Are You Ready to Get Spooky in San Antonio?
Hello and welcome to the latest issue of The Ghoulish Times. My name is Max Booth III and this is my spooky newsletter. I am writing this on the afternoon of Thursday, April 13th. This weekend—Friday, Saturday, Sunday—will be the most important weekend of our year. It’s the Ghoulish Book Festival and I couldn’t be more excited.
Over the last month I have probably spent over 10 hours walking around San Antonio and other towns adjacent to San Antonio handing out promotional material for the Ghoulish Book Festival. Here’s a photo of the very last promo post card (we printed 10,000 of them) in front of the Alamo.
These promo efforts are absolutely necessary for our book festival to succeed. On top of the physical marketing, we have also spent nearly a grand on online advertisements. I bring this up to emphasize how important this weekend is to us. It’s…a big deal. It’s the source of a lot of stress both myself and my partner Lori Michelle have felt over the last several months.
But that isn’t to say it’s all negative. In fact, it’s mostly positive. We are fucking thrilled for this weekend, do not get me wrong. We have been looking forward to this fest since the last one ended.
Not only are we hosting a book festival with a ton of our friends, but Lori and I are also getting freakin’ married on Saturday night during the fest. Her parents flew in for the occasion, and so did my father and one of my brothers. There’s a lot going on. But I think it’s going to be a good time.
San Antonio is about to get super spooky, y’all.
If you would like to attend the festival, badges are available HERE. However, the vendor room is indeed free to the public, so only snag a badge if you want a goody bag, program book, and access to the panels/readings.
We have a Facebook event page you can follow along by clicking HERE. Plus, there is a GHOULISH discord where all updates will be posted first during the festival.
Here is some other information essential for anyone attending the festival this weekend:
We will have food trucks all weekend. On Friday only, we have a truck called These Guys. learn more about them here: https://www.facebook.com/theseguysSA/
But on Saturday and Sunday, we have a different truck called Bacon Me Crazy, and for this second truck you can actually text your orders in ahead of time @ 210-639-5082. You can also view their menu here: https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=600966678712924&set=p.600966678712924
On Thursday April 13th (THAT’S TODAY, GHOULS!), for anybody already in town, we will be doing a little pre-fest meetup at the Rathskeller Bar, which is located at the Hermann Sons building (same as the festival) at around 7pm. Lori and I will be popping in and out pretty much the whole evening as we set things up for the festival. So, if you're feeling sociable, that will be the best place to meet other folks also attending the fest. The bar will also be open throughout the weekend and is located right next to the vendor/bookstore room of the festival. (Note: the bar will be open for everybody, not just people attending the fest.)
More information about the bar: They only serve beer, wine, soda, and water. No hard liquor is allowed anywhere on the premises. My partner Lori actually teaches dance classes at this building, so please respect their rules, as I don't want to jeopardize her teaching job or anything. Their drink prices are pretty reasonable ($3-$4 for beer & wine, $1.50 for soda and water). We have also purchased two giant water coolers which we will make available for anybody who needs it during the festival.
In case you missed it, the full schedule has been posted online:
(also, if you missed it, our guest of honor Josh Malerman recently dropped out of the fest, unfortunately)
Instead of entering through the front door, please go around the building and enter through the back, in the parking garage. You will notice a FALLOUT SHELTER sign above the correct entrance. We will also have a sandwich sign out front directing people the correct way.
The festival is scattered throughout three floors. The bookstore/vendor area is on the bottom floor (technically the basement). This area will be free to the public. It is also where the Rathskeller Bar is located. Most of the rooms on the second floor will be locked, except for the conference room, which will be used for all live readings. We will have a sign marked READINGS set out next to the door to avoid any confusion. The third floor of the building is the ballroom, which is where we will be conducting all panels. The ballroom will also be used for the Ghoulish Wedding and the Spooky Campfire contest. There are both stairs and an elevator available.
The festival will open at 12pm on Friday, which is when badge check-in should occur. The bookstore will also open at this time.
The first panel will start at 1:30pm. Please see the programming schedule linked above for a deeper breakdown of the events.
On Friday, if you've purchased a ticket to the Ghost Tour, meet us out front at 9:15pm. If you have not purchased a ticket, and you are interested in attending the tour, click here to snag one if they aren't already sold out by now, which is very possible: https://book.peek.com/s/5098aa98-a755-47e7-a446-16377eea5bbf/P3667?fbclid=IwAR3svEE87UVlHkuRPQGABFQ0LeloEDXDQl_eglJCCrsEzgGKtoqDQki8BZY
On Saturday, in the ballroom, Lori and I will be getting married at 8:45pm. Anybody is welcome to attend the ceremony. Cake and wine will be available to whoever wants to join in. After the wedding, at 10pm, we will host the spooky campfire storytelling contest in the same room.
IMPORTANT NOTE: the third floor ballroom will be off limits Sunday morning, as a church group meets there every Sunday morning. We will resume panels at 1:00pm on Sunday once the church group clears out. Until 1:00, we will focus on live readings (plus, the bookstore will remain open, of course!).
On Sunday, the bookstore and the entire festival comes to an end at 5:00pm.
I think that’s it, really. I hope to see many of you this weekend. Ghouls I’ve already met, and ghouls I will be meeting for the first time.
If you are attending this festival, the odds are good that you also like spooky things. This is something we have in common, and nothing can take that away from us. We are united by ghoulish interests. This festival is a celebration of that. The ultimate goal here is to have fun, and to remind yourself that you are not alone in the universe. You have friends. You have family. You have us.
Thank you for making the trip to San Antonio. Thank you for taking another chance on us.
—Max
Wonderful if you could hold it in Michigan some time. Both Grand Rapids and Traverse City have held other "cons" over the years.
So exciting, Max! You're doing the thing, bro :) Kicking ass. Congrats on the bookstore too!