Dispatches From StokerCon 2023
A view of downtown Pittsburgh from Mount Washington
Pittsburgh lies at the junction of four rivers: the Ohio, the Monongahela, the Allegheny and a subterranean river known simply as The Fountain. It is also home to George Romero, the filmmaker who brought the zombie into the modern world with the 1968 film Night Of The Living Dead.
Is it any wonder that the Horror Writers Association chose to have their annual conference here? All that spooky energy made the Iron City the perfect place for StokerCon.
My reading group (from left): Jeremiah Dylan Cook, Rami Ungar, Gabino Iglesias and me
This was my debut as a published author. I attended the conference a few times in the past but always as a spectator. This time, I was actively involved. I did a reading of Darkness Below with a group of talented artists, which included Gabino Iglesias, whose book The Devil Takes You Home went on to win the Stoker (the horror equivalent of the Academy Award) for best novel of the year.
I also participated on a panel “Evolutions In Cosmic Horror” and fielded questions about the genre. To say I was stoked (pun intended) was an understatement, as you can see in my “restrained” picture with the other panelists and the moderator (to my right), Maxwell Ian Gold.
But what makes this conference so special is meeting all the people whose work I admire. Most of the people on my bookshelf-Owl Goingback, Eric LaRocca, Alma Katsu, Phil Fracassi, John Langan, EV Knight, Paul Tremblay, Ellen Datlow, Lee Murray-I met in person. All you needed to do was wander the lobby of the Sheraton Hotel with a glass of wine and great conversations happened. That is what I love about horror writers. Despite the often grim subject matter, we are an incredible enthusiastic and friendly bunch.
We also have a sense of humor. You need one when your conference coincided with Taylor Swift’s two sold-out concerts and a couple of summer weddings. It was fascinating watching the different groups eye each other up in the lobby. But like the three rivers that converge at Pittsburgh, we managed to blend without too many problems (though someone did crash a wedding thinking it was a book launch event).
Some of the highlights for me:
-Meeting Owl Goingback and hearing about Swift Runner, a 19th century Cree Indian who killed and ate his extended family, all while claiming to be possessed by a supernatural creature known as a Wendigo
-Late night drinks in the hotel bar with authors Phil Fracassi, splatterpunk legend Doug Keene, CC Adams and Ronald Malfi
-Meeting John Langan, author of The Fisherman, an amazing book about a doomed community and a haunted river in upstate New York
-The panels that covered everything from the rise of sporror (horror about mutant fungus and mycelium networks), cannibalism, cryptids, and liminal space & anomalous architecture
Don’t trust this dog…
-The Final Frame competition, which featured a series of short films including The Queue, about a man forced to watch horrible things as an on-line content moderator, and Eric, the tale of an adorable but deadly Pomeranian
-Showing (and selling) my books to other authors in the Dealer’s Room. I managed to sell three out of the five copies of Darkness Below I brought with me. Not bad!
And the biggest thrill of all? The announcement that next year’s StokerCon will be in San Diego, my old stomping grounds. I’ve already bought my tickets...
Books Mentioned In This Blog
