One week until Shore Leave!

Like the title says, there’s only one more week until the annual Shore Leave Convention, now at its new location at the Wyndham Lancaster Resort and Convention Center in Lancaster, PA, about sixty miles north-northeast of its old location near Baltimore. This is the first time in all my years of attending that we’ll be in a new location, and it’s bound to feel strange, but I look forward to discovering what the new hotel has to offer. Hopefully it will have better carpeting at the very least.

I was hoping the new location would be a bit closer to me, but “a bit” in this case is literally just a few miles. It’s actually a couple of dozen miles further from me as the crow flies, but the route is more direct, so it’s very slightly shorter. The main difference is that it won’t be practical for me to stay with my DC-area cousins the night before, but then, they’re out of town that weekend anyway. I’ll just have to stay in a motel overnight both ways, which means I won’t have to drive as long in a single day.

My publisher Danielle McPhail and I were hoping that my new collection Aleyara’s Descent and Other Stories would be ready for release at the convention, like the other books we funded in the recent Kickstarter. However, cover artist Mike McPhail is determined to do justice to the cover and is putting extra care into it, which means it won’t be ready in time. Still, I’ll have other books for sale, including my other eSpec Books titles at their table and several of my recent Star Trek titles from the convention’s main book vendor, as well as my own personal supply at Meet the Pros. (Ideally, bring cash if you want to buy from me directly. I just learned that the old credit card-scanning system I used with my phone was discontinued, and I’ve applied for the replacement system, which will hopefully be up and running for me by next week, but I can’t be sure yet.)

Here’s my schedule of panels for the convention, though I don’t yet have the detailed panel descriptions from the final schedule pamphlet:

Fri 5:00 PM, Cornwall: Sci-Fi for Young People—Where is it?Fri 6:00 PM, New Holland: The MarvelsFri 10:00 PM, Wheatland: Meet the ProsSat 8:00 PM, Cornwall: Action Scenes – Fight Me!Sun 1:00 PM, Cornwall: eSpec Books Presents

I chose the YA panel and the Action Scenes panel as excuses to talk about Tangent Knights, which I’m always eager to promote.

The panels this year are slated at 50 minutes each, 5 minutes shorter than usual, to give people more time to find their way around the new hotel. For my part, I’ve bookmarked the hotel floor plan maps page on my phone’s browser for easy reference. The Wheatland room for Meet the Pros looks surprisingly small on the map, but the hotel’s site says it can hold 50 people in a “U-shape,” which I’m guessing is how our tables will be arranged, and there are only 36 author guests. I think a more compact arrangement will be better than being spread out on the sides of a long hallway, as long as the room is well enough ventilated. (I got my COVID vaccine booster last week, but good indoor ventilation is crucial.)

As far as other preparations go, I bought a new suitcase to replace my old one whose zipper broke, after trying to go without a suitcase last year and realizing how hard it is to have to carry everything instead of having a rolling case. I got a “trip check” for my car yesterday, and it checked out, though they had to replace a brake light. When I scheduled it the day before, the earliest open slots were the day before I had to leave, but I asked them to notify me if there was an earlier cancellation, and fortunately one opened up within hours.

Anyway, if all goes as planned, I’ll see some of you next week in Lancaster!