Context always ends too soon. Three amazing days of panels, readings, special events, and networking — and suddenly it’s over for another year. Alas!
I’ve been attending since 2007, and in that time Context has become one of my favorite regional SF cons. It’s a small affair with big ambitions, and it always manages to attract some of the top names in the field (this year’s GoHs included Jonathan Maberry and Betsy Mitchell) as well as a healthy contingent of readers, fans, and aspiring writers.
It’s been said that the people make a great convention . . . and that certainly applies to Context.
My first event was a panel on MFA writing programs where I expected to be joined by my good friends Lucy A. Snyder and Tim Waggoner.
Upon arriving, I learned that Tim couldn’t make the panel, so Lucy and I convinced Chris Phillips, one of our Seton Hill MFA students (who also happens to be managing editor of Flash Fiction Online), to take his place. It was Chris’s first panel, and he proved to be a knowledgeable conversationalist. It was good having him onboard.
Other highlights included a live podcast of Gregory Hall’s The Funky Werepig Show, where I joined guests Maurice Broaddus, Michael West, Matt Betts, Gerry Gordon, and others talking about writing, publishing, and pork donuts (not necessarily in that order). An archive edition of the podcast will soon be available at the TMV Cafe. Watch this blog for a link as soon as one is available.
I also got the change to join some amazing storytellers at The Beatnik Cafe, where the event’s host Gery L. Deer awarded me with a button that made me an honorary member of The Western Ohio Writers Association — a button that I wore with pride for the rest of the convention.
I understand that WOWA holds readings all over the Western Ohio area. If you ever get a chance to catch one of them, be sure to do so.
My final event was performing some songs at a party hosted by R. Scott McCoy and Stygian Publications. The highlight of the event was backing up Gregory Hall in a resounding vocal performance of “Tequila.” He assured me before we started that he knew all the words, and he did.
The next morning, it was all over. Or so I thought. I walked to my car, preparing for a lonely drive back home, and there — resting on my windshield — was an autographed photo of the Funky Werepig himself. The inscription read: “You are my very best friend, Greg Hall.” I took that baby off my windshield, put it in the passenger seat, and sang “Tequila” all the way.
Yeah — you can take the scop out of Context, but you can’t take Context out of the scop.
Until next time . . . scop on!
Photos:
The Context 27 logo.
Gregory Hall interviews Maurice Broaddus on The Funky Werepig Show.
The only credentials a man needs.
The 21st-Century Scop at the Stygian Publications party.
A one-of-a-kind autographed portrait of The Funky Werepig.
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