Jimmy & Doris Gafgen

Originally uploaded by slushgod.

Here are a few pics from the family reunion.

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Okay, so just got through blogging about the Stokers this weekend, but there was even more, more I say!, to blog about, as Sunday was Father’s Day, and I took my grandfather out to the 90th annual Tettemer-Dillion family reunion (though he and I are both Adamses, his mother was a Tettemer, so that’s how we fit in).

Going was all my idea, so I have no one to blame but myself, but I figured it would be kind of boring going into it. I’d been to the reunion a bunch of times as a kid, then once again a few years ago when I moved back up to NJ. It’s mainly boring because it revolves around eating and not much else; back then I was a fat-ass, so at least I had the food to entertain me; now being the slim, fit, sexy-bastard that I am, I could not indulge in the fat-laden barbeque goodness. But it was Father’s Day, and that’s not about me, and I figured my grandfather would enjoy seeing some of the family.

Sadly, though the reunion has been going on for 90 years, numbers have been dwindling dramatically over the past couple years, with this year’s crowd being particularly small. It’s always (or for around 80 years or something) been held at this one pavillion in PA near the NJ border, but a few years ago (the last time I was there, actually), during the business meeting, it was proposed that the event be moved because the pavillion offered no amenities: it’s basically just a pavillion with a bunch of picnic tables and some empty fields around it–no basketball courts, baseball/softball fields, etc. As I recall, it was voted on, and it was decided that the reunion would be moved, but a good portion of the family was upset at the idea of moving it, since it had been tradition to be there for so long, and an emotional plea by several family members subverted the democratic process. This rift apparently drove off those who wanted the reunion moved, and so this year much time was spent discussing how to get the family back together. The pavillion, which would normally be totally filled, was about half empty this year, so everyone found this troubling.

My problem with the reunion mainly is that though it’s *family* reunion, I don’t know most of the people there, and somehow there’s people several years older than me and several years younger than me, but no one my age. And me being a shy geekish sort, I’m not one to go around introducing myself to strangers, even if they are family. I was personally torn on the venue issue, understanding the want to keep tradition going, but on the other hand, I thought that if there *were* basketball courts and the like, that would get me talking to some other people at the reunion should we all congregate there to shoot some hoops.

One suggestion that I really liked was that the organizers put some effort into doing some games/events for the grown up men (I mean, it is *Father’s Day* after all). Most of the activities are geared toward keeping the kids entertained (they have an egg toss, and some kind of jumping-over-the-rope contest), but not much for the adults. Someone suggested some kind of chipping contest (a golf thing), which might be fun. But I thought that since there’s so many people at this thing, a softball game would be a natural thing to organize. Pretty much anyone can play softball, and you don’t even really need a field per se, so long as you have a wide open area.

In any case, the reunion wasn’t so bad, despite the lack of things to do and the sparse attendance. I spent some time talking with my older cousin Jimmy Gafgen, who is an accomplished sculptor. He’s got statues all over New Jersey, and I don’t know where all else. I’ve been trying to convince him to get himself a website so people can read about (and see examples) of his work, but so far no luck. Here’s an article (without a picture, alas) about his newest sculpture, this one of Harriett Tubman; it was unveiled just recently, and Jimmy showed us some pictures. At the moment, he’s working on a veteran’s memorial, which will consist of a rifle stuck into the ground with a helmet atop it and a pair of boots beside it.

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Mario Acevedo

Originally uploaded by slushgod.

I should have gotten everyone to pose like this.

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This weekend, I attended the Bram Stoker Awards banquet, which was held in the luxurious Newark Airport Hilton in lovely Newark, NJ. Admission was free for me, as it was for my guest, Doug Cohen, as we were masquerading as “press.” Delighted the with publicity afforded HWA and the Stokers by my SCI FI Wire interviews with the novel nominees earlier this year, HWA President Gary Braunbeck invited me to come out to the event (in gratitude, and in the hopes, no doubt of getting more free publicity) free of charge, and went so far as to accommodate my request to bring along a guest. And not only were we admitted free, but we also received free tickets to the banquet (a $30 value!), which was surprisingly good, especially considering that our pre-banquet options were the rather ominious: meat, fish, vegetarian. We had the meat, which turned out to be a really nice cut of steak (filet mignon, I think); this was followed by a completely decadent chocolate-mousse cake sort of thing, which probably contained more calories than I usually eat all day.

