StokerCon, a Seance, and News Bits
An interim edition of Every Day is Halloween
We now interrupt your regularly scheduled newsletters for a bit of mid-month chatter.
This last weekend I attended StokerCon in Stamford, Connecticut, which most of you probably know is on the other side of the country from me. This year, at least, the travel involved no serious delays or nightmares (a welcome relief after 2023’s travel misadventures), and as for the convention…well…
It was magnificent. With over 1,000 tickets sold and over 800 in-the-flesh attendees, it was packed. But far more significant than the size was the breadth: never before have I seen such a wide range of ages, of colors, of orientations…in short, it looks very much like the horror genre is growing in diverse and spectacular ways. This kind of welcoming environment was a big goal for me during my time as President of the Horror Writers Association, and to see it reaching this kind of fruition is massively satisfying.
As for the rest of my convention experience…I spent most of the time getting (very happily) pulled in about five different directions at once! Somehow I took very few photos, but I’ve grabbed a few from friends to illustrate.
SOME CONVENTION HIGHLIGHTS
On Thursday night, Frances Pai (who led our virtual panel on seances) grabbed a group of us to hold a seance right there at the con! Maria Alexander acted as medium, we sat in a circle on the floor of the hotel’s Grand Ballroom, and spent about twenty minutes summoning any spirits present. As a result, I have learned why seances should never be held on the floor (!): because it’s painful on older hips, and because there’s nothing that can be used to commit a little trickery.
I’ve long been a fan of Joyce Carol Oates, so it’s a true honor not just to interview her for the con’s program book, but to then have her sign my book (although I’m not sure she realized I was the one who had interviewed her!).
Becky Spratford’s keynote speech leading off the award presentation was a stunning call-to-arms for writers to defend banned books and the rights of libraries to carry them (you can read it here or see it here).
Speaking of the awards presentation, I was honored to introduce two friends receiving awards: Jonathan Lees, who won the Karen Lansdale Silver Hammer Award, and Del Howison, one of this year’s Lifetime Achievement Award winners. I also got to interview Del at a daytime event.
I always love being a Final Frame judge, and this year was no different! The films are all so good that the judges always have to talk it out until a consensus is reached, but this year we chose an incredible work called “Outside Noise.”
My agent Lane Heymont threw a spectacular get-together for his clients at Prime restaurant, where we gnoshed on fresh seafood and jalapeno margaritas and shared tales of life in the writing trenches (I have a number of friends who are also repped by Lane, including Danel Olson, Becky Spratford, Maxwell Ian Gold, and Linda Addison).
Speaking of gnoshing, a group of five of us (me, Ricky, Max, Jonathan, and Jonathan’s husband Steve) fled the hotel food one afternoon for a spectacular round of pizzas at Remo’s, rated one of Stamford’s best restaurants…and deservedly so. I’m not always a big prosciutto fan, but that prosciutto pizza (which also had white beans, arugula, and shaved parmesan) was insanely good.
And of course I could go on at length about all the wonderful old and new friends I got to see (most of those encounters consisted of “Hi, great to see you, gotta run!”), but I’m afraid I’d forget to mention someone so instead let’s talk about…
NEW YORK
I’d planned a day for Ricky and I to hit The Big Apple. Accompanied by Kate Maruyama, we took the train from Stamford to Grand Central in NYC, a venue that Kate grew up in and so she gave us the guided tour.
Our main activity in New York was to see the current incarnation of Cabaret, with Orville Peck (one of my fave singers) starring as the Emcee. Well, it was good news/bad news/good news: we managed to hike from Grand Central to the theater okay, only to find out that there would be no Orville Peck for our matinee…but the play was so stunning (and the Emcee understudy Marty Lauter so good) it turned out to be just fine.
AND THEN, THERE WAS THE HOTEL…
Okay, the con hotel (the Hilton in Stamford) was…well, many attendees dubbed it “the liminal spaces hotel.” It was weird right from the get-go. It sits perched atop a hill, surrounded but what feels like a cluster of abandoned offices complexes (complete with a sad plastic playground surrounded by a fence and a sign reading “Authorized Personnel Only”). The hotel had a lot of empty spaces tucked away in hidden corners, including one on the 10th floor that was full of just lamps. It had a gift shop on the ground floor that was never open. It had parking spaces still painted “Sheraton.” One elevator sounded eerily as if it whispered each approaching floor. And as for our room…
It had a cabinet opposite the bed that was at least 10 degrees tilted.
It had a mini-fridge…just sitting on the carpeted floor.
It had exactly ONE USB port, hidden in the back of a little desk lamp.
It overlooked a huge tent (the “Garden Pavilion”), some unidentifiable equipment, and huge snaking white pipes.
The toilet was seriously about 18” tall (in the photo below, keep in mind that my roller-bag is quite small).
In the shower stall, the soap and shampoo dispensers were set into the opposite wall from the showerhead, meaning you had to keep turning back-and-forth throughout your shower (and the tub surface was incredibly slick, no skid mat or even texturing in place).
Oh well…at least it was quiet and the A/C worked.
Overall, it was a fantastic trip and I’ve already purchased my tickets for StokerCon 2026, which will return to Pittsburgh (and a hotel that doesn’t feel like a portal to the Backrooms).
IN OTHER NEWS…
The dry writing spell is over, replaced with a deluge. The contract for the new nonfiction book is almost done. There’s talk of more anthologies co-edited with Les Klinger. There are discussions for a prestige home video release of Meet the Hollowheads. There are short stories in play. And more…
That’s my June in a nutshell. I hope yours has been splendid as well!
I would love to go next year! Looks like you had an amazing time!
That pizza was incredible as was the Cabaret performance. I love travelling with you, Lisa.