Undead Backbrain

Here are some pictures of the Backbrain with various luminaries at the 2007 World Fantasy Convention (and afterwards). The pictures were (mostly) taken by Cat Sparks, of course.

The Aussie Panel — which was on the topic “Ghosts and Revenants Down Under: Is There an Australian Aesthetic?” — featured (from left) Robert Hood, Deb Biancotti, Jack Dann, Kaaron Warren and Garth Nix.

With Peter Straub in the bar…

Moments after Cat took the previous pic with Peter Straub, Kim Newman innocently wandered by so I grabbed him and made him have his picture taken. Before I could talk to him much, however, a crowd of other vultures descended and whisked him away.

With Jay Lake. I talked to Jay in various places over the weekend, but this pic was taken at the “Aussie authors and friends” reception that took place at the Australian Consulate in NYC before the Con began.

With Aussie publisher Alisa Krasnostein and US fantasy author David Coe. I first got to know David when he and his family were living a few suburbs north of us on the sunny Illawarra coast in Australia. It was great to be able to catch up with him again, on his home soil this time.

Discussing giant monsters with Nick Kaufman at the Orbit party.

Stephen Jones. OK, so I’m not in this one. But it was the first time I’d met Stephen. I was sitting with Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois during the mass signing, my name card dutifully unrecognised in front of me, when Stephen came up and introduced himself. He had published one of my stories once (”Nasty Little Habits” in Dark Voices 3, 1991) and remembered. A nice surprise.

With Kaaron Warren (whose excellent new collection The Glass Woman first made its appearance at the con), Alisa and Cat Sparks, editor and writer extraordinaire.

We next pinned Kim Newman down at the Award Banquet. Again, however, his attention was soon taken by others. It wasn’t until we serendipitously stumbled upon him buying DVDs in the Virgin Megastore in Times Square that we got to talk… brought together by a mutual obsession.

Me and New York: a shot taken from not-quite-at-the-top of the Empire State Building. It confirmed one thing: NYC is VERY BIG.

After WFC, in London now, we had lunch with Pat Cadigan and her husband Chris. After that, our encounters became a lot more familial. Then we flew home.

We returned from attending the 2007 World Fantasy Convention in Saratoga Springs NY on Sunday — via London — and it’s taken a few days to recover from all that chaotic shuffling between zones, dodging temporal glitches, being swallowed by daylight saving sinkholes, and generally feeling as though I’d been removed from the time-space continuum for an indefinite period then shoved back in again once jetlag had fried my brain.

I plan to write little about WFC itself — plenty of others have done that — but should say that it was great to be part of the vociferous Aussie contingent as organised by Garth Nix, Jonathan Strahan, Trevor Stafford and Deb Biancotti and to meet assorted luminaries of the field: publishers, editors, agents and writers. I got to know a few people better, missed talking to some I’d wanted to talk to, ate, drank, bought books and DVDs, made some useful contacts and set up one or two possibilities.

One thing I have to write about is our involvement in a Duran Duran concert on Broadway, fulfilling one of my partner Cat Sparks’ dreams. Later.

Another is to mention the most bizarre event of the trip. Picture the scene: Cat Sparks, Alisa Krasnostein and myself in New York, looking for somewhere to eat. I’ve been on a wheat-free diet, so it hasn’t been easy. “I’d like some decent sushi!” I declare. Cat says, “Well, I want a pizza.” As for Alisa, she rather fancies something kosher. “What we need,” says Cat, jokingly, “is a Jewish pizza and sushi restaurant.” Not very likely. Yet… I kid you not … less than a block further on we stumble across something called Jerusalem 2 Pizza. There’s a big sign in the window: FRESH SUSHI NOW AVAILABLE. We go in. Sure enough, it’s a kosher pizza joint with a new sushi bar area at the back.

Only in New York! Cat began to wonder if it was some sort of sign from God, telling her to convert to Judaism.

After that, we went to the Virgin Megastore in Times Square. Now, WFC was over and much to my regret I hadn’t been able to really chat with guest Kim Newman. Every time I tried we were interrupted by someone and in the end it just didn’t happen much beyond “Hi! Love your work!”

So I load up with horror DVDs and am looking for somewhere to pay for them, when who do we run into but … Kim Newman, also loaded up with DVDs. So we got to chat after all.