The Fly in my Soup is Crying: NEEDS MORE COWBELL!

I thought I'd better jot down this blog while it is reasonably fresh in my mind. Camp Necon was last weekend. We had a great time as always. The title of my blog is in reference to Cortney Skinner's spot-on impersonation of Christopher Walken during this years talent show.

Cortney Skinner

This was the 30th anniversary and the campus was rocking. There were two mystery guests this time around. I think everyone had an interesting time trying to guess who they might be (it would be fun if this turned into a yearly event). As it turned out the mystery guests were none other than literary greats Brian Keene and Joe Hill. Of course it must be noted that all the writers at Necon are either current or future literary greats.

I have not read Joe's work yet, but I now have an autographed copy of Heart Shaped Box to start with.

Brian Keene, Mary SanGiovanni, and Joe Hill

Poetry extraordinaire Linda Addison was in attendance. I have to give her a nod for introducing us to St. Germain Elderflower liqueur. We brought a bottle of this potent nectar and had great fun in sharing it. We plan on bringing a bottle with us next year in addition to some other interesting spirits. It is after all a horror writers convention.

Jill Bauman, Linda Addison, and Becky.

During a round table discussion at the gazebo in the quad Rick Hautala posed the question to everyone "Who would you drive 500 miles to meet?". The answers included such greats as Ray Bradbury, Rachel Maddow, Angela Lansbury (Becky's answer) and guitarist Steve Howe.

I was preoccupied taking pics with the old Sony so I did not give an answer that night, but here it is now. Necon as a whole is my response to the question. Since 2005 I've been driving over 500 miles to meet some of the greatest folks in the world. I'm constantly learning new things at Necon, I continuously meet new and fascinating people at Necon, and getting to the nitty gritty of things, I get paying jobs at Necon. And while I'm projecting (hopefully) the appearance of a professional artist, inside I'm the biggest geek fan of all these extraordinary people. I know this might sound sappy, but it is true.

Now to a bit of Necon news I've been sitting on for a year. I now have something in common with such artistic greats as Omar Rayyan, Cortney Skinner, Alan Clark, Jill Bauman, Mike Mignola, and Richard Sardinha to name a few. In 2011 I will be the Artist Guest of Honor for Necon 31. All I can say is wow. Well, that is all I can say at the moment. But really, WOW!