Howard Days 2018: A Trip Report by Todd B. Vick

This year was my seventh straight year to attend Howard Days in Cross Plains, Texas. Every year I meet new people and learn new things, and that alone keeps me wanting to come back the next year. But in addition to meeting new people and learning new things, there is so much else going on, trying to take it all in can sometimes be a bit overwhelming. This year’s theme was celebrating REH Fans and the keynote speaker was, Bill “Indy” Cavalier, long time Howard fan and OE (Official Editor) of The Robert E. Howard United Press Association (REHupa). Moreover, most of the panels this year were geared to the fandom of Robert E. Howard. Every year I can summarize the event itself usually in one word. This year that word is fellowship.

It may have simply been the group I spent the most time with this year, but there were a lot of people who knew one another via the internet but had never met before in person. So "meeting" for the "first time," so to speak was a prominent feeling and activity. That was the case for me with several online friends who also attended the event this year. David J. West, author and guest writer here at On An Underwood No. 5, whom I have known online for many years, attended this year’s event for the first time. We had previously discussed him possibly attending previous Howard Days, and I had explained that I could pick him up from the airport and we could always drive to the event together. This year he took me up on that offer, and I’m glad he did. Getting to meet David J. West and hang out with him this year was a highlight for me. Moreover, when we arrived in Cross Plains, West was looking for others whom he had met online but had not met in person, so we eventually crossed paths with author Keith West (a regular attender to Howard Days), Jason M. Waltz (Rogue Blades Entertainment), and eventually we connected with author Ty Johntson. I was also able to reconnect with other regular Howard Days attendees (e.g. Bobby Derie, Scott Cupp, Scott Valeri, Russell Andrew, and many others). I was also able to finally meet Rob King (and his wife) who has helped me a little in my current research.

I typically get to Cross Plains by Thursday and this year was no exception. The reason is it gives me time to catch up with friends and other attendees and see the house before it gets too crowded on Friday and Saturday. Speaking of the Howard House and Museum, Project Pride always does a wonderful job organizing the event (with help from members of REHupa), along with Arlene Stephenson, who tirelessly spearheads the entire event. Note: Project Pride takes donations throughout the year to help maintain the house and museum. If you are so inclined, any amount is always helpful. Additionally, it is Project Pride who sets up private tours of the house for visitors who come to Cross Plains throughout the year to see where Robert E. Howard lived and worked. Your donations help there as well. Also, on Thursday, The Robert E.Howard Foundation has their table set up and are their selling high quality hardback and paperback books at a discounted rate. In addition to The Robert E. Howard Foundation, Skelos Press had a designated table this year. They were selling Patrice Louinet’s book, newly translated from French to English, The Robert E. Howard Guide (look for an upcoming post that will feature his book). This book is currently available at Amazon and will be available at the Skelos Press website soon. Of course, Patrice’s book was one of the first books I bought this year since an English translation had been announced a few months prior to Howard Days.

(L to R) David J. West, Todd B. Vick,
and Jason M. Waltz at the REH grave site.

On Friday, after a quick trip to Brownwood with my wife (who was able to attend for the first time this year), David J. West and Jason M. Waltz, to see Robert E. Howard’s grave site, there was just enough time to go to the Pavilion, next to the Howard House, and chat with a few friends and meet new people. If you ever attend Howard Days and it’s your first visit, there is a nice tour (with a large school bus) that runs at around 8:30 a.m. on Friday every year and it takes people to all the various sites where Robert E. Howard hung out, and/or to certain towns/locations close by where he used to live before his family moved to Cross Plains (e.g. Cross Cut and Burkett). After a cup of coffee and fellowship at the Pavilion, along with a quick trip inside the Howard House and Museum to buy new t-shirts, the first panel began at 11:00 am.

