Wiscon 33 - Sunday
Sunday *was* better. Sunday was so much better. I was feeling fine, so immediately headed for the convention in a morning that could have popped right out of one of my stories. It felt too perfect to exist in real life, cool, sunny, with a little breeze that didn't even ruffle the very green grass.
I found redcrowkater and julieandrews and planned what to attend.
I started with a lively panel discussion moderated by Julie, on science fiction in libraries. Then I went to the art show, and the dealer's room, not expecting much - I thought it would be typical street fair stuff. Nope. Not really. It was awesome. Painting, sculpture, jewelry - all of it unusual and quirky, and very accomplished. The dealer's room was almost worse; I had to leave for fear of trying to buy one of everything.
Later, I went to a reading. Kater was reading from the third book in the Alternate Susan series. I gleefully admit I was a beta-read for this, and it is terrific; suspenseful, moving and comical. (The protagonist Susan is a mage whose mother, also a mage, chainsmokes and lives in a trailer park.) The other readers, Ellise Heiskell, Shira Lipkin, and Catherine M. Schaff-Stump were also very good, and I look forward to seeing their work.
It ended a bit early, allowing me to catch the tail end of The Obligatory Workshop Panel (people talking about Clarion and other workshops) and then a workshop about such rules as Adverbs are Evil; Passive is dead; "Said" is the only way to say said; Never have a protag look in a mirror to describe their appearance; and A Protag must protag! Patricia Wrede, Ellen Klages, David Levine, and Benjamin Rosenbaum made it sound like a really funny - an educational cross-talk act. But they pointed out that rather than rules, these were guidelines; and many of them had their genesis in overuse in the prose of decades past, and suggested that while they could be used to make poor writing competent, they could never make competent writing excellent.
The Strange Horizons party followed, and I found a lot of people I knew. I'm a big fan of SH. I think online magazines, with volunteers and relatively low running costs, can afford to take risks that established print magazines can't; and publish more unusual and experimental stories. Also, they archive all their stories, and you can easily find them years later if you want to read (or re-read) them. I still dig out favorite stories and poems sometimes. So I was really pleased to meet the people behind it. The only one I know is Mary Anne Mohanraj, who founded it. (She is, incidentally, one of Wiscon 34's guests of honor.)
I was planning to go back and change for the parties later on; people were already wandering around in beautiful clothes and looking terrific. But there just wasn't time. First there was dinner with the three Clarion 08ers; then there was the dessert salon and the award speeches; and then I dropped by another panel (it was past 10 p.m. by then) and then I found a whole bunch of cool people to hang out with. We started in the bar. When it closed, we went up to another floor, and were entertained with funny stories from Karen Joy Fowler and Geoff Ryman and later Ellen Klages. At about 1.30, I did drop in on the parties, but they were winding down. I had a snack at the Con suite, and then walked back with Mary Robinette Kowal, who had some fascinating stories about her experience in India - not just the cities, but rural areas of Bihar.
Tomorrow's the end. :-(
I found redcrowkater and julieandrews and planned what to attend.
I started with a lively panel discussion moderated by Julie, on science fiction in libraries. Then I went to the art show, and the dealer's room, not expecting much - I thought it would be typical street fair stuff. Nope. Not really. It was awesome. Painting, sculpture, jewelry - all of it unusual and quirky, and very accomplished. The dealer's room was almost worse; I had to leave for fear of trying to buy one of everything.
Later, I went to a reading. Kater was reading from the third book in the Alternate Susan series. I gleefully admit I was a beta-read for this, and it is terrific; suspenseful, moving and comical. (The protagonist Susan is a mage whose mother, also a mage, chainsmokes and lives in a trailer park.) The other readers, Ellise Heiskell, Shira Lipkin, and Catherine M. Schaff-Stump were also very good, and I look forward to seeing their work.
It ended a bit early, allowing me to catch the tail end of The Obligatory Workshop Panel (people talking about Clarion and other workshops) and then a workshop about such rules as Adverbs are Evil; Passive is dead; "Said" is the only way to say said; Never have a protag look in a mirror to describe their appearance; and A Protag must protag! Patricia Wrede, Ellen Klages, David Levine, and Benjamin Rosenbaum made it sound like a really funny - an educational cross-talk act. But they pointed out that rather than rules, these were guidelines; and many of them had their genesis in overuse in the prose of decades past, and suggested that while they could be used to make poor writing competent, they could never make competent writing excellent.
The Strange Horizons party followed, and I found a lot of people I knew. I'm a big fan of SH. I think online magazines, with volunteers and relatively low running costs, can afford to take risks that established print magazines can't; and publish more unusual and experimental stories. Also, they archive all their stories, and you can easily find them years later if you want to read (or re-read) them. I still dig out favorite stories and poems sometimes. So I was really pleased to meet the people behind it. The only one I know is Mary Anne Mohanraj, who founded it. (She is, incidentally, one of Wiscon 34's guests of honor.)
I was planning to go back and change for the parties later on; people were already wandering around in beautiful clothes and looking terrific. But there just wasn't time. First there was dinner with the three Clarion 08ers; then there was the dessert salon and the award speeches; and then I dropped by another panel (it was past 10 p.m. by then) and then I found a whole bunch of cool people to hang out with. We started in the bar. When it closed, we went up to another floor, and were entertained with funny stories from Karen Joy Fowler and Geoff Ryman and later Ellen Klages. At about 1.30, I did drop in on the parties, but they were winding down. I had a snack at the Con suite, and then walked back with Mary Robinette Kowal, who had some fascinating stories about her experience in India - not just the cities, but rural areas of Bihar.
Tomorrow's the end. :-(