Looking back at Horror Realm 2010

This past weekend, I got to go to my very first horror convention, Horror Realm, which is held in Pittsburgh.  This is a zombie-centric horror conference and gave me and the rest of the authors from The Library of the Living Dead and Permuted Press the chance to meet with horror fans of all stripes, discuss zombies, and have a blast.

Things got going on Thursday night, when those of us who had the chance to come in a bit early were able to head to Rich Dalzotto’s house and mix and mingle with one another.  Rich is one of the folks who runs Horror Realm.  The party gave me the opportunity to meet and interact with quite a few of the folks I haven’t met face to face before but have corresponded with and spoke to on Skype.  Too many to mention here, and I fear that if I start naming names, I will end up skipping someone.  So suffice it to say, the party was a lot of fun and a great experience.

Putting up my books and being at the actual show was quite an experience.  I have gone to conferences for work before, but never something like this.  There were a ton of vendors and quite a few horror celebrities, with reunions for Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead happening at the convention.  Even with these celebrities walking around, I gained the most enjoyment in having the chance to get to know a lot of other authors over the three days of the show.  Doc, my publisher, was terrific, and so was Jacob Kier, who is the publisher over at Permuted Press.  They both took great care of everyone and despite the fact that sales weren’t huge, the show was a rousing success.

One of the highlights for me was getting made up as a zombie to film a commercial for The Library of the Living Dead.  All us zombies got to tear into Doc, though it wasn’t blood and guts that came out, but something else entirely.  I won’t ruin the surprise, but lets just say we all had a blast filming the commercial.

I wanted post a few pictures I took at Horror Realm here as well, just to provide a flavor of the event and the people I had the pleasure of meeting up with.  I am already anxious to go to next year’s event, because if it is half as much fun as this Horror Realm was, it will be well worth the trip!