Conference Recap Cleveland Concoction 2023
Introduction
I attended the SF conference, Cleveland Concoction, at 600 North Aurora Road, Aurora, Ohio, at the Bertram Inn and Conference Center from March 17 to 19, 2023. I attended Cleveland Concoction in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2023, 2024, and 2025. (2020, 2021, and 2022 were canceled due to COVID-19).I attended the opening ceremony, seven panels, three concerts, one performance, the state of the convention meeting, and the closing ceremonies.
The link to the Concoction website.
http://www.clevelandconcoction.org/
Concoction 2023 Banner
Cleveland Concoction 2023 Program Guide Cover
ConCoction 2023 Badge
Bertram Inn and Conference Center
Summary
Friday, March 17 at 2 PM
Mistakes Beginning Authors Make 1.0, a panel with Linda Robertson Reinhardt, Marcus V. Calvert, J. D. Blackrose, Joelle Presby, and Tory Gates.
Make what you are working on special.
Getting an agent isn’t the first thing you need to do. You need something ready to be published before you can look for an agent.
They suggest reading On Writing by Stephen King.
The panelists talked about Save the Cat by Blake Snyder, a book on writing screenplays that has applicability to writing novels.
They talked about the two writing approaches, Pantsers (or gardeners) and Outliners (or architects).
They held the panel in Hayes A Room with 8 attendees.
Friday, March 17 at 3 PM
Animal Sidekicks, a panel with Cassandra Morgan, Addie J. King, Olivia Berrier, James Fadeley, and David F. Balog.
In writing, animals become more than a pet.
Could be a secondary character or a sidekick.
Examples are Old Yeller, Cujo, John Wick’s dog, and Mad Max’s dog in Mad Max 2.
As an author, you must get inside the animal’s head to understand the animal first.
They talked about the sidekicks you’d like to see the most, and the most interesting answer was a gerbil.
They held the panel in Hayes A Room with 12 attendees.
Friday, March 17 at 5 PM
The Opening Ceremonies.
Eric Hogg, the con chair, started the ceremony.
The cosplay chair introduced the three cosplay guests of honor, Mogchelle, Knightmage, and Big Girl Little World.
They introduced The Harp Twins, the music Guests of Honor
The other chairs, including OPS, were introduced.
They held the ceremonies in the Pegasus Room with 40 attendees.
Friday, March 17 at 6 PM
A Concert by The Harp Twins
This was the first of three concerts they performed this weekend.
They played nine selections.
- Sweet Child of Mine by Guns ‘n Roses.
- The Daemon Lover (a Scottish Sea Chanty)
- Nothing Else Matters by Metallica
- The Hearse Song
- Don’t Fear the Reaper by Blue Öyster Cult
- Viking Song featuring the Volk Twins (drummers)
- Legend of the Shaders (an original Harp Twins song)
- The Game of Thrones Theme
- Paint It Black by the Rolling Stones
They held the concert in the Pegasus Room with 60 attendees.
Friday, March 17 at 8 PM
Flash Fiction, a panel with Olivia Berrier, Weston Kincaide, and Marie Vibbert.
Flash Fiction is a complete story of under 1000 words.
The story focuses on structure. It follows this structure; set-up, twist, then punch line.
Every word must be perfect.
An analogy might be that Facebook is like a short story and Twitter is like Flash.
The key is the twist where the ending changes the meaning of what came before.
The two biggest mistakes that writers make are having too much beginning and rushing the ending.
Use the Iceberg writing example. The writer describes a small part of the story, and the reader fills in the details with inference.
After the discussion the panelists each read aa flash fiction that they published.
Olivia Berrier read “Scales and Secrets.”
Marie Vibbert read “Things from our kitchen junk drawer that could save this spaceship.” It was first published in Daily Science Fiction, but is also on her website linked below.
Weston Kincade read “Knock, Knock.” It’s from his short story collection, Tales From the Box, linked below.
https://www.kincadefiction.com/
They held the panel in Hayes A Room with 7 attendees.
Saturday, March 18 at 10 AM
Mistakes Beginning Authors Make 2.0, a panel with Jason R. Lady, Marie Vibbert, James Fadeley, and Clif Flynt.
The discussion covered four parts.
- Craft Mistakes
A problem and a solution are needed for a complete story.
The problem leads to the tension being resolved. You need the right ending. Write your bad ending first and rewrite it until it fits.
Get the voice of the character as soon as possible.
Vary the length of your sentences, but 40 words in a sentence is too much.
Be consistent and mindful of your points of view, don’t head hop too much.
Be careful with tense, use past tense in the past and present tense in the present.
- Business – the selling of the book.
Use your social network.
Strive for face-to-face contact.
Don’t include your life story in your cover letter. Keep it a simple, dry form letter.
- Legal – Copyrights
Don’t put your fiction writing in your blog, because then you are only selling reprint rights.
Don’t use lyrics in a story unless you have permission or it is in the public domain.
A title cannot be copyrighted.
Red flags if there is a reading fee on a potential agent.
- Final Thoughts
Get into a writing group.
Shake it up, do something different.
Finish your great ideas.
Keep writing, never stop.
They held the panel in Hayes A Room with 10 attendees.
Saturday, March 18 at 12 PM
Difficulties in Dating, a performance with The Confused Greenies.
The description was A Commedia dell ‘Arte of “Time Travel”
The performance was set on New Year’s Eve.
The main character is the bachelor type.
He travels through time to the future.
He wants to know about his future.
