Our beloved Feline Overlord is ailing, and last weekend was devoted to him. But I’m back this week, with a little nonfiction in honor of RavenCon, where I’ll be next weekend–the story of my first RavenCon in 2007:

The email from RavenCon’s assistant director of programming was polite but not encouraging:

“Right now our guest list is full, but I will put you on our short list if a guest cancels…”

A lot of writers will take that as a hint. In other words: “Stay home, little girl, you’re not big enough/you’re the wrong genre to play in our sandbox.” But I’m evil and wise in the ways of science fiction/fantasy conventions. And I had a cunning plan.