Susan Abel Sullivan's Blog

Two weeks ago I was totally free to unleash my inner geek in full glory.

Yes, I attended my first ever comic convention in my hometown of Pensacola, Florida--Pensacon 2019--and felt just like Leonard, Sheldon, Howard and Raj from the hit TV show The Big Bang Theory.  

I wore a different costume each day of the 3-day con. For the uninitiated or unaware, this is known as cosplay, short for costume play, and many people take it so seriously that their costumes could double for movie and theater costumes.  

When my mom told me there was a convention for science fiction people in Pensacola, I thought, "Yeah, I bet they get a couple hundred people max."

I was so wrong.

This year's event saw an attendance of 30,000.  The con partnered with several local businesses, such as the historic Saenger Theatre, the downtown Ritz theater, the Pensacola Little Theater, and the historic Grand Hotel, as well as the civic center, to host event activities in order to accommodate the large number of attendees.

The highlight of the con for me was getting to see William Shatner (Captain Kirk from Star Trek) speak at the Saenger.  For an octogenarian, he's still quite spry and quick witted and kept the audience laughing with his humorous stories.  

Other highlights include seeing Summer Glau (Firefly), a Raiders of the Lost Ark cast reunion (minus Harrison Ford), a Disney Princess and voice artist panel with Paige O'Hara (Belle/Beauty & the Beast), Linda Larkin (Jasmin/Aladdin) the actress who voiced Pocohontas (I think her first name is Irene, but her last name eludes me), along with 2 men who voiced characters in other Disney films...all at the Saenger.  

I also attended an encore performance of songs by the local cast of The Evil Dead: the Musical (hilarious!), a horror short-film festival screening, several interesting panels on D.C. comic characters, cosplay wigs, silly monsters from the movies, stereotypes in comic books, comic book artists' work styles and even a Disney pin-trading meet up.  

And then there was the vendor floor which took over the entire civic center. Even though these conventions are called comic cons, they're for all the speculative genres in comics, movies, books, theater and TV shows, i.e., science fiction, fantasy, and horror.  Of course, before the con, I'd resolved not to buy any merchandise.  But I discovered some artists whose work really spoke to me, and next thing I knew, I was loaded up with enamel pins, artwork prints and even a comic-book-themed adult coloring book, and a few freebies to boot.  

So will I attend again?  

​You betcha!  Pensacon 2020 or bust!
[February 28-March 1, 2020]




Daily cosplay below: Hogwarts Slytherin student, Indiana Jones, and Minnie Mouse

Calling all Beach and Book Lovers:

Come out to Jekyll Island on Saturday, April 7 from 10 AM - 3 PM for the inaugural Jekyll Island Book Festival.  I'll be one of twenty authors signing and selling books on the village green at Beach Village, and from 2:30-3:00 pm, I'll be giving a presentation on the WeePub Beach stage with readings, Q&A and even a sing-along!

​There'll be live music and presentations from several esteemed authors. Definitely an event you don't want to miss.  The Festival is free, but since Jekyll Island is a state park, there is the $6 entry fee unless you have an annual pass (well worth the price!)

​If you're in Brunswick, Savannah or the Jacksonville area, I hope you can road trip to Jekyll for a fun day of books, beach, sun and sand!
​ 
For more info, paste the link below into your browser:
https://www.jekyllisland.com/signatur...

To say I’m thrilled that a sci-fi fairytale won Best Picture and Best Director at this year’s Academy Awards is an understatement.  The truth is I’m ecstatic!  As a writer, reader and viewer of speculative fiction and the fantastical genres, I often feel books, movies and shows within these genres are marginalized as fluff. 

So to have a film in a speculative genre validated as fine art is an accomplishment not only for that film but for the entire speculative genres spectrum.

i also have a personal investment in this year’s Best Picture. I am absolutely enchanted with The Shape of Water. On the surface the film is a reworking of The Creature from the Black Lagoon.  But when you dive deeper, the movie is about the marginalization of minorities, people with disabilities and those deemed as social outcasts. It’s about prejudice, discrimination and social class. It’s about fearing what isn’t understood rather than opening one’s heart & mind to possibilities. It’s about the power of love. It’s about finding beauty within seeming ugliness. It’s about appearances being deceiving and about beauty being within rather than without. 

And all of these themes are told in an achingly beautiful way through the magic of movie making. Lead actress Sally Hawkins is mesmerizing as Eliza, a mute cleaning woman on the night shift at a government research facility in 1962.   

Just as when Babe was nominated for Best Picture in 1995, rather than asking how a film about a monster won Best Picture, think how great a movie about an aquatic “monster” must be to have won Best Picture.  

And then go see The Shape of Water.

