Anya Bast

Over the weekend I attended a convention I’ve never gone to before, CONvergence. CONvergence is hosted in Minneapolis every year and is something like a small Comic-Con. I say small in terms of comparison to Comic-Con, but CONvergence is actually quite large. I was surprised by its size, in fact.

It is primarily a science fiction and fantasy con and fans of the genres converge on the Radisson, (in 2011, anyway, not sure where the next one will be), in Bloomington, MN, to eagerly discuss their favorites shows, movies, books and characters. The pay homage to them in costume and have panel after panel discussing them.

There’s an art show, a dealer’s room (I spent A LOT of money in there. Can anyone say, custom made corset? *cringe*), a movie theater in which they show anime and cult classics, and parties every night. In short, this con is a hell of a lot of fun and the people watching is spectacular.

I was one of only two romance authors that I know for certain were there. The other author, Michael Merriam, writes paranormal rom, like me, and speculative fiction. His first book recently released with Carina Press, called Last Car to Annwn Station. I ended up doing about six panels on various subjects like epublishing, guerilla marketing, and cross-genre romances.

Another interesting author I met was David Wilbanks, who was also my signing partner in crime. I started his zombie apocalypse novel, Dead Earth, on the way home on the plane. It’s so engaging it kept me from working on my laptop…and I’m under deadline.

Did I mention the costumes? Some of them were incredibly elaborate. I wish I had pictures, but my camera died almost as soon as I got there. I did manage to get a couple shots of my costume, which was very steampunkesque.

All in all, I had a fantastic time and I might just be addicted. Maybe I’ve added another con to my yearly rounds.