There are two suitors for his love interest, and her decision impacts the fate of the world.
The resolution is resolved unexpectedly.
They held the performance in the Pegasus Room with 12 attendees.
Saturday, March 18 at 1 PM
Star Maps and Alternate Earths, a panel with Andy Presby
The panel was about an overview of inexpensive tools for detailed SF/F world building for fans and writers.
- Celestia- space simulator.
- Google Earth – Worldwide satellite imagery
https://www.google.com/intl/en/earth/index.html
- AstroSynthesis – Star Mapping System
https://www.nbos.com/products/astrosynthesis
- Fractal Mapper – Mapping System
https://www.nbos.com/products/fractal-mapper
- Blender – 3D Creation software
They held the panel in the Hayes C & D Room with 7 attendees.
Saturday, March 18 at 3:30 PM
A Concert by The Harp Twins
This was the second of three concerts they performed this weekend.
They played nine selections.
- A song by the Proclaimers
- The Twins and the Troll (an original Harp Twins song)
- Highway to Hell by AC/DC
- Death Vault (an original Harp Twins song)
- Fear of the Dark by Iron Maiden
- Viking Song featuring the Volk Twins (drummers)
- Nordic Solstice
- The Game of Thrones Theme
- Paint it Black by the Rolling Stones
They held the concert in the Pegasus Room with 110 attendees. (A Full House)
Saturday, March 18 at 7 PM
Quitting Your Day Job, a panel with J. D. Blackrose, Joelle Presby, Olivia Berrier, and Linda Robertson Reinhardt.
They talked about their background leading to writing for a living.
You have some power in knowing your followers by putting out newsletters, but not on Facebook and Twitter.
Remember that anything that works today will not work in the future, it changes constantly.
Word of mouth is the best advertisement ever.
Doing conventions generates 90 % of her sales.
They held the panel in Hayes A Room with 7 attendees.
Sunday, March 19 at 11 AM
A Concert by The Harp Twins
This was the third of three concerts they performed this weekend.
The first five songs were audience choice songs. The song in brackets is the one not chosen.
They played nine selections.
1. Dr, Who Theme [Theme of Fairy Tale]
2. Rhiannon by Fleetwood Mac [House of the Rising sun by The Animals]
- Sweet Dreams by the Eurythmics [Sweet Child of Mine by Guns ‘n Roses]
- Secret of the Sirens [Wolf Lullaby]
- Dream On by Aerosmith [Clocks by Coldplay]
- Viking Song featuring the Volk Twins (drummers)
- Legend of the Shaders (an original Harp Twins song)
- The Game of Thrones Theme
- Paint it Black by the Rolling Stones
They held the concert in the Pegasus Room with 65 attendees.
Sunday, March 19 at 1 PM
The State of the Convention
Almost every convention head was there for the talk.
Many open volunteer positions.
There were about 250 people who attended the con this year.
They held the discussion in the Pegasus Room with 12 attendees.
Sunday, March 19 at 2 PM
Closing Ceremonies
Eric Hogg, the con chair, Stan Paulson from Security, and the person from Ops did a post-con talk.
They said they were working on planning for next year, with dates coming soon.
The Cosplay Guests of Honor and the Harp Twins were in the first row watching the talk.
The bottom line is that Concoction has risen from the dead following three years with no con due to COVID complications.
Looking forward to next year.
They held the ceremonies in the Hayes C&D room with 37 attendees.
Recommendation – Conclusion
Conference Recap Cleveland Concoction 2023
Cleveland Concoction 2023 was wonderful. The Bertram Conference center is nice. My stars of the con were the Harp Twins. I watched each of their three concerts at the con and each performance was great. It was interesting to see that the first half of each performance was different, and the second half was the same. My other highlights were the Confused Greenies performance and State of the Con panel. I attended the con in 2024 and 2025, and I plan on attending next year.
Links
I attended the SF conference, Cleveland Concoction, at 600 North Aurora Road, Aurora, Ohio, at the Bertram Inn and Conference Center from March 7 to 9, 2025. I attended 11 activities. My star of the con was Marie Vibbert. The con returns in March 2026.
I attended the SF conference called Cleveland Concoction at 600 North Aurora Road Aurora, Ohio at the Bertram Inn and Conference Center from March 8 to 10, 2024. I attended the opening ceremony, eight panels, two author showcases, and the closing ceremony. This year’s theme was the Neverending dungeon. My star of the con was Becca Lynn Mathis. The con returns from March 7 to March 9, 2025.
Links Continued
I attended the SF conference Cleveland Concoction 2019, at 600 North Aurora Road, Aurora, Ohio, at the Bertram Inn and Conference Center from March 1 to 3, 2019. I attended the opening ceremony, four panels, and the closing ceremony. This is a link to my conference recap. I also volunteered in the Programming Department for four hours and in the ConSuite for four hours.
I attended the SF conference Cleveland Concoction at 600 North Aurora Road Aurora, Ohio at the Bertram Inn and Conference Center from March 9, 2018, to March 11, 2018. The 2019 convention was from March 1 to 3, 2019 and I realized as I was writing a recap for that conference, I had not posted a recap for the 2018 conference. This is a recap for the conference from last year. I attended the opening ceremony, five panels, two author showcases, a performance, and the closing ceremony. I also volunteered in the ConSuite for eight hours.
This is my recap for the SF conference Cleveland Concoction from 2017. They held it from March 10, 2017, to March 12, 2017. I attended nine activities and volunteered in the ConSuite for twelve hours.
