ConCarolinas 2016
I’m back from ConCarolinas and I have many wonderful things! And stories. Oh, the stories.
First off, I got to see Ursula Vernon and her husband, Kevin Sonney. I’ve met Ursula before when she signed at Little Shop of Stories, but my only interactions with Kevin had been through the podcast when I sent in terrible, terrible food. Or duck jerky. I still introduce myself to them by saying I’m the Duck Jerky Lady. 
Kevin and Ursula were delightful and they did the voices of their characters from the Hidden Almanac for me. I squeed.
I got lots and lots and lots of art from Ursula. I’ll add a slideshow down below. I also picked up a copy of Dry Season Only, which is a sort of travelog of a bunch of artists and creative people going on a safari in Africa. The book was originally a Kickstarter project that I missed, so I thought I would never get a copy. But I did!
It’s so pretty. I’ll probably do a post just on it once I’ve finished reading it, but if you’re at all interested in African safaris or any of the artists involved, I’d recommend it.
Conveniently located directly beside Ursula’s table was artist & author K.B. Spangler. the creator of the web comic, A GIRL AND HER FED. And she had plushie Speedies! Speedy, for those who don’t read the comic, is a super-intelligent, angry koala.
Art by K.B. Spangler on kbspangler.net
And now, I have one! She told some fantastic stories in one of the panels about the logistics of ordering custom plushies. Apparently, you can only get them in quantites exceeding 1,000 units. Think about having that many angry koala dolls delivered to your house…
Did you think about it? Did you imagine swimming in them like Scrooge McDuck? Because I did. That’s… probably not what she did. Or if she did, she didn’t admit it to us. But I like to dream.
I also picked up all of her books. There are currently three in the Rachel Peng series plus one fantasy novel.
::Bounce, bounce, bounce:: AND, just this moment, when I went to Goodreads to get the cover images, I found out that she’s got an ebook called The Russians Came Knocking about a guy named Josh Glassman. Josh GLASSMAN. My name is Glassman! I studied Russian! It’s like it was made for me and I DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT IT UNTIL NOW! So, I’m going to go fix that ASAP. (Also, I just noticed that the italics WordPress gives me are really weird. That title looks weird, right? It’s not just me?)
The rest of the con was really fun. I entered the costume contest. It was my first costume contest and I did not shame my ancestors. I also didn’t win, but that’s ok. I didn’t expect to, but many, many, many people admired the awesome leather work done for me by Silver Cicada Designs, so that was good!
I went to some panels, which were very fun. I got Chelsea Quinn Yarbro breakfast on Friday and got to chat with her while she ate. And, I went to see a concert by This Way to the Egress, which is a band it is hard to define. But, they are fronted by an accordion player, have a banjo, trumpet, keyboard, violin, and a headbanging tuba player. So they’re pretty awesome. Unfortunately, they’re so awesome that I pulled some muscles in my hip during the concert.
However, it was during the last song, so that wasn’t too bad. And between a very nice fellow attendee and ConCarolinas security I made it out of the hall and into a wheelchair that got me up to my room. It also turned out that the woman who was running the awesome hair accessories booth is also a physical therapist. So she checked me over and made sure I didn’t have to go to the hospital. So that was very kind.
And the best part about the whole weekend was that I was with my best friend. So, no matter what, it was going to be pretty great.
Here is some of the art I got from Ursula. You can get her prints from TopatoCo now! This is easy and convenient and you should go do it.
Medusa's Library 