I will not delve too deeply into the various panels for this year’s Howard Days. Ben Friberg has already posted all of them at YouTube for your viewing pleasure, and Rob King (assistant librarian and cataloger at the Texas Tech University Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library, and a previous guest writer here at On An Underwood No. 5) has a marvelously detailed account of the panels (with the exception of the 3^rd Annual Glenn Lord Symposium) that you can see here. All the panels this year were as good as any I’ve experienced in previous years at Howard Days. The two panels I personally enjoyed the most were the Third Annual Glenn Lord Symposium (presented on Friday) and the Happy 90th Birthday Solomon Kane (presented on Saturday). I like the Glenn Lord Symposium panels because they are a bit more academically rigorous, which is simply a personal preference. However, this year’s Symposium panel had all new faces, which is nice to see happen periodically. The panel included Karen Kohoutek (one of the winners of the 2017 Cimmerian Award for best online article or series, and a member of REHupa), Nicole Emmelhainz (Assistant Professor of Rhetoric and Composition at Christopher Newport University), and Bobby Derie (the other winner of the 2017 Cimmerian Award for best online article or series and regular guest writer here at On An Underwood No. 5). Each of their presentations can be seen at YouTube (just follow the links on their names), and each presentation’s topic varied from Black Colossus and the inner journey of its heroine, Yasmela, to gender dynamics in Howard's work, to Howard's Mexico border trips.

After the Symposium, the presentation of the 2017 Robert E. Howard Foundation awards took place. You can see all the winners here. On an Underwood No. 5 was awarded The Stygian for Outstanding Achievement, Website or Periodical. I am deeply honored to have won the award, but it would not have been possible without the contributions to this website by Bobby Derie, Karen Kohoutek, Jason Ray Carney, Ben Friberg, Rob King, and David J. West. They are the true winners of this award.

Jumping ahead a little, another favored panel was Saturday’s, Happy 90^th Birthday Solomon Kane. It had some memorable moments (for instance, Bobby Derie pulled out a knife on the panel to emphasize a point he was making—a funny moment for sure) and it had some quality Solomon Kane artwork that is featured in an upcoming Kickstarter game which centers around the Solomon Kane stories and character. It is already seeing huge success. Okay, so let’s jump back to Friday.

Bill Cavalier

 After Friday’s panels, as is always the case every year, the silent auction and banquet took place. The silent auction is always fun, especially walking around and examining all the various things that have been donated that year by different fans and attendees of the event. Sometimes you get into a ‘heated’ price bidding war and hopefully your pockets are deeper than their pockets. Even so, you win some you lose some. This year I won two items: Verses in Ebony, a small booklet of selected Robert E. Howard verse (from the collection of Bob Lumpkin), and a pack of tear-sheets for four of Robert E. Howard’s stories from various pulp magazines – these are the actual pages from the actual pulps that typically (but not always) get mailed to the author from the publisher/editor of the pulp. Three of these tear sheets are stapled inside a card-booklet type of holder, and one was loose; the tear-sheets were for “Vikings of the Gloves” published by Fight Stories, “The Sign of the Snake” published by Action Stories, “Crowd-Horror” published by Argosy, and “Black Vulmea’s Vengeance” published by Golden Fleece. The pack also contained a few loose papers with poem fragments and the like. The banquet is usually always catered by Staghorn Café located in downtown Cross Plains, and their meals are always good. While we ate, guest of honor Bill “Indy” Cavalier gave a talk about how he discovered Robert E. Howard’s work and what Howard and his works have meant to him over the past 40 plus years.

Jumping back to Saturday, after all the panels are completed (and you certainly want to watch the panel called, What’s Up With REH?, if you were unable to attend) there is more gathering and fellowship at the pavilion while we all wait on the home cooked Texas BBQ feast that has been slowly and lovingly prepared for us throughout the day by Cat & BarbBQ. Once we get our fill of the evening meal and great discussions, anyone who is interested can migrate to the front of the Howard House and Museum for the annual porch reading of Robert E. Howard’s poetry. This year, more people gathered in front of the house than I have ever seen in the seven years I have attended this event; a sure sign that this event and Howard’s poetry is gaining in popularity (not that his poetry was ever unpopular, but this event, I think, has certainly helped promote it). Hearing people read Howard's poetry from his own front porch is always a nice highlight to Howard Days, and a fun way to end the event. And the group that reads Howard's "The Cimmerian" poem in different languages keeps growing every year - I think this year two new languages were added (Gaelic and Anglo-Saxon).

Other than the heat, which actually got to me on several occasions throughout the event, the panels, the auction, the discussions with old friends, and meeting new friends made this year’s Howard Days an especially enjoyable experience.

[I have deliberately left out a few things from this trip report with the intent to highlight them in individual posts, so be sure and look for those soon. Cheers!]