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naomikritzerI'm back from WisCon. Something I found striking -- in previous years, I swear when I'd spot someone with an LJ badge or sticker, I'd nearly always recognize the name. I might not have interacted with them a great deal, but I'd have spotted their name somewhere or other, commenting on a post by some mutual friend. This year, maybe one LJ name in ten looked even vaguely familiar. The others were complete virtual strangers to me. The people who did NOT have an LJ name -- either on a fancy sticker complete with their default icon, or handwritten on their badge -- were weirdly apologetic about it (one woman told me "I'm nobody" when she saw me peering at her badge to see if she'd written any secret identities on it).
Full con report (or reasonable facsimile thereof) under the cut.
I left the girls up in Minneapolis with Ed, so I had a fully kid-free responsibility-free stay-up-as-late-as-I-want sort of holiday weekend. I drove down with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jiawen -- we had to get out early on Friday morning because I was scheduled to lead a discussion at 2:30. I made it in with enough time to check in, get my badge, and catch my breath. The discussion was the Mid-Career Writers' Reception. There has been a gathering for mid-career writers for a number of years, normally taking place on Monday. The regular gathering happened this year as well, but I wanted to add a second that would be more shop-talk-oriented. It was small, because it happened so early in the con, but the conversation was exactly what I was hoping for, and I look forward to doing it again next year.
I had dinner with a bunch of college friends on Friday night -- Fer, Rowan, Karen, and Jenizie, plus Rowan and Jenizie's grad-school friend Jeff. All these people (except maybe Jeff, I'm not sure) have LJs but I'm bleary-eyed enough that I typed "grade school" instead of "grad school," so I'll refrain from tempting fate with excessive use of LJ links.
Saturday I had lunch with my agent, Shana, and then participated in a group reading. I read from Holy Week. The other folks in this reading group were Elizabeth Bear, Leah Bobet, and Amy Beth Forbes. Bear read from what she described as her "rock and roll Elf story" -- it's going to appear in Realms of Fantasy later this year. Leah Bobet read a story in which the protagonist's friend unleashed a bunch of literary bears onto his college campus in the hopes that they'd eat Christian fundamentalists. She used stuffed bears as props, and I wound up with one, which is handy as Molly is supposed to bring a stuffed animal to her after-school art class today. They're going to deconstruct the stuffed animal, and she refused to use any of the 80000000000 stuffed toys we already had around the house, so this should really come in handy. Amy Beth Forbes read a story about a woman escaping hell, which I found compelling enough I went and bought the 'zine it was in so that I could read the rest of it.
Sunday I had two back-to-back panels: "Adventures in Peacemaking" and "Writing About War." I moderated the second panel. There were originally going to be five people on it, but one didn't make it to the con and another had a conflict, so it was me, Kelly McCullough, and Yoon Ha Lee. I should note my two overriding concerns as moderator are (1) keep the conversation going, and (2) don't be one of those obnoxious moderators that takes over the floor and never gives it back. I tend to overcompensate with #2 by talking as little as possible, and asking lots of questions instead. But that's hard on a three-person panel because there are only two other people, so unless they're really argumentative I'm going to HAVE to talk or #1 isn't going to work as well. Fortunately, we had a really good audience and they asked lots of interesting questions, so it all worked out. Yoon mentioned a story she'd written, The Hundredth Question, which I've now tracked down and read -- she put it up online for International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day, and it's a really compelling and interesting story that makes a particularly interesting counterpoint to John Scalzi's Old Man's War, which we discussed a bit on that panel.
Sunday night my critique group threw a party. We've been increasing the beer:food ratio over the last few years because we always seem to have food left over, and our beer is always totally gone by the end of the night. We went ultra-minimalist this year with the food -- I think we had four bags of chip-type things and a little dip. And we bought cases and cases of beer. And yet, at the end of the night -- all drinkables were gone, and we had unopened chips and dip, which we left in the ConSuite. It was a good party. As a bonus, we were directly across the hall from the Fancy Dress party, which had a Myths & Legends theme this year. Eris dropped by our party (complete with a golden apple) and I immediately dragged her over to Kelly and took their picture together, as she features prominently in Kelly's books.
