My first SF convention was Novacon 9 West, held in Albany, NY, in 1979. I was given a membership by winning a local science fiction hotline, in a contest: writing a story about a monster destroying Albany. I wasn’t writing seriously then and described myself as “not a writer, but just a fan” when it was featured in the local paper. It turned out I was wrong, but that comes later.
I went during the day, attended panels, watched a performance by their special guest, the Flying Karamazov Brothers (there were only three of them at the time, and the would perform and pass the hat). I remember turning around and being awed by seeing Hal Clement sitting behind me.
I didn’t think of conventions after that, until after I started writing. I heard about a local convention, Lastcon, Too, and asked to be a guest. To my surprise, the agreed, even though I had only sold one story. I found out later that one of the convention organizers had made a phone call to me when my first story was publishes, so she knew who I was.
I had a great time, since I discovered that there was more to the con outside of programming. I stayed to see some of the evening parties and realized it was more than just panels and presentations.
So I decided to go for the big time. I contacted Lunacon, which at the time was a major east coast convention. They put me on the program.
It was the only time I had imposter syndrome. Here were quite a few SF writers I’d been reading, sometimes since I was a kid and I had the feeling I didn’t belong there. But I told them about my sale, and they immediately accepted me.
I also ended up finding an agent. Pure serendipity: someone I met there invited me to dinner, and the agent was there. I sent him my novel and he took me on, and eventually sold Staroamer’s Fate .
From then on, I became a regular attendee at conventions in the Northeast: Lunacon, Boskone, Philcon, Notjustanothercon, Lastcon, and others. I appeared on panels at all of them.
In 1995, though, a friend of mine, john howard finder (wombat), asked me to join the committee for a new local convention he was setting up: Albacon. My first year, I handled publications, but after its success, I took on programming for the next time and kept doing it into the 2020s. I also have been con chair four times.
One of those years, I let someone else do programming and learned that the Rochester convention, Astronomicon, needed someone to do it. I volunteered.
After it was over, Wayne Brown, its chair, asked me to handle program for the North American Science Fiction Convention in Buffalo. A daunting job, but I managed well enough and everyone raved about the program. One person praised the fact that she often had more than one panel that sounded interesting.
