For the third time, I flew down to Atlanta for CONjuration, a fantasy-based convention. It’s always such a delight to spend the weekend there, I’ve made so many friends that I get to see at the con!
The cosplays are fierce -
I brought a few of my favorite cosplays down to Atlanta - it’s shocking how quickly the suitcase fills up with Dobby’s hats! Here’s Ian Lightfoot from Onward - it turned out lots of people loved that film, but not a single one of them remembered the character’s name!
The second day, I got to run around as Dobby, a free elf! I was so excited to run into an Umbridge who could terrorize me for a photo shoot.
Saturday, I did a joint presentation with Lorrie Kim that was just… extra as hell. It was all about our gross theories of how Voldemort got his baby body in Goblet of Fire. The idea began as a lively debate of opposing theories, and soon we had props, and costume changes, and cake… I got video of the first half before my camera crapped out.
Saturday evening was the Yule Ball. I meant to wear my Tom Riddle costume to the ball, and I did for the first half hour or so… and then it just proved to be too many layers. I love this photo from before the ball and the adjacent one from the end of the ball at 2am. When a friend asked whom I was cosplaying, I told her, “Tom Riddle, after a couple horcruxes and a really rough night.”
Of course, some of the best parts of the con were sitting up and playing games with friends until 4 or 5 in the morning! I determinedly did so, and then had to be up at 8:30 to get costumed up… so a lot of coffee was consumed!
Sunday, I was running a game show, so I brought back my Ludo Bagman costume. The game show was Majority Rules, where everyone tried to figure out how the majority will vote on controversial HP questions. Best part? The only unanimous answer of the whole night was “Which House is the most annoying?” - “Gryffindor!”
I also did a publishing panel, Publishing 101, with four fellow authors about the perils and pitfalls of author contracts, self-publishing, and so on. It was nice to swap war stories with fellow authors. Funniest part was when we were introducing ourselves, and more than half of us introduced our journey with “I had an indie publisher that collapsed…”
I partook in a mystery deathday party courtesy of Phoenix Tears that was so fun and clever, I was sorely tempted to do it again that evening! I got to listen to some fabulous wizard rock courtesy of Draco and the Malfoys (video 1, video 2) and Hawthorn & Holly, which woke me more effectively than the coffee did! And I attended some fabulous panels - best one was a discussion of capital punishment in the HP books, where I cornered the presenter afterwards and we stood in the hallway discussing it for a further 45 minutes. And, of course, I got to sign copies of Dumbledore for other fans, which never gets old :D
I already can’t wait for the next one!