Nature abhors a vacuum.  When two elderly members of what I refer to as The Sullivan Zoo died earlier this year from old age, I vowed to not take in or bring home any more animals until the zoo was down to only a couple of critters.

But when I noticed the baby bunnies at the pet store, particularly the Lionhead rabbits with their fluffy manes, my heart went pitter pat and before you know it, the Sullivan Zoo was up two new members.

Meet Boo and Bunny Foo Foo: two male Lionhead bunnies who are about 5-6 months old.  The hubs and I had a pet rabbit a long, long time ago, but rabbit care has really advanced since then.  I had no idea that rabbits do best in bonded pairs or trios and that they like to climb and will toss toys and cardboard tubes. 

I ordered the book Training Your Pet Rabbit from Amazon after stumbling upon rabbit agility competitions on YouTube.  Who knew you could train a rabbit?  Boo and Bunny already know the sound of a treat bag being opened.  I have high hopes for their Rabbit-Olympics aspirations--ha!

Another advancement in the world of bunny keeping is the variety of treats, toys and accessories for rabbits.  Bunnies can be litter box trained like cats and ferrets.  And as with cats, experts recommend neutering for male rabbits. The boys will be saying good-bye to their "boys" in a couple of weeks when we drop them off at the vet to be altered. 

So yes, I've delved into the world of buns (rabbit-owner lingo for bunnies) and now have two new somebunnies to love.

Moxie's last day: at the beach It's been a sad month at Casa Sullivan.  Our sweet dog Moxie--the inspiration for Luna in my novel The Weredog Whisperer--passed away on March 10. 

An Amazon reviewer wrote: Why did the author choose a pit bull as the main character instead of another breed? If they'd read the author's note at the end of the book, they would have found out that I based Luna on my amazing dog, Moxie, who also happens to be a pit bull. Writers are advised to write what they know, and I knew how wonderful pit bulls were from owning one, as well as the bad reputation the breed suffers from a few a**hole people who are into dog fighting.

Our best estimates put Moxie at fourteen years of age. We adopted her from a shelter nine years ago almost to the month and she was maybe four to six-years old then.  She developed cancer and we made the difficult decision to allow her to pass over peacefully with a veterinarian's assistance. 

The day before her appointment we took her to Fernandina Beach in Florida where dogs are allowed.  Even though the radiator on my hubby's car blew a gasket on the way and we were stranded at a mechanic's shop, we rented a car and continued on to the beach since his car wouldn't be ready for days.  No way were we going to let anything keep us from making Moxie's last day on Earth special.

Her epitaph reads: Moxie--the BEST dog EVER!

Sheldon Cooper [Big Bang Theory] might have fun with flags, but I have Fun with Spiders. 

The lump on the right in the photo above is my "pet" kitchen spider.  If spiders ick you out, think of her as a science experiment.  She and I co-exist amicably.  I don't tear down her web or harass her, and she, in return, catches bugs and sucks out their juices, and then tosses the empty husks onto the counter beside the sink (much like a vampire!)  In the words of Mr. Spock from Star Trek, I find her "fascinating."

I have no idea what kind of spider she is.  I can tell what she isn't: she's not a black widow and I'm reasonably sure she's not a brown recluse since they're more, uh, reclusive.  Her body is about the size of my pinkie nail. No interesting colors or distinguishing marks.

A few months ago, what I presumed was a male spider of her species showed up at her bachelorette web.  They co-habitated for several days and then one morning, I noticed his lifeless husk of a body on the counter with the rest of Ms. Spider's dinner remains.  They must've done the dirty, though, before she sucked the life out of him: she's been producing egg sacs like an automated assembly line.  I had no idea spiders were so PROLIFIC! 

Right now she has two egg sacs incubating at the top of her web.  Last week there were four.  Each time a sac reaches maturity, I'll see what looks like a mass of dirt specks in the web beside a broken-open sac. Since I don't have a magnifying glass to get a closer look, I'm thinking the specks are actually itty-bitty Ms. Spiders. 

Where do they go after they hatch?  I really don't know.  It's not like we have hundreds of spiders taking over my kitchen.  Does Ms. Spider eat her young?  I don't know that, either.  They seem too small to have enough life blood for her to drink. 

What I do know is she is a baby-making machine.  And if these egg sacs are the result of only one mating session, then all I can say is, "Cowabunga, man!"

 Female spiders are the ultimate feminists: they need their males for only two things: copulation and dinner--literally. Once they've had their way with their mates, they kill 'em and drink 'em dry.  And in the spider world, it's not only legal, but natural and expected.  Just goes to show there are more things in this world than are dreamt of in our philosophies.

Check out the gallery below for more fuzzy pix of Ms. Spider and her egg sacs!

