While the Triffid Ranch by
necessity remains
headquartered in Dallas, Texas, we've been known to make trips and set
up events outside the immediate area from time to time.
Please
feel free to check back for further events, and should you be
organizing an event where the Triffid Ranch might fit, also feel free
to contact me.
The first Triffid Ranch show of the year is a little earlier than usual, but then ConDFW is an unusual convention. Barring insane weather such as what Dallas saw last February, expect the weekend of February 17 to have a touch more green in it than normal, even for Texas.
Even with the odd weather in February, the 2011 show turned out very well for all involved, so we're coming back out for All-Con in Dallas in 2012. Considering that post-apocalyptic fantasies and carnivorous plants go together like rum and Coke, the idea is to have a much larger (and more cold-sheltered) collection than ever before. (The Triffid Ranch will be showing in conjunction with Tawanda Jewelry, so those who haven't met the Czarina will get their chance.)
I couldn't tell you the names or numbers of guests for the 2012 Texas Frightmare Weekend. I couldn't tell you anything about the schedule, or the parties, or even who's going to attend. The seventh annual Texas Frightmare Weekend is at the DFW Hilton at DFW Airport, though, so that means about four times the space as previous shows Yeah, it's going to be fun..
It all started four years ago, and now I'm coming up on my fifth FenCon. The guests of honor this year include Peter David and C.J. Cherryh, but the real draw, barring another Drought of Record, will be the new plants for this show. Expect some surprises, including some plants otherwise never seen in this hemisphere.
Richard Ray of Dallas's KDFW came out to the Triffid Ranch for a segment of his Lone Star Adventures feature last April, just in time for unnaturally cool and gloomy weather for his interview. That said, the interview was a lot of fun, and we tried our best to make Venus flytraps appear more impressive than they would be when it's that chilly.
Shortly after Mr. Ray's interview, Mike Kinney of KTXA also came out for a segment of Through the Lens. I think I broke the news anchor's brain with references to triffids, but there you go..
In August 2010, Bob Phillips of Texas Country Reporter came out to check out the Triffid Ranch, and the resultant interview premiered the weekend of November 20. Considering that I'd been a fan of Mr. Philips and the show since I was starting high school, I was honored to be worthy of the notice.
I had a lot of fun at the 2009 Texas Frightmare Weekend, and met a simply incredible number of people who had no idea of the sheer variety of carnivores other than Venus flytraps. The booth at Frightmare was interesting enough that the roving photographer crew from Dallas's Pegasus News included me in a pictorial of Frightmare attendees and guests. This wasn't the only factor that cemented my decision to set up a booth at the 2010 show, but it certainly didn't hurt.
And with the 2010 Frightmare show? Horrorsquad.com sent a crew out there to cover the spectacle, and out of the top five best things about Texas Frightmare Weekend, the Triffid Ranch made Number Two. Take that in a The Prisoner sense or in a Beavis and Butt-Head sense (or mix the two for the mashup that dare not speak its name), but I'm not complaining.
Speaking of Pegasus News, Sarah Baskovich covered the Triffid Ranch as part of her "Labors of Love" series for Labor Day 2009. At least I didn't scare her too badly.
In other publications, Amanda Thomsen of the famed gardening blog Kiss My Aster interviewed me for Horticulture magazine, with the usual results. You weren't expecting to know about my dream job, now did you?
Jessie Milligan wrote a generally very positive interview in the Home/Garden section for the October 30, 2008 Dallas Morning News. "Generally" means that everything was valid except the first sentence, which is a blatant libel. (And when the people who know me in real life finish wrapping their ribs with steel cable after rupturing their ribcages with laughter, they might actually read the rest of the interview.) Sadly, a recent revision of the Morning News Web site removed it, but I may ask permission to reprint the article on the blog.
Andrea Grimes, the only writer at the Dallas Observer in a full two decades whose work caused me to smile instead of gag, was kind enough to write about the Triffid Ranch in December 2007. As I like to point out, while I'm flattered that she described me as "resembling an off-duty superhero", I'm not sure if the superhero in question is Alec Holland or Irwin Schwab.
Previously, while I wasn't quoted in Erin Covert's article in the Dallas Morning News on rainwater harvesting, the first of the Triffid Ranch's rainwater storage tank was featured prominently in Natalie Caudill's photography for the article. Without looking at the captions, just guess which storage tank was which.
When the site went live, Ben McKenzie, famed Australian science enthusiast and comedian, took the time to bring up that it went live right around Australia's Daffodil Day. Considering that I use daffodils and daylilies to gauge spring every year (the daffodils come up right at the end of winter, and the daylilies come up when we're sure that we won't see any further frosts), this was more touching than he knows.
Oh, and Jeff Somers at the zine The Inner Swine had good things to say about the first issue of the Hell's Half-Acre Herald in 2007. Jeff is a good guy, even if he has a thing about going through life without pants, and his long-suffering wife deserves better treatment, so buy lots and lots of copies of his novels and zines.
That's it so far. Should anyone come across other examples of newspaper, magazine, or blog coverage, please let us know.