The core feature of a con, for me, is the opportunity to have interesting conversations with people I don't normally get to talk to in person. Interesting people I had conversations with included (but were not limited to)
Ada Milenkovic Brown (who has written humor for a religious humor magazine called the Wittenburg Door -- this sounds so totally up my alley and yet I'd never heard of it before);
Charlie Anders (who friended me while we were chatting in the consuite so I'd be able to track her down again);
my friend Nichole's friend Kelly (whose kid goes to Molly's school);
a woman named Sarah who also has a kid at this school (and who is a friend of a different friend, it turns out, plus also her partner runs a magazine called "Rainbow Rumpus" with an old college friend of mine) (like most big cities, it turns out that Minneapolis is actually a sprawling collection of overlapping tiny villages);
Lawrence Schimel, who had brought along some of his Spanish-language children's books which were so irresistable I bought two even though my kids don't speak much Spanish;
Adrian who isadrian_turtle and Adrian who is dotar_sojat, plus Vicki who is redbird, and also pennski and bookzombie;
Lena DeTar, who is a veterinary student and was appropriately outraged by my story about my adopted kitty who turned out to have been declawed by a previous owner but not spayed (she considered this veterinary malpractice, which I emphatically agree with);
Plus Anne Harris, Haddayr Copsley-Woods, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Patricia Bray, Jennifer Dunne, Caroline Stevermer,maevele, Rob Gates, Jennifer Pelland, Dragonsden Katie, Alma Alexander, red-haired Beth whose last name I can never remember, Dave and Rachael Hoffman-Dachelet, and the parents of very young Alice (I had lunch with them, and spend the whole time grinning at Alice as she said "yum!" and fed herself noodles, and as a consequence I can't remember anyone's name but the toddler's). I didn't really have a proper conversation with Alice, but she's awfully cute.
jiawen is an excellent travel companion -- flexible about arrangements ("uhhhh....we need to leave at eight in the morning? OK....") and an interesting person to chat with for five hours in the car. And if anyone has ever felt the urge to joust with the Vikings in southern Wisconsin, we spotted a flier for Tribe Woden Thor's Medieval Festival and Joust at a gas station in Hixton, Wisconsin, right next to the flier for Christian Soldier Camp. Can you imagine having a Christian Soldier living on one side to you, and a Tribe Woden Thor member on the other? What do you imagine the block parties would be like?
My apologies to all the people I have forgotten to mention chatting with.
Great con. See you all next year.
Full con report (or reasonable facsimile thereof) under the cut.
I left the girls up in Minneapolis with Ed, so I had a fully kid-free responsibility-free stay-up-as-late-as-I-want sort of holiday weekend. I drove down with
jiawen -- we had to get out early on Friday morning because I was scheduled to lead a discussion at 2:30. I made it in with enough time to check in, get my badge, and catch my breath. The discussion was the Mid-Career Writers' Reception. There has been a gathering for mid-career writers for a number of years, normally taking place on Monday. The regular gathering happened this year as well, but I wanted to add a second that would be more shop-talk-oriented. It was small, because it happened so early in the con, but the conversation was exactly what I was hoping for, and I look forward to doing it again next year.I had dinner with a bunch of college friends on Friday night -- Fer, Rowan, Karen, and Jenizie, plus Rowan and Jenizie's grad-school friend Jeff. All these people (except maybe Jeff, I'm not sure) have LJs but I'm bleary-eyed enough that I typed "grade school" instead of "grad school," so I'll refrain from tempting fate with excessive use of LJ links.
Saturday I had lunch with my agent, Shana, and then participated in a group reading. I read from Holy Week. The other folks in this reading group were Elizabeth Bear, Leah Bobet, and Amy Beth Forbes. Bear read from what she described as her "rock and roll Elf story" -- it's going to appear in Realms of Fantasy later this year. Leah Bobet read a story in which the protagonist's friend unleashed a bunch of literary bears onto his college campus in the hopes that they'd eat Christian fundamentalists. She used stuffed bears as props, and I wound up with one, which is handy as Molly is supposed to bring a stuffed animal to her after-school art class today. They're going to deconstruct the stuffed animal, and she refused to use any of the 80000000000 stuffed toys we already had around the house, so this should really come in handy. Amy Beth Forbes read a story about a woman escaping hell, which I found compelling enough I went and bought the 'zine it was in so that I could read the rest of it.
