After spending the weekend in San Francisco at the World Horror Covention, and having an absolutely awesome time with the usual suspects (the Locus gang, the Night Shade posse, the Tachyon bunch, God Emperor Picacio, the Emerald City Empress, the Borderlands crew, the inestimable Gorinsky, etc) and distant friends (Kim Newman, Stephen Jones, Tony Richards, et al), and spending time with loads of great new folks (John Pelan, David Thomas Lord, Michael Rowe, Chris Golden, Jim Moore, and too many others to name them all), I'm glad to be home, if only to have a couple of months to recouperate from the three days and four nights of abuse I've heaped on my body. This may have been the first convention I've attended in seven years in which I actually discussed writing with other writers, having interesting conversations on the topic of craft and technique with Lee Thomas and Jay Lake. The food was great, the drinks never ran out, and I smoked a lot. I'm not an avid follower of the horror genre, as much as I read it as a kid and in college, but the amount of common ground I share with so many of the attendees means it hardly matters. I'm really hoping I'll be able to make it to Toronto next year, for a few more days of fun and abuse.