I got back late last night from Babel Con in Baton Rouge, which is about an hour and a half drive for me. It’s a one day con and I had a lot of fun, though I was very tired by the end of the day. I was on two panels. The first one was me speaking on Alien Evolution. I had a very good turnout. There wasn’t a single empty chair in the room and a couple of folks were standing. I forgot to count the chairs but it was around 25 or 30. I thought it went well and several people congratulated me later on it or wanted to ask more questions about what I talked about. It was a good audience and they really got into the audience participation parts.
The second panel was myself and two other poets, but we had a bad time slot (opposite the cocktail party with the stars and the showing of the Rocky Horror Picture show) and we only had a few folks. Still we had some fun discussion among ourselves and with the few attendees. As I joked with the other panelists, though, this is what we’re up against with trying to support and grow genre poetry—a lot of apathy on the part of the mainstream SF/Fantasy/Horror community.
The other poets were J. Bruce Fuller and Robin Mayhall. J is the editor of The Shantytown Anomaly, and a fine poet in his own right. He’s a rising star in the SciFaiku movement in genre poetry. Robin has also been working in SciFaiku, and is currently a poetry editor for the online journal Breath & Shadow. (Thanks also to Dixie and Steve for coming to our panel.)
Other than panels, I hung out with a lot of folks I knew and met quite a few that I didn’t. I bought a book from M. B. Weston called A Prophecy Forgotten, which is her first book but which looks to be pretty good. She was certainly an energetic speaker. I hung out with Bret Funk, the editor of The Illuminata, the online newsletter for which I write a column. I got a signed photo from Lesley Aletter, who is a stunt woman in Hollywood. She doubled for Sigourney Weaver in the last Alien movie, and has been in many other movies besides, including The Devil’s Rejects.
Most enjoyable for me, I got a signed photo by Lee Meriwether, who played Catwoman in the original Batman TV series, and who also played many other roles in TV and film. My favorite role by her was as Losira in the Star Trek episode “That Which Survives.” This is the still picture I got and she signed it to me with “I am for you, Charles,” which if you are any kind of Star Trek Geek like me you’ll know was her basic “catchphrase” in that show.
All in all, a good time was had by all. But I’m a little relieved to be back at the Hermitage with my signings and appearances over for the moment. Today I’m decking it.
