first panels roll out early Friday evening and run through Sunday late afternoon. This year’s moderated discussions included: 

• “Fantastic Maps and Where to Find Them,” 
• “Shakespeare and Succession Drama,” 
• “We Keep Discovering Low-Budget Horror,” 
• “Main Character Syndrome,” 
• “Characters 201: Intermediate Characters,” 
• “The Red Line of Death: Where Editors Stop Reading,” 
• “Is there an ‘American’ Vampire Story,” 
• and the ever-popular “Space Tries to Kill You” moderated by NASA trainer and scifi writer, Bill Frank. 

Running in parallel with the panels are readings, interviews, and autographings with authors. This year’s Guests of Honor were Rudy Rucker and Bruce Sterling.

The Dealers Room is integral to the convention. 

In addition to all the books (and some handcrafts) for sale,
this is where writers sign autographs. 

Gretchen Rix and her titles.
Find her at Rix Cafe Texican, her nod to Rick's Cafe American.

As a creator of intellectual property, I am energized by ArmadilloCon. I write non-fiction: information system user manuals; policies, plans and procedures for state government agencies; business profiles; corporate blogs and white papers. Right now, I am writing instructions for the building of control panels for electrical power systems both solar and industrial. My goal is to bring the reader into a story. It must be easy to read, of course, but it also must be interesting. Sentence length varies. Amid the active voice imperatives of do-this-do-that, passive voice is found. 

I also enjoy the intellectual engagement even—sometimes especially—with people whose opinions on literature, art, science, and politics differ from mine. Mostly, I just soak in the ambiance. 

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

The Cultured Carrot at Wheatsville Co-op 

Daysmith Coffee 

Sunday at the Co-op 

At Oryana Co-op I took my Change in Bay Bucks 

Shannon Beer of Keller, Texas 

Sweet Deal: Epic Honey 

High Brew Cold Coffee 

Awesome Austin Foods at the Wheatsville Co-op

ArmadilloCon 48 (Part 1): 1000 Words

 

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ArmadilloCon 39 Arm   lloCo 0 rt 2 A         Day  1 rma.      and Day 2 Armad       n 4 Part 2          Con 4.   Da  ArmadilloC n 5   ma       dilloCon 47 Part 3

ArmadilloCon 50: 2028 (My Proposals)

This was my cover letter to the FACT Board:

Dear Fen:

Attached as a PDF are some ideas that I have for the 50th Anniversary ArmadilloCon in 2028. What actually gets done will likely be much different from these points of discussion and that is the reason why the planning should be begin as soon as possible. Here in Texas we are often “fixin’ to start”—not actually doing the thing but knowing that we need to get ready to. 

I have been going through our archives by editing the show URLs (schedule, speakers, etc.).

Just for instance:

https://armadillocon.org/d16/

https://armadillocon.org/d27/

https://armadillocon.org/d32/guests.shtml

https://armadillocon.org/d36/writers.shtml

Then, I found the Con History on the FACT website: 

https://fact.org/con-history/

The array of past guests of honor, attending authors, presenters, speakers, and events is astounding and has analogs with every other long-lived SF/F gathering within the galaxy of science fiction, fantasy, and alternative fiction. That all comes with a burden of responsibility to the future.

LLP,

Mike M.

This was the proposal that I submitted.

ArmadilloCon 50 in the Year 2028

Submitted to the FACT Board October 11, 2025, 

by Michael E. Marotta (uszik11@gmail.com; books78640@gmail.com)

FACT should form now a convention committee for ArmadilloCon 50. It will of necessity change over the next three years, as people come and go. Open discussions should start now. A website, discussion board, Substack, or whatever should be launched now to facilitate interest and stimulate enthusiasm, by encouraging suggestions. Put out a call to FACT members to volunteer for the 50th Anniversary Committee, perhaps limited to eight (if that many are interested.)

Convention Theme: 

The Psychohistorians. What are our future histories? It is easy to imagine many paths of development given some selected assumptions. However, Isaac Asimov’s conception of psychohistory was a science of applied mathematics. To be a science, a body of knowledge must be falsifiable, which means that it must offer predictions from outside its own establishment.

Convention Theme:

Frankenstein. Arguably not science fiction, the story does carry the program of The Other, whether from another planet or a parallel universe, whether a robot or a dragon, to ask, “What is human nature?” Perhaps quintessential to science fiction, Frankenstein is the story of an invention gone wrong. 

Convention Theme:

Alternate sciences. Allowing that even magick has rules, what are the frontiers of science (or sorcery) that can provide the set and setting for a story? 

