MoCon ended this past Sunday. Today is Wednesday. Have I recovered from the weekend? No.

MoCon is the annual ‘convention’ that Maurice Broaddus throws in honor of…himself. He also talks high profile genre figures to appear as guests of MoCon. This year he had: Scott Lynch, Elizabeth Bear, Wesley Chu, John Horner Jacob, John Joseph Adams, Lucy Snyder, and Christie Yant. That list of names alone could headline a major writer’s conference. Other notable genre personalities also appearing: Blackwyrm Publishing owner Dave Mattingly, Chesya Burke, Geoffrey Girard, Jerry Gordon, Melissa Gay, Janet Harriett, and Monica Valentinelli. If I’ve forgotten to list you, and you were at the con, please write me a hate mail.

I wanted to take a bunch of photos. In the end, I took 9. Most of them with ladies, and most of them where I’m rather drunk. You can see the photos on my Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/jason.sizemore1).

Here’s how MoCon went down for me:
* I arrived at the church a little bit late Friday night. Almost miss out on the free chicken masala. Had I missed the chicken masala, I probably would have returned to my car and went home. It is simply that good.

* We went to the Second Story site and four authors (Geoffrey Girard, Lucy Snyder, Scott Lynch, and John Horner Jacob) engaged in a writers’ battle. Geoff found a guitar and sang his story. After 3 rounds, Scott was declared the winner. Everybody wrote hilarious stories, and I believe this battle stuff is going to be co-opted for Context.

* Arrived at Maurice’s house around 11:30pm. Had free booze. Stayed up way, way too late (roughly 3:30am).

* Saturday I attended a nice panel about writing the ‘other’ and I sat on a panel about the ‘business of writing’.

* Saturday afternoon we ate more free food. This time it was Jamaican cuisine.

* Saturday evening, we went to Maurice’s house and had more free booze. I got rather toasted. Before I got silly drunk, I had a nice discussion with JJA about the Hugos, had a great chat with Christie, and made friendly with everyone. A trio of friends kept me out of trouble (yep, took three people).

* Sunday afternoon, a bit more schmoozing at Maurice’s house. I was so tired that I was rather useless in conversation. Then the 3.5 hour drive back home.

During the month of April, I was participating in a weight loss challenge and had dropped 10 pounds. In one weekend of MoCon, I gained 2.5 pounds of that back.

Attending MoCon, while fun, is hard on your liver AND your BMI index.

I look forward to MoCon 10!