By Friday, March 24, 6pm, the Memphis Holiday Inn parking lot was full. We pulled into the drive as a woman in a white pick-up drove past, shaking her head and silently wishing us luck as we so naively began our hunt for the “spot”. After circling for 15 minutes, we ditched our hope. Dan dropped me off at the door, found a spot a hundred yards away, and walked to meet me. Chivalrous though it may sound, it was just as much the fact that I “didn’t want to know” what he had to do to get a  parking spot.

And we were off.  We immediately crossed paths with Bill Snodgrass, editor and publisher for The Sword Review, and his wife, Susan.  What a great couple!  At the registration table we met up with friends and acquaintances we hadn’t seen since last year (or before).  As the evening continued, it took on the flavor of a high school reunion with best friends.

Dan moderated a panel on “Working the Pitch”, with panelists David Blalock, Allan Gilbreath, Mitch Foust, Mark Fitzgerald, and Sean Preston. Among other things, they briefly workshopped pitches (how to sell your idea) from a couple volunteers, panelists shared some personal horror stories of how they had a chance to advance and blew it, and ideas were discussed how not to pitch.

Then it was my turn. At 11pm I joined writer panelists Allan Gilbreath, Selina Rosen, Lee Martindale and Bill Allen (with special guest appearance of Tom Smith) for the much-anticipated “SF Cusswords and Insults”. We had to be moved to a larger room to accommodate the gathered crowd. We discussed creative ways to cuss and insult—and the somewhat unanimous decision was made that just about anything can be an insult if you say it just right. I shared my own experiment. I created a familiar-sounding SF insult, translated it online into various languages, then translated it back to English. You can find my results here. Much laughter and downright silliness ensued, and we had a great time.

But we weren’t done yet! Hotel room parties were just beginning, and we had the privilege of joining Carlin and Renee Stuart with other MSSFFA members as they hosted the annual League of Superfluous Heroes party, complete with chocolate martinis. A terrific place to meet artist Loren and authors Elizabeth Donald and Travis Taylor, among others. And to eat chocolate. Dove chocolate, no less. Dark and milk chocolate. Did I mention the chocolate theme?

Saturday gave the kids a chance to play familiar tabletop games and to learn new ones. We continued to see dear friends and to visit panels of interest. For dinner, we joined Allan and Doris Gilbreath, who delighted our kids with family stories and animal tales from Allan’s experiences with wildlife rehab. Did you know raccoons know how to squirt a water hose? Neither did we!

Sunday had Dan providing a panel on “Web Design for the Non-Geek”, shared with Karen Zimmerman, webmaster for David Drake. In a drawing he gave away a one-year subscription to RocketTheme.com, and garnered enough audience to have the highest-attended panel in that room of the weekend. Good job, Dan and Karen!

My final panel was one of my favorites: “Dark and Stormy Night”, which I shared with Allan Gilbreath, Selina Rosen, Lee Martindale and Gloria Oliver. Moderator (and persistent guest) Cullen Johnson joined us as well. It works like this--attendees of the Con write out popular phrases from movies or other media, drop them in a box, and then the box is handed to the writer panelists. From this, we withdraw these unrelated phrases and weave a story, passed from writer to writer. We won’t be winning a Pulitzer Prize for what we came up with, but it sure was funny!

As always, the convention ended too soon (though the hotel staff may have thought not soon enough!). It was a good time of great friends, old and new. There were geeks and fans, masqueraders and artists, writers and filkers…all these and other dreamers from Memphis and beyond.

Now if we could only get more of them to carpool next year, so I could get one of those close parking spots!