Kage Baker loved science fiction conventions.

She only went to them when we could drive there in a day, or she was the Guest of Honour – because she hated flying, waiting in line for flying, paying for flying, landing while flying, worrying about landing while flying … just about anything to do with flying except maybe sitting in a seat and drinking rum and Coke. Had someone ever managed to offer her a way to travel by other means – suborbital shuttles, teleporting, drugged insensible in a crate – she’d have travelled a lot more.

She even turned down trips to both Britain and Australia when she realized she’d likely come to pieces somewhere over a major ocean.

Thus, her very favourite conventions were in Los Angeles. The 2006 WorldCon and Hugo Awards was held in Anaheim, California, for example – Kage went and had a ball. We spent all our time cheering for friends, drinking in the bar, meeting people in the bar, and dragging Kage’s poor heroic agent all over Disneyland. I think Linn thought going to Disneyland with a pair of 50-0dd year olds would be – you know, more sedate. Nope. We were natives and we went nuts; until the poor woman collapsed from being a New Yorker and we had to take her back to the Con hotel.

Next best were conventions anywhere in California, all of which qualify as “reachable in a day”. At least, if you’re driving with me and Kage.  Even sufficiently adjacent states qualify – I can, for example, make it to Portland in 14 hours, and that fits in a day. Seattle takes an overnight stay somewhere, but it still works. Nevada is a dawdle; Arizona is a pain but not because of distance – it’s like Mars in need of an air conditioner, not really human-habitable. Colorado would be a piece of cake if most of its conventions were not held a mile straight up in the air …  but technically, it’s doable.

Kage’s favourite Con, though, was BayCon. It’s held Memorial Day weekend in the San Francisco Bay area – although, not in San Francisco, because there is no parking there at all and all habitation costs a freaking fortune. I love San Francisco, but I try not to ever have to sleep or park there … BayCon is usually somewhere around San Jose and Santa Clara.

This year, it’s near the San Francisco Airport, in the Marriott Hotel in San Mateo; May 27th through May 30th. It’s the first year at that hotel – we’ve been at the Convention Center Hyatt Regency for some years prior to this. However, it does get a little weird sharing the facilities with conventions of cheerleaders and missionaries (no kidding) and so this year, they have moved.

It’s also pretty much my favourite Convention. I know most of the folks who run it, and the folks who attend, and growing numbers of the writers and artists who show up. A lot of the folks involved also do Renaissance Faires, and the Dickens Fair in San  Francisco: they are my own people! They loved Kage Baker, and all of them know and seem to like me: they are certainly supportive of my ongoing project to keep Kage’s work going.  And so I get to mingle with friends, and swan about, and spend a few days in air-conditioned insanity with many of the people I love best in the world.

As per my custom, I shall be sending dispatches from the Con throughout my stay. It’s such a feast and festival of enthusiastic weirdness, I am compelled to document the wonderful things I encounter. If any of you, Dear Readers, live in the area, please do consider coming: the URL is http://baycon.org/bcwp/.  The theme this year is “All About Space”, and Programming has given me some wonderful-looking topics. My personal schedule of panels  will be posted at the end of this blog, in case anyone wants to come and make rude noises at me.

When I’m not in a panel, I am usually in the lobby or the bar or that portion of the lobby that is the bar, knitting and people-watching.  If you are some of the people I watch, I shall be delighted.

In the meantime, it’s back to working on corrections for Knight & Dei. Kage always said, do not develop weird or eccentric habits as a writer – you’ll only have to edit them out of the finished product, and there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Sadly, I did not listen, and never did break the habit of English spelling. It’s how I learned to spell as a child. I was (and am) a wretched speller, so I took my script from the multitude of wonderful English children’s books I read. And now, I have to edit all that out of the 400-odd page manuscript my patient agents are reading …

After all, I don’t want that hanging over my head when I’m partying at BayCon.

BayCon 2016 – My Panel Schedule