Conning: Last Day
I am home from FogCon, and just like last year and the year before, I'm happy, but also pretty fried from so much mental stimulation and socialization with people I don't know well. I expect this will be common to any con I attend. Worth it -- I just have to be prepared for it as an aftereffect. And now, thoughts on today's activities:
After a little time in the Con Suite, where the topics of conversation included the question of whether minotaurs might be the next big thing in literature, and what a zombie minotaur might be like, I headed for one of my favorite panels of the con: "How Do I Fix This?". The focus was on practical strategies to deal with problematic things in fandom, and it made for a great conversation about privilege -- remembering to recognize it, using it to support others when we can while not domination the conversation when it's not appropriate -- and about giving yourself permission to take a break when you just can't deal with it anymore, the uses of anger, thoughts on using fiction and humor to educate, anecdotes aplenty. The panel was made up of articulate speakers from diverse backgrounds, and I came away actually feeling relatively optimistic.
Next was lunch, which ended up being a nice conversation with Jed, followed by a panel on rogues and outlaws in fiction, where I got to recommend The Lies of Locke Lamora to a bunch of people who have never read it and be enthusiastically seconded by one of the panelists and an audience member. (An aside: This particular woman and I attended a lot of the same panels and spent a lot of time publicly agreeing with each other and/or backing one another up in discussion, but sadly I never really got a chance to connect with her outside of that context. My best opening was on Friday night after ConTention, and I hadn't eaten dinner yet so I wasn't in a place to strike up a conversation. Maybe next year, or maybe I can take a chance and seek her out on the Internets.)
Then I attended the post-con feedback session and then I came home, where I flopped out until it was time to go to the grocery store. And now that I've emptied my brain of its post-con thoughts, I can take the rest of the night off -- and turn around in the back of my mind whether I ought to finally make good on my long-held temptation to attend WisCon this year.
This entry is also posted at http://owlmoose.dreamwidth.org/623866.html. There are currently
comments on DW.
After a little time in the Con Suite, where the topics of conversation included the question of whether minotaurs might be the next big thing in literature, and what a zombie minotaur might be like, I headed for one of my favorite panels of the con: "How Do I Fix This?". The focus was on practical strategies to deal with problematic things in fandom, and it made for a great conversation about privilege -- remembering to recognize it, using it to support others when we can while not domination the conversation when it's not appropriate -- and about giving yourself permission to take a break when you just can't deal with it anymore, the uses of anger, thoughts on using fiction and humor to educate, anecdotes aplenty. The panel was made up of articulate speakers from diverse backgrounds, and I came away actually feeling relatively optimistic.
Next was lunch, which ended up being a nice conversation with Jed, followed by a panel on rogues and outlaws in fiction, where I got to recommend The Lies of Locke Lamora to a bunch of people who have never read it and be enthusiastically seconded by one of the panelists and an audience member. (An aside: This particular woman and I attended a lot of the same panels and spent a lot of time publicly agreeing with each other and/or backing one another up in discussion, but sadly I never really got a chance to connect with her outside of that context. My best opening was on Friday night after ConTention, and I hadn't eaten dinner yet so I wasn't in a place to strike up a conversation. Maybe next year, or maybe I can take a chance and seek her out on the Internets.)
Then I attended the post-con feedback session and then I came home, where I flopped out until it was time to go to the grocery store. And now that I've emptied my brain of its post-con thoughts, I can take the rest of the night off -- and turn around in the back of my mind whether I ought to finally make good on my long-held temptation to attend WisCon this year.
This entry is also posted at http://owlmoose.dreamwidth.org/623866.html. There are currently
comments on DW.