Mo*Con III - A Recap of Sorts

Mo*Con III was a success. It’s taken me a couple of days to recover from the con (much better than the two weeks I was down after last year’s Mo*Con). I feel like I should still be in an ice bath to soak my aching muscles.

This year’s Mo*Con was barely “officially” started for three hours (though some people showed up as early as Wednesday and didn’t leave until Monday … Kelli Dunlap says what?) before Mark Rainey and friends got busted by the cops. I swear, next year, no emergency personnel will be dispatched to the event. I hope.


Mother Grove rocked the house.
Apparently I missed quite the art show at my own convention. We may have to build on it next year. Alethea Kontis brings all the boys to the yard, as even my boys came up to me to ask “is it alright if we go everywhere Lee goes?”
As you know, I’m in it for the conversations, the days leading up to the con, the late night conversations, the late late night conversations. We had three panels Saturday:
On our various faith/spirituality perspectives and how that impacts our writing (thanks moderator Matt Cardin, who uses a lot of big words first thing in the morning)









The editor’s discussion (which I introduced as “the rat bastards who have rejected me”, and moderator, Mark Rainey, immediately turned the tables on me and it became a Maurice Roast)
The gender issues discussion which may have been the highlight discussion for me (with a very special nod to moderator, Natalie Christl)

And we also had our first annual Indiana Horror Writers Mo*Con Awards. The first went to Brian Keene for all of his help and support. (<--Look, Keene, we're no longer "God's little secret", we have the sign up). Though he was absent this year, he was with us in spirit as we played part of his sermon from the first year’s Mo*Con during our Sunday service. (By the way, the footage from all three years of Mo*Con will soon be going up on the main page of my web site. I’ll let you know when it’s up). The second went to our Mo*Con Princess, Alethea Kontis. I wasn’t lying when I said a big part of the weekend was about spoiling her.
We also launched my novella, Orgy of Souls, co-written with Wrath James White. A nice preview of it is up on the fearzone.com site (who also recently interviewed Wrath).
Some people thing of Mo*Con as a one man show. It’s far, far, far from a one man show. In fact, there are a few folks I’d like to especially thank. My wife who patiently allows me to have a bunch of friends over and trash the place for a weekend (you can just imagine how much she does behind the scenes and makes me look great as a host). My faithful assistants, Ro “not just Maurice’s little sister” Griffin, Lauren “Maurice doesn’t pay me nearly enough” David, and Jenn “I’m just here to keep Kelli company” Baumgartner.
The Indiana Horror Writers ... I love my quirky little family. Natalie, Michael West (if there’s a bigger lover of all things horror … well, be frightened), Bob Freeman (President and … how do I describe what all Bob does?), Tracy Jones (founder of the madness), Jerry Gordon (whose last minute runs saved my disorganized behind), Sara Larson (who practically carries me at some points), Michelle Pendergrass (Mafia head: I’ve decided that Michelle, Sara, and Natalie are the IHW Mafia as they informed me that they’ll be taking over the detail of organizing things), and Tiffany the Loquacious.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Mo*Con is essentially a family reunion. And we’re all about growing the family.

(<--And yeah, these two have inspired the theme of next year's Mo*Con) *** If you want to make sure that I see your comment or just want to stop by and say “hi”, feel free to stop by my message board. We always welcome new voices to the conversation.