Sunday I had two back-to-back panels: "Adventures in Peacemaking" and "Writing About War." I moderated the second panel. There were originally going to be five people on it, but one didn't make it to the con and another had a conflict, so it was me, Kelly McCullough, and Yoon Ha Lee. I should note my two overriding concerns as moderator are (1) keep the conversation going, and (2) don't be one of those obnoxious moderators that takes over the floor and never gives it back. I tend to overcompensate with #2 by talking as little as possible, and asking lots of questions instead. But that's hard on a three-person panel because there are only two other people, so unless they're really argumentative I'm going to HAVE to talk or #1 isn't going to work as well. Fortunately, we had a really good audience and they asked lots of interesting questions, so it all worked out. Yoon mentioned a story she'd written, The Hundredth Question, which I've now tracked down and read -- she put it up online for International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day, and it's a really compelling and interesting story that makes a particularly interesting counterpoint to John Scalzi's Old Man's War, which we discussed a bit on that panel.
Sunday night my critique group threw a party. We've been increasing the beer:food ratio over the last few years because we always seem to have food left over, and our beer is always totally gone by the end of the night. We went ultra-minimalist this year with the food -- I think we had four bags of chip-type things and a little dip. And we bought cases and cases of beer. And yet, at the end of the night -- all drinkables were gone, and we had unopened chips and dip, which we left in the ConSuite. It was a good party. As a bonus, we were directly across the hall from the Fancy Dress party, which had a Myths & Legends theme this year. Eris dropped by our party (complete with a golden apple) and I immediately dragged her over to Kelly and took their picture together, as she features prominently in Kelly's books.
The core feature of a con, for me, is the opportunity to have interesting conversations with people I don't normally get to talk to in person. Interesting people I had conversations with included (but were not limited to)
Ada Milenkovic Brown (who has written humor for a religious humor magazine called the Wittenburg Door -- this sounds so totally up my alley and yet I'd never heard of it before);
Charlie Anders (who friended me while we were chatting in the consuite so I'd be able to track her down again);
my friend Nichole's friend Kelly (whose kid goes to Molly's school);
a woman named Sarah who also has a kid at this school (and who is a friend of a different friend, it turns out, plus also her partner runs a magazine called "Rainbow Rumpus" with an old college friend of mine) (like most big cities, it turns out that Minneapolis is actually a sprawling collection of overlapping tiny villages);
Lawrence Schimel, who had brought along some of his Spanish-language children's books which were so irresistable I bought two even though my kids don't speak much Spanish;
Adrian who is
adrian_turtle and Adrian who is dotar_sojat, plus Vicki who is redbird, and also pennski and bookzombie;Lena DeTar, who is a veterinary student and was appropriately outraged by my story about my adopted kitty who turned out to have been declawed by a previous owner but not spayed (she considered this veterinary malpractice, which I emphatically agree with);
Plus Anne Harris, Haddayr Copsley-Woods, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Patricia Bray, Jennifer Dunne, Caroline Stevermer,
maevele, Rob Gates, Jennifer Pelland, Dragonsden Katie, Alma Alexander, red-haired Beth whose last name I can never remember, Dave and Rachael Hoffman-Dachelet, and the parents of very young Alice (I had lunch with them, and spend the whole time grinning at Alice as she said "yum!" and fed herself noodles, and as a consequence I can't remember anyone's name but the toddler's). I didn't really have a proper conversation with Alice, but she's awfully cute.jiawen is an excellent travel companion -- flexible about arrangements ("uhhhh....we need to leave at eight in the morning? OK....") and an interesting person to chat with for five hours in the car. And if anyone has ever felt the urge to joust with the Vikings in southern Wisconsin, we spotted a flier for Tribe Woden Thor's Medieval Festival and Joust at a gas station in Hixton, Wisconsin, right next to the flier for Christian Soldier Camp. Can you imagine having a Christian Soldier living on one side to you, and a Tribe Woden Thor member on the other? What do you imagine the block parties would be like? My apologies to all the people I have forgotten to mention chatting with.
Great con. See you all next year.
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no subject
Date: 2007-05-29 07:37 pm (UTC):-)
no subject
Date: 2007-05-29 08:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-29 11:11 pm (UTC)But glad she seems to be liking the book!
no subject
Date: 2007-05-31 01:43 am (UTC)On an unrelated note -- Madeleine L'Engle? Still alive at 87 as of this morning when I looked her up on Wikipedia and her fan sites. Not in the best of health, though.
no subject
Date: 2007-05-31 04:41 am (UTC)I wonder who I've conflated her with.
Hmmm.