That was a LOT. Let’s break it down into highlights.
Launch Party!
The Gods Awoke launched September 1, the first day I’d be at WorldCon, so rather than make any plans for an at-convention Book Launch Party, I publicly announced THE DAY BEFORE on Facebook and Twitter that I’d share a drink with anyone who could meet me in the hotel bar at 7pm.
Organizational genius.
It was a mess and hard to find anyone, much less me. I started out with a stranger at my table, and then A. T. Sayre showed up (yay) and then a gaggle of my friends! Which was great because the gaggle included Mary Turzillo and I got to see her reaction in real time when she read that I’d dedicated the book to her. 🙂 I then drank too much and ate an entire pizza I’d ordered to share with the table but no one wanted any. BURP. Success.
Girl Time with Ursula
My first goal was to meet up with people. I had errands to run and I brought tiny bottles of liquor to give out in lieu of sips from my flask.
I had two meet-ups marked on my calendar, apparently erroneously because no one was there and …. yeah, if you want a picture of my first two days at WorldCon, just imagine me darting back and forth from public area to public area, scanning every face and asking people “Do I know you?”
I was frantic and suspected my “meeting people” plan was BAD, when I finally ran into my dear old friend Ursula Whitcher, a cool mathematician, spec fic writer, and knitter. We had some great fun together! Ursula wasn’t comfortable being indoors much, and I wasn’t either, so we had long walks together, along the River Walk, where we had tacos and beer, and up to Navy Pier and the Ohio Street Beach, where we ate cupcakes with our toes in Lake Michigan.
Definite highlights!
I Am Famous Now
A fellow was sitting across from me on the patio in front of the hotel and leaned forward, squinting at my name badge. “You’re Marie Vibbert?” he gasped. “You’re really famous!”
Which is quite a nice thing to say, but also, everyone who knew me before Friday, September 2, 2022 — congratulations, you knew me before I was famous!
Let’s be real. I’m a D-lister. I’m not used to this, but I had two other interactions that were similar. One gentleman helped me shoo a bee off my dress on the first day, then came up to me later in the convention and shyly said, “You’re Marie Vibbert. You wrote Galactic Hellcats. I’m the guy who brushed a bee off your dress.”
AW! And the third incident — I was sitting at Gideon Marcus’ signing table — he’d asked me to be there to sign copies of Rediscovery, an anthology of early science fiction stories by women, which I’d written an essay in. A man came up and asked, rather formally, “Are you Marie Vibbert?” I said I was, and he nodded. “Will you be here for a while?” I said I would, and he ran off.
He came back with three anthologies I’ve been in for me to sign! I felt rather like famous!!
On the other side of things, at one point I saw Charlie Jane Anders … and she came toward me! “I love your outfit,” she said. “Oh, I’m Charlie Jane, by the way.”
And I wondered if, when you’re that iconic and famous it’s rare and wonderful to be unknown, so I bit back the “Hi I know! I met you twice in awkward fangirl ways!” and just said, “Thank you!”
Boogie Until the Break of Dawn or Else
Friday night, I had bad insomnia. I snuck out of my room to wander the hotel so I wouldn’t keep my roommate awake. I edited a chapter of Galactic Hellcats 2, listened to a chapter of an audio book, and completed the daily crossword.
When I slipped back into my room at 8am, my roommate, an old college friend, informed me he had a fever. He informed me of this while coughing heavily.
So I ran down to Con Servcies and got him a Covid test and resolved not to spend much time in the room anymore.
Saturday night was the dance party and I danced very hard, despite having a bad knee and a worse knee. I stayed until it was completely over and searched for after-parties. I walked the length of each party floor fruitlessly, and, feeling tired, returned to my own floor of the hotel to take a nap on the padded bench by the elevators, figuring I was less likely to be chased off as a vagrant in an area that required key-cards to get to.
The elevators were very noisy. Around four A. M. I gave up on that and wandered outdoors, where a small group was still hanging on and socializing! And they had bourbon! I joined them, and shortly fought off the advances of a very inebriated young man. (I honestly hope he got to bed okay. Really, worried older men who came to my rescue, it wasn’t traumatizing… largely because this boy was kitten-weak with drink.)
I then proceeded to drink WAY to much and woke up in a stranger’s room so … that was safe. (Massive eye-rolls at self. My decision-making while panicked is garbage.)
Upon waking, I snuck back into my room and took a shower. My sick roommate was not there. He came back as I was dressing and confirmed he was Covid positive, and had gone to the CVS and gotten a prescription his doctor had sent over and some snacks. He would be staying in the room and leaving early.
