On The Other Side Of The Table in San Dee

August 03

It’s a strange thing when, having spent your adolescence avidly reading an author’s books, you end up sitting in front of him at a panel. Not only that, but sitting in front of him because he had nowhere to sit and gallantly refused your chair. That’s me cooling my heels in front of Mike Carey (author of Lucifer, Crossing Midnight, The X-Men, Hellblazer, etc etc) while author Bill Willingham (of Fables and Jack of Fables) holds forth at the mike. The picture was taken in very low light with a flash, which is why we all look so...pink. (I’m additionally pink because it really should have been me standing rather than Mike Carey.) And that was the tenor of the whole weekend: sitting at tables with very talented people and wondering how on earth I got there and whether I shouldn’t try to sneak out the back before anyone noticed me. And it was great.

Here’s another, bigger pic of the whole Vertigo panel from the Flickr page of someone in the audience.

I didn’t get to meet Neil Gaiman, but through the uncanny networking ability of my professional better half MK Perker, I did get to see him speak. I got in line for Gaiman’s panel late, just as the security people were shooing people away and saying the hall was filled to capacity. Hearing this, MK immediately ran off, talked to two different people, took me by the arm, told me to shush when I asked him what was going on, presented me to the guy at the door and said “This is her” and then herded me inside. I never asked for the finer details.

In closing and on a totally different note, if you want some good extracurricular reading, check out writer Josh Dysart’s articulate, insightful journal , which he kept during a trip to Uganda for his upcoming project The Unknown Soldier. It’s very well-observed.