MileHiCon was really fun, mostly! Mostly. But rather than dwell on the things that weren’t altogether rad, here’s a quick roundup of the highlights:
- My reading went well! I did a few selections from A Pretty Mouth, including the entire first chapter of the novella. People seemed to enjoy it, so huzzah. My co-reader, Travis Heermann, also read, but he was way more high-tech, as he read off his iPhone and had like, actual bookstands for his book. Well played, Heermann. Well played.
- I moderated a panel on Victorian/19th c. sexuality, which went pretty okay! Things got a little rowdy, which yeah of course. I particularly enjoyed the direction Cherie Priest’s vast knowledge about prostitution in Seattle took the discussion. It’s possible I got a bit verbose on various 19th century pornographic texts, but looking around and seeing many people scribbling titles was a cheap thrill. Victorian porn for the all!
- I saw many people I knew and many more that I didn’t. It was fun reconnecting with old friends and making new ones, as always!
- I ate some amazing Indian food at Masalaa with Jason Heller and Jesse Bullington.
I dressed up as Herbert West—Reanimator. Not a single person knew who I was!- Jesse and I, in a fit of madness perhaps, picked up a bottle of “Scoresby’s Very Rare” blended Scotch whiskey for 7 dollars, to bring to the con … mostly as a joke. Really! But it all got drunk at an extremely rowdy party on Saturday night that left me crippled for …
- The panel on “Humor and Horror” which I barely made it through, honestly. That I was upright and didn’t say anything too embarrassing is a miracle.
- But at least I’d (mostly) recovered by the time I lurched my way onto the “Strong Women in SF” panel. I may or may not have spoken passionately, and somewhat at length, about how essentialist notions of gender are wrong and obsolete and hurtful. I won’t laundry-list some of the more eyebrow-raising things said on that panel by other participants, because water under the bridge and all that. Let’s just say I left feeling like there’s still a serious need for those “Strong Women in X Kind of Genre Fiction” panels.
- Also, I sold every single copy of A Pretty Mouth that I consigned to a local bookstore, so fuck yes Team A Pretty Mouth, and thanks to all of you who bought the book.
So yeah, that’s pretty much it! And if all that wasn’t rad enough, A Pretty Mouth has been getting more (extremely kind) reviews.
The Next Best Book Blog, whilst I was at MileHiCon, posted a meaty and wonderful review. The summation was very flattering indeed (many thanks!):
If you think A Pretty Mouth sounds like a lot of fun, it is. Molly’s got a style unlike any other’s. It’s one that doesn’t take itself too seriously while at the same time impressing upon the reader not to take it too lightly. Beware the enemy, even when it turns out to be you.
Next, Jamie Grefe posted his review over at The Carnage Conservatory. There’s something about my book that seems to induce people to become almost … poetic when they review it. It’s really awesome, frankly, to see people responding in literary ways to my writing. Much more than I was hoping for, which was to give folks a few chuckles and inspire them to revisit, maybe, Wodehouse’s Jeeves stories. But instead, more awesomely:
You are entrenched in a family history much stranger and more gruesome than your own: Calipash, octopus, blood-soul, Roman.
You need a drink.
Last, but certainly not least, my friend Elise (E. Catherine) Tobler reviewed my book on her blog. In epistolary format. That alone would be the highest possible compliment, but she goes on to say:
I write to inform you of a book which has crossed my hands–a book that will disrupt your working hours and most certainly your nights, because once you read these…we shall call them stories, though they seem rather to be historical transcriptions, if you take my meaning…you will never find sleep’s seductive embrace easily again.
AND
The voice of this book–this is what may capture one, draw one in. I think of all the readers who have yet to discover this lady’s works (surely there are more, as there are stars in the heavens) and I shudder, sirs. I shudder. That they shall encounter these worlds, and “characters” for the first time yet–oh, to have that pleasure again. Our world slips away under a veil of fog when one opens this tome; one is drawn wholly and effortlessly into these tales and it is an effort to come back to what we know to be true. (Or do we? I confess to confusion on that point.)
I’m seriously swooning, but that might be old age creeping up on me. Yes, my friends, I am turning 31 in only a few days! The stars are right and all that jazz. I don’t want much, just to be a modestly successful indie author (you can help make that happen!) and possibly get a new tattoo.
Oh, and cake!