Attendance Goal: 1000 registered at $100 each.

Panels and Tracks

Artist Track — We talk a lot about the craft of writing and the markets for publications but we seem to pretty much leave artists on their own. We do have plenty of artists around. Perhaps a track for them or a couple of panels for media and markets would add a dimension to the convention.

Copyrights and Copy Wrongs

I heard that one of the publishers of anthologies failed to actually register their copyrights for their authors and many works were taken without compensation. The USA joined the Berne Convention in 1985 and that treaty gives authors and other creatives their primary rights but those are only the right to sue after the fact. In the USA we still should register with the US Copyright Office. Unfortunately, that office is now closed. What can an author or artist do to protect their intellectual property ?

Social Consequences of Life Extension.

As we all live longer and ever longer, do we push out to seek those famous new frontiers or do we become more conservative, less willing to take risks, more distrustful of change?

TV and Film Writers You Need to Know.

Laurel and I watched an episode of Castle, about a mystery writer who insinuates himself into police investigations, a known trope in crime fiction. In this story, the non-real writer, Rick Castle, is playing poker with Stephen J. Cannell and James Paterson. I knew Cannell from The A-Team and Riptide, etc., but not Paterson. Laurel knew Paterson but not Cannell.

Convention Publication

ArmadilloCon 100. Austin in the Year 2078. Ten flash fiction stories of 1000 words each by ten invited authors from our GoH roster (or others). Offer $100 each and see who is interested. 

Panel Moderators and Other Guests of Honor

Send out a Request for Proposals, asking writers and others to submit their bids to be at ArmadilloCon 50. 

Ahead of ArmadilloCon 50, we could engage some new practices and have the wrinkles ironed out for the big show.

A message board. At computer security conferences here in Austin, OWASP often puts up a flipchart on a tripod where people can leave messages for each other. At ArmadilloCon 47, I worked the Registration desk and on Saturday morning, someone wanted to leave a message for another attendee and I made note of that and kept that half-sized sheet until Sunday afternoon. Cleaning up, I threw it out. Then the recipient arrived looking for a message. 

A tech station for printing, etc. The hotel typically has its own workstation for guests, but those are notoriously insecure. This year, the hotel workstation was down for remodeling. Jonathan ran out and bought a tablet, but the team could not get it up and running properly. 

Convention T-Shirts. We have had Pegasus Publishing as a dealer for several years. They can handle our T-shirt production and sales. Moreover, they could have been selling prior year t-shirts for which, as I understand from a chance comment overheard in the last hours of the show this year, we have no interest and no market and just give them away so as not to be bothered with the extra inventory. 

Convention Coffee Cups. Reach out and see if LG Ceramics is interested. I believe that if they had five (and only five) Convention cups at the next show, those would sell out and create the market for the cups of the following year. Otherwise, these things can be ordered dishwasher safe and microwave safe from many places.

Having received the proposal but not having a motion to act on, the chair agreed to put ArmadilloCon 50 2028 in the Old Business section of the Minutes for the November meeting. 

I sent another email to the FACT Board, and cc:ed some of the past convention workers who might be interested, such as the FlashFiction coordinator.

Convention Publication

ArmadilloCon 100. Austin in the Year 2078. Ten flash fiction stories of 1000 words each by ten invited authors from our GoH roster (or others). Offer $100 each and see who is interested.

I brought my checkbook to the Board meeting and I was prepared to pay for the writers for this Festschrift but we never got that far into the discussion of the 50th Anniversary Convention because we ran out of time.

EDIT IN: November 9. Yesterday, I took this proposal to the FACT Board. 

Last month, I submitted a proposal for ArmadilloCon 50 in 2028. In that was this item:

Convention Publication

ArmadilloCon 100. Austin in the Year 2078. Ten flash fiction stories of 1000 words each

by ten invited authors from our GoH roster (or others). Offer $100 each and see who is

interested.

Once again, I will bring my checkbook and I will give FACT the $1000 required now

only on the condition that I be the publisher. I also request that the Board choose an

Editor. The editor will choose the writers. I will write a Preface for it. Whether it is print,

ebook, etc., can be developed as the production advances. If FACT cannot find an editor

by the February Board meeting, I will reach out and find someone from within the Texas

SF/F community.

If the Board does not want to do this, I can do it on my own. I cannot use the names

ArmadilloCon or DilloCon, etc., etc., and I do not need to. I can call it Austin 2078.

