This weekend was my first time at Confluence, a small-but-mighty SFF convention held in Pittsburgh, PA, but I’ve vowed to return next year and for the foreseeable future. The answer why is simple: Confluence has a powerful sense of community. At most conventions, the organizers are nebulous figures scarcely glimpsed in the background as they hurry from place to place. At Confluence I ran into the Kevin Hayes and Karen Yun-Lutz several times, and they both made time to just shoot the breeze with me.
The authors invited are very approachable. This year’s Guest of Honor was the uber-SF writer Robert J. Sawyer, who was as personable and friendly as he is accomplished (and that’s saying something).
I did three panels, a book signing, and a reading, and I think I made a good showing at them all. Still not used to reading out loud in public, but I’m slowly getting more comofortable.
If you live anywhere close to PA, I suggest living Confluence a look next year.
You, too, Richard. I passed your website info to my agent.
If you want to trade email, you can contact me via messages@jonsprunk.com.
It was a pleasure meeting you at the convention Jon! I’ll look forward to talking to you in the future.
Heidi, great to see you, as always.
Mike, nice to meet you. I’m sure we’ll bump into each otgher again.
It was great meeting you, Jon. I concur with all you say here about the community — Kevin & Karen were awesome.
Thanks for coming to the ‘Many Genres’ talk and for the feedback on my poetry. All the best with your books! — Mike Arnzen, http://gorelets.com
It was great catching up with you, Jon!
Here’s a link to some photos Mike Arnzen took at Confluence:
http://michaelarnzen.com
See you at Pennwriters in the spring.
🙂 Heidi