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Day 25 of the Tour

12:00 PM – Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, Mysterious Galaxy Signing!

2:00 PM – Panel Discussion Los Angeles Times Festival of Books “Writing the Fantastic”

The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books was big. I was told later that there were 70,000 people there on this one day. It takes place on the entire UCLA campus, as far as I can tell, which is so spread out that they have to have drivers with little golf carts to get you around. Our driver, and everyone else we asked, didn’t know where the Mysterious Galaxy booth was, which was unfortunate because I was supposed to be there. We ended up wandering through the cluster of little white tents, searching for one number, and it never seemed to be the number we were looking for. And of course I was worrying about being late and keeping people waiting, which I hate to do.

With great relief, we found it and Mysterious Galaxy had everything set up nicely. The only problem was that I but had one hour in which to sign and there were a lot more than an hour’s worth of people waiting. It’s usually my policy to stay until the last book is done, but it’s the Book Festival’s policy to get authors to their panels a little early. So someone got the bad job of cutting the line off, and telling people I had to go. My deepest apologies to anyone who didn’t get their book signed.

So then were led bravely off by Beatrice through a crowd so thick we almost needed ropes to make sure we weren’t separated, only to find ourselves at a celebrity-and-press filled party tent where everyone was mingling and being famous. Being hypoglycemic, we were mostly interested in eating lunch and the food was lovely and we got to say hi to a few people we knew. But I would have preferred to spend that half hour finishing up at my signing.

Then it was time to meet my fellow panel members, Terry Brooks, Harry Turltedove, and Greg Bear. I hadn’t seen Terry Brooks in about three years, at the Chicago Windycon.We had a nice talk then, and he’d given me the benefit of his sage advice, and it was just as good to see him this time. It had been more like five years since I last saw Harry Turtledove. He was nice enough to say, that I’d come a long way in a short time. (How cool is it to have people you’ve admired for years say nice things about you?) I’d never met Greg Bear in person, though we had spoken on the phone. He is just as nice a person as you’d think. The fact that he is also a giant in the field of Science Fiction is just gravy.

I think the idea of us meeting beforehand was so that we could figure out what to discuss on the panel, and how to handle the logistics. For most any other type of writer, this is probably a very good idea. But what most people outside the Science Fiction and Fantasy community don’t realize is that from the time we publish our first piece of fiction, we have the opportunity to spend our formative years honing our skills on panels at various conventions. Sure, there are mystery and romance conventions, but not nearly as many. I think there is actually an SF or Fantasy convention every weekend in the year. So if there’s one thing we have, it’s experience.

Terry said he had some questions to ask us. We said, okay, and we were good to go. We used the extra time to chat and catch up.

And I hope the panel was as interesting and fun to watch as it was to be on. For me, it was really cool. I’m even going to buy the tape.

Unfortunately, I didn’t know about the signing schedule for after the panel. I didn’t have my ice or my special pens or the things I need to prop my arm on. So of course I tried to sign anyway and of course I ended up making my tendonitis worse and having to stop before everyone got their books signed. Once again, I apologize.

And here is how I am going to make it up to you: For those of you who waited on line but couldn’t get their books signed at the LA Book Fair , this is how I am going to make it up to you:..” Right now, it looks like an open invitation for *anyone* to send in their books and get them signed, not just the people who got cut off on line or who were at the signing after the panel when Laurell didn’t have her ice and had to stop.