Boskone 49 Recap
Just got back from BOSKONE 49, a great annual con on the Boston waterfront, in my old hometown. It’s a great local con, featuring tons of local writers, editors, and artists, and many of my favorite out of town people.
This year my time was spent catching up with old friend and attending panels, many of which featured my fantastic wife and Penguin editor Jordan Hamessley. Jordan weighed in on such topics as the future of Young Adult literature, political undertones in horror fiction, and how scary is too scary. On one panel she said that her goal is to “bring horror to the children,” citing Goosebumps and Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark as some of her inspiration. The new middle grade series Gustav Gloom and the People Taker, written by Adam-Troy Castro and edited by Jordan, is a great example of where Jordan wants to take horror for kids — check it out!
I also got to hear a reading from my old Clarion roommate Kenneth Schneyer. He read “The Age of Three Stars,” the featured story this week on Daily Science Fiction. This great story is not to be missed. Also, John Joseph Adams did a reading from his latest anthology, Under the Moons of Mars.
The thing on everyone’s mind at the convention this year was awards. The Stoker nominees were announced on Saturday, and the Nebulas were announced Monday. It’s hard to believe how many of these people I actually know. Three stories from John Joseph Adams’s spec fic magazine Lightspeed received Nebula nominations, and friend Genevieve Valentine (also a Boskone attendee) received a Nebula nomination for her novel Mechanique: A Tale of the Circus Tresaulti. Adam-Troy Castro, author of Gustav Gloom, received two Nebula nominations and one Stoker nomination. Madness!
You have to check out Boskone next year. It’s the 50th anniversary, and it is guaranteed to be a great time.
