Gary Kloster

Saturday, the big day.  I managed to sleep in until 7.

At 9:30 we had a sort-of meeting, in which we sacrificed Jordan to the publicity gods.  He had it coming.  Galaxy press was doing some sort of documentary on the pulps, so they asked if any of us were fans.  Guessing what was coming next, we all stayed silent.  Except poor Jordan.  So he got to go do an interview.

There was nothing else scheduled for the day, except a chance to go do a soundcheck, then get make up.  Yep, make up.  They were filming this, so we got to be prettified for the lights.  I had lunch with Don, and then I met up with Cheryl and gave her a bag full of quarters.  Her mom was collecting state quarters.  To pay me back, I made her rank the severity of British swear words.  Did you know that bollocks ranks higher than bastard?  Now you do.  And knowing is half the battle!

So, laying around and being nervous.  Finally I cracked and went down for my make up.  I went an hour and a half early, and guess what, huge line.  I stood there, dithering, wondering if I should run back up and put on my tux, but I hung out.  Eventually, they were ready and dragged me over.  I told the woman working on me that I wanted the absolute minimal amount of make up possible.  I was going to dinner before the ceremony, and figured I would be smearing it everywhere.  Plus, y’know, makeup, and I’m so manly.  She nodded, the grabbed a trowel and slapped the stuff on.  Then she asked what I wanted done with my hair.  I said just try to make it orderly.  She grabbed a handful of gel from a bucket (totally serious about this bit), and larded it in.  About this time my wife showed up and I passed her my key to the room so she could go change.

When I escaped the stylist, I went upstairs to change.  GW was there, almost ready.  She didn’t have any makeup to put on.  I looked at my hair in the mirror, decided I hated it, and quickly undid the stylists hard work. It still looked bad, but at least now it was my fault.  I quickly put on the tux, with the GW’s help, and off we went.  The six year old was staying with the relatives that night- no way were we subjecting her to this.

First, dinner.  We got to sit with Matt and his family, Gra, Rob Sawyer and Carolyn Clink.  Rob was very nice, talking with us about writing and the biz.  Dinner went pretty well– the food was good, even though I only ate about half.  Nerves.  Then on to the ceremony.

Whoever was coordinating that thing, kudos.  It started on time, and snapped right along.  First the dance number.  Union rules, must be at all award shows.  It was kinda fun, but I did want a quill fight.  Then intros of all the stars, and all the writers (I have to say this was probably the only awards ceremony in Hollywood where the writers got more applause).  Then us.

Here’s the thing– we gave our speeches in the order in which our stories appear in the book.  My stories last (which everyone assures me is a nice position to be in an anthology), which meant I went last.  Long wait.  Everyone gave a great speech, then finally it was me.  And it seemed to go okay.  Most importantly, I didn’t fall down the stairs.

They announced the grand prize winners, and Emery and Sasha got to go up again and get their biggie size trophies.  Both gave nice speeches, but they disappointed me slightly.  Neither of them said “I’m going on a (explicative deleted) blimp, (explicative deleted)!”  Oh well.

With the terror of the public speaking done, time for the after party.  We went back to the room where we had dinner, and there was a giant pile of books inside– the anthology.  Really there, all printed up.  Nice.  We sat down, and started signing.  Thankfully, Nina Kiriki Hoffman gave out some advice on how to do a signing.  Do they want it personalized?  How do you spell that?  Where would you like it?  No one asked for a body part.  It went pretty well.

The guests were great, and I had one of the best compliments of the week there.  One of the people asked me what my 24 hour story was about.  When I told him (the whole black-market trade in the blood of dead gods thing), he looked at me and said “You guys aren’t from around here, are you?”  No, no we’re not, in a number of different ways.

The signing finally ran down, and we were left in an empty room with a much smaller stack of books.  I kissed the GW goodbye (she had been busy helping my career by providing water for the other writers and pros– the wait staff was overwhelmed), then I joined in with my fellow winners in stuffing our arms with books and running for our rooms.

Still, I was a bit wired, and went to the hospitality suite.  About half of us were there, talking it over, and then Joni ordered burgers for us all.  It was three a.m., but I stuffed myself.  Finally, we all drifted apart as incoherency took over the conversations.  I went back to the room, stared at the book for awhile, and read the first story.  Then I passed out.