I quickly dressed and went to Con Operations for another Covid test.
When I got there, I had a panic attack. Where could I even take this test? It was raining hard outside. I didn’t dare take my mask off for a second in shared spaces, because I was convinced I was now a plague-carrier.
Fortunately, my dear friend Mike Substelny, who had driven me up to the convention, found me then, and after consulting his wife and a nurse friend, invited me to their room for taking my test, and after that, the rest of the convention.
(The test was negative. I took one every day for the rest of the con and every day since. Looks like I dodged a bullet, yay insomnia?)
Moderating While Hung Over
My first panels at WorldCon were a reading and Walking With The Stars, which isn’t a panel so much as an excuse to go on a stroll with lots of people. (Walking with the Stars was great fun and I ended up doing it three times, since they scheduled it twice a day, at 8:30am and 7pm.)
Anyway, point is, my two actual serious panels were both on Sunday, the day before which I chose to stay out all night, try to sleep on a bench, and get horrendously drunk. Well done, self.
First I had “How Hard Can it Be?” which was a panel about Hard Science Fiction and how it has changed over the years. Yeah, good thing it wasn’t a complex topic with lots of nuance that I’d have to be sharp-minded for!
Sob. Sob. Sob. Still, despite my constant, desperate urge for caffeine, I managed to stay upright through the panel, and I think it went well because 4-5 people came up to me after and asked for my business card, or bookmarks, or if my books were available in audio. (Really got to get on that!)
Then was “Women and Sport in SFF” which was a smaller crowd and a smaller panel, but I was the moderator! Good thing I prepared all of (checks notes) not at all.
Thanks largely to my excellent co-panelists, we had great fun talking about how sports can be an essential part of worldbuilding, of culture, and how problematic interactions between sports in US contemporary culture may have lead to their under-representation in SFF. (Ie, boy nerds are traumatized by expectation of interest in sports. Girl nerds are traumatized by expectation of NO interest in sports.)
The Great Oghenechovwe Chase
OK so I had two missions to carry out at WorldCon. One was picking up a bag of books for workshop-mate Charlie Oberndorf, which I accomplished easily, and the other was giving a package of stickers and pens from workshop-mate Joelle Presby to internationally-visiting author Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki and that mission … not so much.
He wasn’t at the con yet when I got there, so I asked him to tell me when he was and I watched socials closely. Then he arrived, and I couldn’t find him. I sent him messages of where I was, but we didn’t meet up.
Then I saw he had a signing at 10am on Saturday so I showed up bright and early to wait in line for the dealer room to open, but after ten minutes waiting, he wasn’t there. I circled the dealer room, and waited, and finally I said, “Well, he’ll come to the signing table eventually, I’ll leave the stuff there for him.” I made sure the people waiting in line for him saw me set them down and I messaged him that the stickers and pens were at his signing table.
Mistake. He never got the stuff, and when I circled back to check later that night, it was gone, someone walked off with it.
So then it became the great Search For Replacement Stickers. Con staff didn’t have any. Hotel staff didn’t have any. Gift shop, no. CVS, no. Target a mile away, no.
I ended up buying post-its because … I found those.
Then it was back to Operation Find Ekpeki. At this point, I was drunkenly crashing with strangers. Joelle was panicking and asking people online to find ME. so I started sending Ekpeki way too many updates of every place I was, and I arranged to sit in the hotel lobby for a while knitting, which was when he messaged back “Come to the Galaxy’s Edge Booth?” And lo, we finally got some signatures collected, on post-its.
When his new book comes out in November, Joelle and I will be library-pasting those signatures into copies, enabling people to get signed copies on this side of the world. WOOT.
The Substelny’s Save My Sanity
I mean … yeah. I ended the convention under the wings of Mike and Patty Substelny. We got a nice off-site dinner Sunday night and watched the Hugos in their room with an excellent bottle of local whisky.
Then we had a leisurely morning. I left the room to get tea and managed to run into Ursula, A. T. Sayer, Geoff and Mary again, allowing me to say farewell to all the most important people. I even ran into Oghenechovwe again. (Sure it’s easy once you’ve finished the mission!)
And … yeah. That’s most everything that happened. I gave out all 50 of the bookmarks I made to promote The Gods Awoke, I got to touch Neil Clarke’s Hugo, I averaged 16,000 steps a day and lost my streak on DuoLingo, but I didn’t catch Covid! Over-all, a huge success!
Next time in Cleveland! #Clevention2026 let’s make it a thing! 😀