Doug and I showed up on Friday night, though that seems to have been a mistake, as I guess most people just come in for Saturday (the day of the banquet). Friday really wasn’t even worth the eight bucks it cost to park at the hotel. That first night was very, very sparsely attended. There was but one panel (on horror criticism, which Doug and I were quickly bored by), and a meet and greet reception sort of thing. It was an open bar, so I guess it might have been well worth it if you’re a drinker, but as a non-drinker it didn’t do much for me. However, we did meet a few new people, including Mario Acevedo, author of The Nymphos of Rocky Flats. He gave me a vampiric pose when I took his picture, which you can see in my Stokers flickr photoset.

Doug’s sick of hearing this already, but Friday night was otherwise a disappointment due to the absolutely horrendous chicken caesar salad I had in the hotel bar/restaurant. The bar had popcorn baskets on the table, and when my salad showed up and I started eating it, it seemed to me as though they may have cooked the chicken in the popcorn butter. Seriously, it was totally smothered in butter. Quite revolting, I assure you. Not to mention that it probably rendered my healthy choice of dinner somewhat less healthy than I’d intended.

Since the Stokers were in Newark, Doug and I stayed at my place and commuted back and forth; I only live about twenty minutes away. Doug gaped at my stacks of books and complained about my couch being uncomfortable.

Saturday was much more entertaining. There didn’t seem to be much going on early in the morning (there was an HWA business meeting for like three hours first thing), so Doug and I didn’t show up until around noon, at which time we planned to attend a reading given by Chris Cevasco. We walked in just in time, no doubt to the relief of Chris, who otherwise would have been reading to an empty room, though since we had both heard this story read already (at Lunacon), Chris delayed for a bit, chatting with us, until a few other stragglers arrived, including Devin Poore, one of my Balticon traveling companions.

After Cevasco’s reading, F. Brett Cox came in to read, so we all stuck around for that. Afterward, we all wandered toward food. Over lunch, we debated the merits of Naomi Novik’s His Majesty’s Dragon (and Doug’s review of it, which is in the new issue of Paradox). (For the record, I’m very pro, Doug’s very con on the book.)

At some point, our friend Elizabeth wandered over and sat with us as we finished up with lunch, then we all adjourned to her panel, “After the Edit,” on which she served as the voice of the production department, with Eliani Torres, serving as the copyediting spokesperson.

After, we all loitered in the lobby for a while, where we watched as an attractive young woman walked in and out of the hotel as a man with a handheld video camera recorded her. This puzzled us for a while until we figured out that she was a reporter for The Horror Channel, and was apparently covering the event. Those shots, I assume, were establishing shots to show her arriving on the scene. When she was doing this, she was dressed in regular clothes, but when I saw her later (and determined she was a reporter), she was all gothed up in a tight black miniskirt/dress sort of thing, along with the requisite black eyeliner.

After this was more sitting around and chatting before the big Pre-Banquet/Author Signing (a sort of second meet and greet reception, also with free booze). There, I met David Morrell (who later won a Stoker for his novel Creepers); I’d interviewed David for SCI FI Wire, so it was nice to meet him in person. He was very personable and we had a nice conversation. Also met Nate Kenyon, a young, new author (his first novel, Bloodstone is available now). Nate gave Doug and I copies of his book (and a cool pen, which was handy, as I didn’t bring one with me), and expressed delight at the fact that I work at F&SF (“Oh, I love that magazine,” he said.) I offered to give him one of the copies I had with me, but being the fan that he is, he already had it.

The evening concluded with the award ceremony and banquet. I’ve already said that the banquet itself was pretty good, and while the award ceremony wasn’t stellar, it was mostly entertaining. I was glad to see Joe Hill take home two Stokers, and he was on hand to pick them up (and gave some great acceptance speeches). I just interviewed him as well, though I didn’t get a chance to meet him at the event. One of the coolest bits about the ceremony was Peter Straub’s Lifetime Achievement Award: both for Doug Winter’s introduction and Straub’s acceptance. Both of them mentioned an apparently famous quote that Straub once said to Stephen King (early in their careers). The two of them were out gathering firewood (for a barbeque, I think), when Straub says: “We’re the Hammett and Chandler of the genre.” King sets down a big branch at an angle, then smashes his foot down on top of it, snapping it in half, then looks up at Straub and says:: “I know.”

