I'm home and recovering from ThrillerFest. I had a great time, and thought the conference was very good, but it was a long weekend. I'm not complaining, though, as it's nice to spend some time with grownups for a change.
I spoke to scores of interesting people, including writers, publishing people and fans, which is the reason to go to these things. The panels are fine, but what goes on the corridors, bars and restaurants is what I'm really interested in.
I'll only drop one name from the weekend: James Patterson. I didn't talk to him, though, so it's not much of a namedrop. We were at a cocktail party and I was going to go say hi (we were on a panel together at BEA last year), but by the time I got around to doing it, he was gone. At the same party, I did talk to Jeffrey Trachtenberg (who writes about publishing for the Wall Street Journal) and he was a nice, interesting guy.
I have to say that I thought the panel I was on was fascinating. (And not just because I was on it, as I didn't even talk that much.) It was the only industry-oriented panel of the conference, so there was great turnout and a lot of interest from the attendees. I enjoyed it a lot just sitting up there listening to the other panelists, and the folks in the audience seemed to as well. We could easily have kept going for another hour or two.
The only part of the weekend that I didn't enjoy was the banquet. That's 6 months of my life I'll never get back.
Obviously attending conferences like this can be expensive, but I still think they're an invaluable experience for authors, aspiring writers and superfans. There's just no other way to see so many of the people from our industry together in one place.
(Not many details, I know, but if anyone has any questions, I'll try to answer them.)
