I'm back from Ravencon 2007. Back to reality that is, besides actually home. It was a great weekend. I was on staff as Ravencon's Publicity Director besides as a guest. I had a great time. We had more attendees this year than our first year in 2006. I saw many fantastic guests in writing, art, comics, costuming and science there. The guest of honor were all cool. Robert J. Sawyer was very, very nice, and I liked Steve Stiles. And of course, Wombat! I met him for the first time last year and he is one of the sweetest, nicest people you would ever meet. He was our Fan GOH this year.

There were some great costumes, including General Grevious from Star Wars: Episode III. This costume won best in show for the costume contest. If you see the photo I have here I'm in it as Captain Anne Bonny, along with crew members of the DMB Dragonstorm. See the three in front? Don't they look familiar, like from a certain popular pirate movie? That Orland Bloom lookalike is a dead ringer, even close up. It was so cool.

I did a signing and a koffee klatch at the con. But I also did three panels. One was Friday night and it was called 'Is Modern Horror the Illegitemate Stepchild of Poe, Shelley, Lovecraft and Stoker?'. Saturday was Is My Lover a Vampire...Or a Werewolf and I got to meet Jean Marie Ward who was also on the panel, who I knew from RWA's FFP Yahoo listgroup. Sunday I was on the Sex in SF, Fantasy and Horror. Even more exciting, I had some copies of Forbidden Love: Wicked Women sent to me at the hotel from Under the Moon and I sold some. Talking about Forbidden Love, I got to meet one of the artists from both isues, Veronica Ash. She did the artwork for my story, "Soul Seduction" in Forbidden Love: Bad Boys and for C. J. England's in Wicked Women. I write as Sapphire Phelan for "Soul Seduction" and the story, "Being a Predator is a Bitch" in Wicked Women.

Lots of neat stuff happened at Ravencon--workshops in writing, art and costuming. All were well attended. The costume contest was a hit. I even entered as non-competition in my Tuskan costume for it. The dealer's room was full and I suspect did well in sales. There were fan tables, with Geek Comedy 3000 (a guest- and they were funny in their shows Friday and Saturday nights), the 501st (Garrison Tyranus, the local garrison), SG-9 for Stargate SG-1 costuming group, artists, CJ Henderson and more. The panels were well attended and started at 3PM Friday and at 8AM on Saturday and Sunday, with none of them ending until midnight. We also had performances by Luna-C Saturday before and after the costume contest. And there were parties too at night. Great ones.

We heard nothing but praise from attendee. I even ran into a fellow member of Virginia Writers club who was apprehensive about attending, but thank me and said it was wonderful. I even saw old friends I hadn't seen in years. Now how cool is that? And we had a special price for pre-registration at the con and already sold some!

So come and join us next year--keep Ravencon bookmarked--pre-reservations will be up very soon.