I started in 1963 with lead type on a Chandler Press (https://

necessaryfacts.blogspot.com/2017/09/for-glory-of-old-lincoln-high.html). I last edited

"This Month in Astronomical History" for the American Astronomical Society for four

years (2020-2024)(https://had.aas.org/resources/astro-history).

This requires Board action and I am not a Board member. So, someone else must put

forward the item.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

LLP,

Mike M.

No motion was entered.  So, this morning, I started looking for writers. 

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

Whitman Publishing: Fact and Value in Numismatics

Getting Published: Advice to a New Author

From Texas to the Moon with John Leonard Riddell

For the Glory of Old Lincoln High

ArmadilloCon 47 - Part 3

However scholars argue the origins of science fiction, it cannot have preceded science. Although the word "science" as referring to some area of knowledge was used from the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance, it was only at the first meeting of the British Association of the Advancement of Science on June 24, 1833, that William Whewell answered a challenge from Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and spontaneously offered the word “scientist.” Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is often suggested as a science fiction story. However, for his "Introduction" to Hackett Publishing Co., Inc.'s 2020 republication of the 1818 manuscript, David Wooton cited Mary Shelley's feather pen as supporting evidence for the lack of science in the story.

Among the first panels on Friday night at ArmadilloCon 47 was "Speculative Geology" and among the last was "Space Tries to Kill You" chaired by NASA trainer Bill Frank. Between those two pillars the convention also provided a range of engagements for readers and writers of scifi, fantasy, horror, and other alternative genres. On that note, it has been said that scifi is the modern genre of fiction and what others call "mainstream fiction" is historical fiction set in the present. 

In Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution, Steven Levy drew a contrast between those on the East Coast and  those on the West. Centered on Boston, one group created the video game "Spacewar" whereas the hackers around San Francisco built J. R. R. Tolkien's world into Adventure programs that became Dungeons & Dragons. Today, fantasy, science fiction, horror, and gaming are all to be found at ArmadilloCon. 

This year the gaming was in Room 102 with four events. 

• Alta Curia - based on "12 Angry Men"
• Nicky Drayden's "Prosper with Dragons"
• Not Today, Murder
• Jess Nevin's "Fury of the Norsemen"

Previous ArmadilloCons have been gamier, among them

• https://www.armadillocon.org/d36/gaming.shtml 
• https://www.armadillocon.org/d29/gaming/index.htm
• https://www.fact.org/dillo/d20/gaming.html

In the ArmadilloCon Dealers Room,
the premiere convention in central Texas for
tabletop role-playing and board games. 
May 29-31, 2026
https://tabletop.events/conventions/chupacabracon-xii

I met Heidi Kasa while I was working the Registration Desk. The next day, she stopped by again to hand me her card. She said that she was here for the flash fiction. (Two events - Thunderdome at 9:00 PM on Friday and Space Squid at 1:00 PM Saturday.) 

The Bullet Takes Forever

On her website she writes:

The Bullet Takes Forever is a collection of poems facing “America’s culture of mass shootings.” The poems range from processing a mother's personal experiences with active shooter situations to philosophical, psychological, and linguistic explorations of gun violence. At turns yearning, vulnerable, and fierce, this collection resonates with readers who feel the effects of rising gun violence and the need for increased safety measures. Poems from this collection won the Plaza Prose Poetry 2024 Prize and the Poetry Super Highway 2023 Prize, and were also chosen as a finalist for the ESWA Crossroads Contest 2024. 

 

Nothing expresses your preferences in subcultures like a t-shirt. Unfortunately for the merchant, they are nearly non-perishable and surely non-consumable. I probably have 30 and if I wear a different one every day, how often will I bring a new one into the rotation? 

Pegasus Publishing travels to 35 shows a year.
I bought the design that he is wearing --
42: Life, Universe, Everything -- 
for Laurel.
https://pegasuspublishing.com/

I have three from Pegasus,: Don't Panic, a Periodic Table, and Book Wyrm. Book Wyrm is the best. Made in Haiti by Gildan, the material is heavy for a T-shirt, more like an athletic T. It is 100% cotton. The screen printing is bright and has proved durable. It wears well at the local public library. 

More books have resulted from somebody's need to write than from anybody's need to read. -- Ashleigh Brilliant.

Kurt and Michelle met in college playing
Dungeons & Dragons.
Kurt has served on the FACT Board
and been our Fan Guest of Honor.
He invited me to attend ArmadilloCon several times
before I understood the message.

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

From Texas to the Moon with John Leonard Riddell 

Star Trek "Discovery" and the Conflict of Values 

Star Trek (Not too Far) Beyond 

Firefly: Fact and Value Aboard Serenity