Earlier this month, it was my pleasure to once again attend the World Fantasy Convention in Saratoga Springs, NY, which was held Nov 1 to 5th, and was, due to the World Science Fiction Convention being overseas this year and the proximity of NYC, the largest World Fantasy ever at membership capped at over 1,140 people. As always, this -- my favorite convention every year -- was a truly fantastic experience, pun intended.

The core of my time was hanging with old friends Chris Roberson, his wife and business partner Allison Baker, frequent Pyr cover illustrator John Picacio, Infoquake author David Louis Edelman, and other friends old and new. It was also wonderful to catch up with Pyr authors Charles Coleman Finlay, there with his lovely new wife, and Alan Dean Foster, who I don't see enough of but relish our talks when I do. Also caught up with Scott Lynch, who had some nice things to say about our current fantasy series from Joe Abercrombie. And here I am having drinks with Night Shade's best-dressed editor Jeremy Lassen, (photo courtesy of John Picacio).

Saturday I was on a panel on cover art moderated by the wonderful Irene Gallo, where we were joined by Tom Kidd, John Picacio, and Tachyon's Jacob Weisman. The room was packed and it was a large room. Irene usually sits in the audience in these panels, when she should be leading them. She moderated this one and did a fantastic job. Meanwhile, I am increasingly confident about my ability to say something meaningful on the topic as I get asked to speak about it more and more these days. Certainly, the more acknowledgement of and appreciation for the incredible illustrators who contribute so uniquely to our field is a good thing whoever's doing the talking.

I had an interesting talk with David Palumbo, also a very nice guy, a promising illustrator, and the son of Julie Bell and step-son of my childhood hero Boris Vallejo (who I also got to meet in the art show earlier). A here is a bit of synchronicity. Dan Dos Santos did the cover for our forthcoming reissue of Mike Resnick's Stalking the Unicorn. Palumbo modeled for him as the detective in the trench coat without knowing his dad did the original 1980s painting! How cool is that?

Here, pictured right, is our frequent copyeditor Deanna Hoak, nominated for a World Fantasy Award in the category of Special Award Professional, seen looking stunning with Doctor Who television scribe Paul Cornell, who lead the Deanna Hoak World Fantasy Awards Campaign.)

Sunday night was a final dinner with editor George Mann and publisher Marc Gascoigne of Solaris Books. As you may have heard, Pyr and Solaris have entering into a very exciting venture with the forthcoming summer 2008 simultaneous publication of David Louis Edelman's Infoquake in mass market from Solaris and sequel MultiReal in trade paperback from Pyr. (Here is David between his two editors, Yours Truly and George Mann.)

And that wraps up the convention highlights. For more detail, John Picacio has a convention report on his blog,and David Louis Edelman has one in three parts. And you can read my full convention report on my personal blog here.