The Steiff poodle that started it all I love to treasure hunt in thrift stores. One man's junk can literally be another man's treasure and I have found my share of treasures at thrift stores and on eBay.  For me, it's mostly about the hunt: what will I find that someone else has tossed or donated? 

According to Steven W. Anderson, a neurologist who studies hoarding behavior, the need to collect stems from a basic drive to find and gather basic supplies such as food. Collecting can involve expensive items such as artwork, signed editions and rare antiques, or inexpensive or "free" objects such as bird feathers, sea shells or stamps. 

Not only do I enjoy the thrill of finding valuable items for mere dollars at thrift stores, but I also love to beachcomb.  Often as I hunt for sea shells, I'm struck by how primitive man probably did the same exact thing for survival, searching for edibles, usable materials and even pretty stones and shells to make trinkets and jewelry with. 

One of my particular passions is soft sculpture, especially artist-made teddy bears hand-sewn from mohair and alpaca, as well as vintage Steiff stuffed animals (also made from mohair) that are toys, antiques and works of art.  (Steiff is a German manufacturer of dolls and stuffed animals and has been in business since the early 1900s.)

Four years ago, much to my absolute delight, I discovered the Steiff poodle pictured above at Center of Hope thrift store in Oxford, Alabama.  It was just one of many donated stuffed animals crammed onto a shelf.  As soon as I touched it, I knew it was mohair.  Mohair is made from the wool of the Angora goat and has a slightly oily feel to it that man-made plush doesn't have.  A Google search quickly confirmed that what I had was a genuine Steiff made during the 1950s-1960s, and I later validated that by identifying the poodle in the Steiff Sortiment (a catalog of everything Steiff has ever made). 

I paid a buck for the Steiff poodle.  It's estimated value is over $250.  Not a bad find. 

The tigers in the photo above are also vintage Steiff from the 1950s and were found on eBay for a great price, too. 

One of my goals this year is to write an eBook on the ins and out of thrift-store shopping and bargain hunting.  Not only are these past-times green (recycling used possessions), but they're also fun and relatively inexpensive.  Plus you never know just what you might find on an excursion to Goodwill or the Salvation Army. 

Check out the gallery below for more pix of some of my vintage Steiff finds!

The writing life is predominantly about putting your butt in your writing chair and doing the work. 

However, taking some time to actually live life gives you something to write about.  The word recreation comes from the root words of re and create meaning to re-create or to create again.  So participating in recreational activities is not goofing off, but bolstering your creativity.

I took some time off yesterday to visit the Jax Zoo in Jacksonville, Florida with the hubs.  The bright sunny day with a high of 85 degrees had me wondering if I'd slipped into a time warp and skipped ahead to May or June. 

We admired the giant tortoise named Goober (a children's book title if I ever heard one) and discovered that some elephants are quite hairy--perhaps a throwback to their wooly mammoth ancestors? 

But my "aha!" moment of inspiration arrived when we stopped by the vulture exhibit.  One of these large birds was sunning himself beside the viewing area with his wings extended.  And I realized that my fictional school for the supernaturally challenged didn't have any vultures. I snapped a photo to remind myself to work vultures into the novel, either as a pet, a school mascot or even a were-vulture. 

But wait, my muse wasn't done yet.  The next exhibit contained fruit bats.  I'd never been able to find them during previous visits, but yesterday I finally noticed them hanging against the back wall of their area.  One bat was awake and grooming itself like a cat!  I didn't know bats did that! How cool, especially since my novel-in-progress has bats and vampires. 

So going to the zoo gave me not one but two new bits of fun inspiration to weave into my novel. 

And if you're still not sure if you should take a break from work to go do something fun, just remember Jack Torrance from Stephen King's The Shining typing pages and pages of:  All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

Now go out there and recreate, after all, tomorrow's a holiday.

With the anticipation of a giddy teen, I saw STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS this afternoon in 3D.

My review: LOVED IT!

I even felt chills near the end (I won't say which scene due to spoilers) which is a difficult emotional/physiological reaction for films to evoke in me.  The only thing more significant than chills are tears and it just wasn't a tear jerker kind of movie. 

I went into the movie theater with high hopes and was not disappointed in any way.  THE FORCE AWAKENS lives up to all its hype.  The special effects didn't smother the story like they did in the last three Star Wars movies.  The plot harkened back to the very first Star Wars film: A NEW HOPE. 

The wait for the next installment will be agonizing, but I have been inspired by THE FORCE AWAKENS to get my novel-in-progress finished and out into the world.  Like George Lucas, Disney, and J.J. Abrams, I'd love to bring joy to millions of children and adults through my writing.  For me, the act of writing isn't complete without an audience (or readership.)

 And having a movie or movies made from my works wouldn't be half bad, either.

STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS--Go see it. :-)