Thursday, July 5, 2018

LibertyCon 31 Takeways

Walk with the Pros: Greg chats with Toni Weisskopf
A week ago, Greg and I attended LibertyCon 31 in Chattanooga, TN. We happened to be in town for our niece's wedding and we checked it out to see what a "conservative" SF/F convention was like.

Based on attending three panels and half the opening ceremonies on the first day, plus a Walk with the Pros on the third day, the attendees, panels, and operation of the con was comparable to small regional conventions like Norwescon in the Pacific Northwest. Baen Books had many authors present, and there seemed to be many authors with a military background (it was 5/5 in "The Resurgence of SF in YA Fiction" panel).

Planetary Anthology Roundtable panel with authors like
Arlan Andrews, Lou Antonelli, Jon Del Arroz, John C. Wright
Highlights include the opening ceremonies where Gray Rinehart sang a great flik based on the song "Brandy" to honor the con chairman and Charles E. Gannon read a funny speech, the Walk with the Pros where Greg had a good chat with Toni Weisskopf (publisher of Baen Books), and the Roundtable panels for shared world anthologies that gather a dozen or more authors for Q&A.

Special thanks to Brandy Spraker, chairman of LibertyCon, for inviting us to attend as temporary guests. The convention was sold out by the time we thought about attending (membership is capped at 750) but Brandy found a way to let us sample the first day when Greg inquired about one-day tickets.

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