Paper Cuts: Hustling at Horror Cons 101 or: Dispelling the Myth of the Non-Reading Horror Fan

PaperCuts-web

Paper (n): material manufactured in thin sheets from the pulp of wood or other fibrous substances, used for writing, drawing, or printing on.
 

Cut (v): make (a movie) into a coherent whole by removing parts or placing them in a different order.

Hustling at Horror Cons 101 or: Dispelling the Myth of the Non-Reading Horror Fan

“This is a tough convention,” he says, eyeing our books, picking one up and testing the spine like he’s squeezing an avocado, going to make a little word guac. “It’s especially tough for books. Nobody here reads.”

I don’t know this guy.

Don’t even know him in the sense that I know what it is he does. He could be an indie film actor, a fellow writer, a grey-market DVD vendor. He could be anything that would allow him to be in Worcester, Massachusetts’s DCU Center a half hour before this year’s Rock and Shock convention opens.

Looking back on this interaction now, it’s hard to tell if he was trying to psych us out or if he actually believed that no one who attended the convention read books.Continue Reading