The West Coast Alliterates met last night. No one brought any fiction to read, but I think it was one of my favorite gatherings so far.

As always, we talked about the Industry, about current projects, Hollywood, licensing, and that perennial writer's gripe known as editors who don't answer their mail (see also "Editors gripe about writers who don't meet their deadlines").

The assuredly-mail-answering and Hugo-winning editor George Scithers came up. The nature of the homage came up, in the context of Carnivale sort of ripping off, er rather providing an homage to working within an established subgenre and thinking like a certain Midwestern Allit's work.

And we celebrated Jess Lebow's completion of his next novel, which must as yet remain unnamed. I think we need a "finished the book" tradition. Possibly involving tequila.

In any case, I modestly proposed starting up a West Coast vs. Midwest literary gang rivalry, but to do it proper we'd have to have a violent inciting incident. You know, something to really make people choose between "Original Midwest Flavor" and "West Coast Cool." I guess we could try giving a mega-wedgie to Doug Niles or J. Robert King, but really, we're much to nerdy to pull that off. Maybe a scathing critique on Amazon review boards. Yep, that would do it.