“Things sometimes get transcendent bad, purple prose can transform into ultra violet.”
That was one of the more fascinating observations during a well attended Saturday morning panel on Description in Fiction that I moderated at Orycon, the annual science fiction/fantasy convention in Portland, Oregon. In fact, it could be the line of the con.
An hour later it was another panel, on the Limitations of Magic, before a very interested audience. I wish I could remember what it was that I said that brought the house down. There is enough ham in me to appreciate that kind of reaction, but there were a lot of good discussion by several good panelists and I don’t have a photographic memory.
The panel explored the concept of a “periodic table of magic.” I like that. It has possibilities that I am likely to muse on in further essays, and use in my own writing.
I went from that to the autographing session, where four of us sat forlornly behind a wall of signage pointing to OTHER interesting things going on around there while we waited to talk to people and sign stuff. We got far less attention than a young and shapely and very half-naked woman who was having a body-painting job done on a platform nearby.
The book autographing scene reminded me of the delightful video ,”Signing in the Waldenbooks by Parnell Hall”. (Link at end, and worth looking at if you haven’t seen it.)
My reading session that followed was really well attended and people listened with rapt attention as I read an excerpt from “Random,” the first book in The Were Chronicles, now out in e-book form and soon to be out in print. I concluded with a sneak preview from “Wolf”, the second book in the series, coming out early next year.
One of the people at the reading said that “Random” sounded like a lovely book for his book group to tackle. I handed out little sample excerpt brochures to people who went away happy. At least one person collared me in the corridor later to tell me that they’d just gone and bought a “Random” ebook, right there and then.
Tired, now. But energized, as always with cons. These things can be amazing elixirs for the soul.
I have a to-do list as long as my arm for when I get home. And the end of the year is hurtling down upon me with unseemly speed.
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Parnell Hall book signing video
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Quote of the day
“The limits of my language are the limits of my world.” – Ludwig Wittgenstein
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Alma Alexander
My books
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