Worldcon Day 2
Took the scooter for most of today, am thus in MUCH less pain than yesterday but more fuzzy headed.
Faffed around this morning and missed the first panel, and lacked the motivation and energy for much of the later ones, but did chat to various people which was nice.
Went to the Dealers room where I OMG got to talk to Kaja Foglio *fangirls*. She was very nice. Going around the room on my scooter was untiring enough that I actually felt able to look at things and chat, but was a hassle maneuvering wise, especially the art show.
Panels:
Racebending with Christian Suave and Ika Nurain Vanderkoek. It was ok, though Christian Suave rather took over and, for example, started the panel by asking for any positive views of the film "as a valuable counterpoint". Beyond stuff I've encountered at racebending.com etc there was a point about the responsibility of Hollywood to consider their position as an international film studio, including when accents/background shots etc in foreign countries are blatantly wrong to anyone from that country.
Shaun Tan Guest of Honour speech: This was great, but not the sort of thing I took notes at.
Webcomics with Phil and Kaja Foglio, howardtayler and Foz Meadows. This was a fantastic panel. Phil and Kaja look so much like their cartoon alter egos it was a little disconcerting, and Howard was much younger than I was expecting, with big gothy boots covered in buckles.
They all said they like fanfic, huzzah! Including Live Free or Die which is Howard Tayler RPF.
Someone tried to sell "Girl Genius" stationary, only realising the name was taken at the last minute. It involved shoes and shopping and did not get authorised.
When discussing how to find success in webcomics: Rule number one: Don't suck.
I wrote "Breaking fourth wall, not actually reference" and I remember thinking it was really interesting and I don't remember why.
"Academic panel: race in sff" with Ika Nurain Vanderkoek, China Mieville, Alaya Johnson, Christina Lasaitis, Anita Harris Satkunananthan and moderated by Sheldon Gill, who is a local fan I know woo! This was really good, probably in part because the audience didn't get to speak much.
China Mieville started by talking about the Samuel R Delaney essay "Racism and Science Fiction", which mentions "self evidently tasteless absurdity" aka hipster racism from Isaac Asimov, and China Mieville said (and I'd agree) that this sort of racism is on the rise.
Delaney also predicted that it was only once there was a critical mass of minority writers that white writers would feel threatened and really start to be racist, which made me think of RaceFail.
Christina Lasaitis talked about writing about Brazil by Brazilians not getting translated, so everyone outside the country reads stuff about the country by English speakers aka not Brazilians.
Penguin told entrants in a black writing prize not to write sf "aka silly books". It had to be African enough. Ika Nurain Vanderkoek talked about "not being Malay enough" as well.
Alaya Johnson responded to a question about "how to write about racism" in metaphorical sf by saying that such attempts are pretty much doomed to be useless oversimplifications. Racism is not this neat simple dynamic that can be modelled usefully by "the green skinned aliens vs the blue skinned aliens", it's a complex mix of class and culture and history etc.
She also talked about people who think any books with African American characters are "about racism" when very few books are about racism, it's just that racism is one of the many real world tensions those characters experience.
China Mieville predicted lots of military sf about the theocratic "Moosloom" aliens.
And then we went to the "Pub at Crown" for dinner, which was nice enough. It was most importantly close, wheelchair accessible, and had food I could eat.
(Note that I am comfortable talking about webcomic authors by just their first names, but not the prose authors. Hmm)
This entry was originally posted at http://alias-sqbr.dreamwidth.org/354355.html. There are
comments.
Faffed around this morning and missed the first panel, and lacked the motivation and energy for much of the later ones, but did chat to various people which was nice.
Went to the Dealers room where I OMG got to talk to Kaja Foglio *fangirls*. She was very nice. Going around the room on my scooter was untiring enough that I actually felt able to look at things and chat, but was a hassle maneuvering wise, especially the art show.
Panels:
Racebending with Christian Suave and Ika Nurain Vanderkoek. It was ok, though Christian Suave rather took over and, for example, started the panel by asking for any positive views of the film "as a valuable counterpoint". Beyond stuff I've encountered at racebending.com etc there was a point about the responsibility of Hollywood to consider their position as an international film studio, including when accents/background shots etc in foreign countries are blatantly wrong to anyone from that country.
Shaun Tan Guest of Honour speech: This was great, but not the sort of thing I took notes at.
Webcomics with Phil and Kaja Foglio, howardtayler and Foz Meadows. This was a fantastic panel. Phil and Kaja look so much like their cartoon alter egos it was a little disconcerting, and Howard was much younger than I was expecting, with big gothy boots covered in buckles.
They all said they like fanfic, huzzah! Including Live Free or Die which is Howard Tayler RPF.
Someone tried to sell "Girl Genius" stationary, only realising the name was taken at the last minute. It involved shoes and shopping and did not get authorised.
When discussing how to find success in webcomics: Rule number one: Don't suck.
I wrote "Breaking fourth wall, not actually reference" and I remember thinking it was really interesting and I don't remember why.
"Academic panel: race in sff" with Ika Nurain Vanderkoek, China Mieville, Alaya Johnson, Christina Lasaitis, Anita Harris Satkunananthan and moderated by Sheldon Gill, who is a local fan I know woo! This was really good, probably in part because the audience didn't get to speak much.
China Mieville started by talking about the Samuel R Delaney essay "Racism and Science Fiction", which mentions "self evidently tasteless absurdity" aka hipster racism from Isaac Asimov, and China Mieville said (and I'd agree) that this sort of racism is on the rise.
Delaney also predicted that it was only once there was a critical mass of minority writers that white writers would feel threatened and really start to be racist, which made me think of RaceFail.
Christina Lasaitis talked about writing about Brazil by Brazilians not getting translated, so everyone outside the country reads stuff about the country by English speakers aka not Brazilians.
Penguin told entrants in a black writing prize not to write sf "aka silly books". It had to be African enough. Ika Nurain Vanderkoek talked about "not being Malay enough" as well.
Alaya Johnson responded to a question about "how to write about racism" in metaphorical sf by saying that such attempts are pretty much doomed to be useless oversimplifications. Racism is not this neat simple dynamic that can be modelled usefully by "the green skinned aliens vs the blue skinned aliens", it's a complex mix of class and culture and history etc.
She also talked about people who think any books with African American characters are "about racism" when very few books are about racism, it's just that racism is one of the many real world tensions those characters experience.
China Mieville predicted lots of military sf about the theocratic "Moosloom" aliens.
And then we went to the "Pub at Crown" for dinner, which was nice enough. It was most importantly close, wheelchair accessible, and had food I could eat.
(Note that I am comfortable talking about webcomic authors by just their first names, but not the prose authors. Hmm)
This entry was originally posted at http://alias-sqbr.dreamwidth.org/354355.html. There are
comments.