After the awards were all given out, we all fled the room and got into a conversation with Darrell Schwiezter, which meandered from SF/Horror/Fantasy in general to pulps, and all over the place. Also met Neil Clarke of Clarkesworld Books (one of the best SF/Fantasy/Horror bookstores on the net), who seemed to be a really sharp guy, and after chatting with him, it’s no surprise that he runs his bookshop so well. As the conversations died down, people started poking through the nearby freebies table. There, I thrust a copy of F&SF into the hands of one of the people from The Horror Channel. The issues I had were of the June 2006 issue, which includes Laird Barron’s “Hallucigenia,” and that great horrific cover.

At this point, we all kind of dispersed, being rather wiped and not up for hanging around for the parties being held in the suites upstairs. We returned home to the villa de John and promptly crashed.

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A bit more on the gender-bias affair (excerpted from the aforementioned deleted post), because I’ve seen a number of commenters who don’t seem to be aware of this:

A few years back an article (with a subsequent statistical analysis) was written about F&SF‘s submissions to determine if indeed there were fewer women being published.  You can go read the article and/or the analysis, but basically, the data indicated that F&SF received far more submissions from men (so naturally we published more stories by men); however, of the female authored submissions we did receive, we published a higher percentage of those, compared to male submissions.

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Okay, so a brief explanation:

On Thursday night, I made a lengthy post in which I spewed some thoughts about the F&SF gender-bias thing. After posting it, a friend of mine read it, and said that it would probably just make things worse because it sounded defensive. I looked at it again, and thought he was right, so I deleted it. However, a lot of people still saw it, because, as it turns out, when you delete something in Movable Type, it doesn’t necessarily *delete it*. So, Gwenda, and others, that was why when you tried to post a comment to that entry, you couldn’t.

So while I’ve reconsidered wading head-on into the debate, I do want to point out that I have NO PROBLEM AT ALL with the “Story Bomb.” BRING IT ON, I say. I’m looking forward to seeing all the new stories from women writers, and especially from the writers who don’t normally send us stuff, and those who have never sent us stuff before.

If the only goal is to get more women submitting to F&SF, then I think it’s going to be great, and will certainly succeed.

If, on the other hand, anyone expects it to prove or disprove a gender-bias, well, I don’t think it will do anything of the kind. That’s my only reservation about the challenge. All of my other misgivings about this enterprise arose out of all the anti-F&SF sentiment I saw being spewed, so I was mostly reacting to that.

Here’s what Gwenda said in response to my now-deleted post:

Hey JJA — I was trying to post this on the new entry about this, but can’t for some reason. So I’m dropping it here.

Everything you say here is right and legitimate and I can even understand how this effort might ruffle your (and other people’s) feathers. My interest in this is — and I don’t think I’m alone — in seeing more stories by women on the F&SF TOC (and this dream also includes people of color). It’s as a reader, not as a writer. And the make-up of the slush may be the issue, but then the question to the magazine is what can proactively be done to change that ratio and should it? Should the magazine be concerned that so few women are submitting? And actively encourage more of it? As a reader of the magazine, again, I’d hope the answers would be yes.

I wish the same for the other magazines, but I’ll admit to wishing it more for F&SF because it’s the one I like best, the one that most regularly has stories I think are truly excellent. But it does rankle to get a new issue and see no stories by women on the TOC; it creates a disconnect for me. (And for others I’ve talked to.)

And seriously, if there are more good stories than one or two that Gordon loves in the estimated hundred that you get, why can’t you hang onto them an extra month or three and buy them then?

For the record, I agree with everything she says here, except for the ruffling the feathers part. The only thing that ruffled my feathers was the anti-F&SF sentiment, not the idea of the story bomb. I love the idea, for the reasons she outlines above.

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