The convention is now in full swing, as you should be able to tell from our Twitter Tracker. There will be many different panels today, but one of the most popular is likely to be Peter Straub’s launch event for his new, two-volume anthology from the Library of America: American Fantastic Tales. The panel also includes Brian Evenson, S.T. Joshi, Tim Powers and Gary K. Wolfe.
A review of the anthology went up on BlogCritics today.
We have been asked if we can post a list of writers who have had to cancel. Obviously we don’t necessarily know if people decide not to come. However, there are two things you can check. The first is to look at the list of blog entries about program for anyone dropping off a program item. The other is the LiveJournal Community where people are selling memberships.
And the cancellation you are most likely to want to know about is Holly Black.
Still more last-minute memberships from people who are unable to attend continue to be posted at the WFC LiveJournal community. It’s still not to late to get a membership!
If you can’t make it to San José and happen to be near Boston, the University of Massachusetts is having its own Poe-based celebration this weekend. Participants include John Crowley and Elizabeth Hand. Details here.
We have seen in the past day or so a couple of people who have had to cancel their trips to WFC at the last minute due to illness, and who have posted their memberships for sale on the WFC LiveJournal Community. If you are still looking for a membership, you might want to look over there and see if the memberships are still available.
The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge that connects those two cities has been indefinitely closed due to the failure of an earlier repair to the bridge. As of tonight, nobody knows when the bridge will reopen. This should not directly affect most people coming to San Jose for WFC. San Jose is fifty miles south of San Francisco and Oakland, and the Bay Bridge is not in the direct line of travel for most people that might be driving to the convention.
Do be aware that if your travel plans involve tourism before or after the convention and driving in the San Francisco-Oakland area, you may be affected by this closure on account of it is the main highway link between the two cities and you may want to revisit your planned routes to avoid the closure. However, if you are coming only to San Jose and do not plan to drive in the San Francisco and/or Oakland areas, we do not expect the Bay Bridge closure to have a significant impact on your travel plans.
We’ve fielded a number of questions recently in the form of “How do I get from San Jose Airport [SJC] to the Fairmont?” and “Is there a hotel shuttle?”
There is no hotel-airport shuttle, and no free transportation between the airport and the Fairmont. The least-expensive way to get to the hotel is to take the free #10 bus (headsign “LIGHT RAIL”) from the airport to the Metro/Airport light rail station, then board a light rail train ($2 fare) heading downtown, getting off at Paseo de San Antonio station outside the hotel’s back entrance. There are also taxis and shared-ride shuttle services that will cost more but will not require changing buses or riding trains.
For our full story on getting to the Fairmont Hotel, see our Travel Information Page. This also includes information about getting to the hotel from the other Bay Area airports, and also by car and by train.
The latest from Weather.com has backed off on the shower warnings for the weekend. They still show a 20% chance of rain, but that’s a vast improvement on the 60% they were showing last time we checked.
With the convention only days away, posts about it are starting to appear on Twitter. You can see what people are saying about us via our Twitter Tracker. If you want your tweets to be included, don’t forget to use the #wfc2009 hashtag.
Welcome Fly by Night Books to our Dealers’ Room. That’s 34 dealers confirmed as we come down to the wire.