lydamorehouse | Entries tagged with conventions

Minicon is this weekend. These are the panels to which I was assigned. There are a number on here that have me head scratching a bit, like, what do I know about the Monkey King? (Answer: almost nothing). I am, however, not going to complain about getting to be on more than one panel with Wesley Chu. That's pretty cool.

See some of you there, no doubt!

ON LEARNING HOW TO WRITE
Fri 5:30pm................................................................................ Veranda 1-4
The pathways to becoming a writer are many and varied. But not everyone can get a degree or attend expensive workshops. Can you learn to write by reading? How about reading and writing fan fiction? Is a beta-reader as good as an editor? Once you decide to sit down and write something, how do you improve your craft?
Deb Kinnard, Wesley Chu, Guy Stewart, Douglas Van Dyke, Ozgur K. Sahin,
Lyda Morehouse (M)

THE MONKEY KING GOES WEST
Sat 11:30am ............................................................................. Veranda 1-4
As the world becomes more diverse, the SF/F genre borrowed from everywhere. Eastern myths and magic are becoming increasingly familiar to Western audiences via books, movies and television dramas. Let’s talk about Monkey and his famous Journey to the West, martial arts, cultivators, yokai, immortal emperors, and other legends that are making their way to the rest of the world.
Peter Kacner, Anna Waltz, Delia Ihinger, Lyda Morehouse, Lisa Freitag (M)

THE PITFALLS AND BENEFITS OF WRITING HUMOR
Sat 7:00pm ................................................................Grand Ballroom East A
Great humor has the power to make the world feel a little bit sunnier. But what can you do when your slapstick falls short, your puns stink and everybody nose it, and your comedic timing…misses its cue? Come join us for a discussion about the often-underestimated work of making people laugh.
Eleanor Arnason, Wesley Chu, Melanie Meyer, Lyda Morehouse, Dex Greenbright (M)

THE RESTAURANT AT THE END OF THE BOOK
Sat 8:30pm ................................................................Grand Ballroom East A
Food often figures heavily in adventuring. Even video games have menus, these days. How do you invent food for your characters? Do you research planetary ecology, or historical cooking, or do you just make it up? Do you have any recipes? What fictional universe would you visit just to sample the cuisine?
Deb Kinnard, Wil Bastion, Steven Brust, CM Alongi, Ozgur K. Sahin, Lyda Morehouse (M)

WHO IS VOTING FOR TEAM ROCKET?
Sat 10:00pm………………………………………………….................... Veranda 1-4
The best worst anime characters: Who are your favorite villains? Who has the best evil laugh? Who has the best costume? Who would be the most fun to hang out with in bars? On missions? In the hot tub?
Lyda Morehouse, Jason Otting, Dani Sommer, Aaron Vander Giessen, Anna Waltz

FRIDAY

6: 00 pm The Queering of Good Omens. The second season of Good Omens had an explosion of canonically queer characters and couples. There were lesbians, nonbinary demons, and queer side characters galore. Yet our mains, Crowley and Aziraphale, couldn't seem to get it together, despite "the kiss." As we prepare for the Second Coming, let's talk about the good and the bad of the second season. Lyda Morehouse, Naomi Kritzer, Don Kaiser

9:45 pm Lesbian Space Opera: A Reading and Q&A by Lyda Morehouse. Lyda Morehouse has signed a deal for a new lesbian space opera trilogy. Come and join her for a reading and discussion about the forthcoming first novel in the trilogy.

SATURDAY

1:45 pm Yaoi and Yuri, the 2023 Edition. This panel is becoming a staple of ConFABulous, so it's time to move beyond 101 definitions of this manga genre. What's new (or new to you) and fun this year? There may be some discussion of manhwa and manhua (as well as anime and dongha,) but we're sticking with 2-D for this conversation. Lyda Morehouse, Jason Tucker

7:00 Dance in the Neon-Pixelated Dark: A Thirsty Sword Lesbians Cyberpunk Homebrew. A rogue artificial intelligence that has escaped its corporate masters into the dark and rain-spattered streets of Neo-Toyko’s Akihabara’s “Electric Town.” A sleek, sexy agent of MegaCorp offers the thirsty lesbians gathered at the Potable Pussy Coffee Shop a hard-to-resist bounty to return this rebellious robot. Will they accept? If so, will they be able to find this runaway android before the machine-hating Luddite Cult gets their hands on it? Thirsty Sword Lesbians RPG. Simple rules will be taught. Up to 7 players.
GM: Lyda Morehouse.

SUNDAY

3:30 pm Writing for RPGs. What are some best practices when designing adventures or sourcebooks for tabletop RPGs, either for publication or for your own gaming group? Discussion topics may include sources of inspiration, research and preparation, game balance, and having fun! James Satter, John Everett Till, Lyda Morehouse

5:00 pm Why Do Queer Women Write so Much M/M? This phenomenon has been true since the first Spock/Kirk slash was penned in the late 1960s. But this fan fiction trend has been mainstreamed lately with books like Everina Maxwell's Winter's Orbit, T. Kingfisher's Paladin's Hope, and an entire romance m/m genre (https://www.goodreads.com/genres/m-m-romance). Why aren't these queer and straight ladies writing F/F? Where are the male, gay authors? What are some concerns about this trend--are we being mainstreamed right into heteronormativity? Lyda Morehouse, Naomi Kritzer, Lauren Crabtree

A lot of people make the case that in-person cons mean more.... everything, I guess?

What's funny is that, for me, I probably participated more during Virtual WisCON than I did at this year's in-person CONvergence. I was on panels at neither, but I did go to some programming at both. I maybe hit nearly a half-dozen panels at Virtual WisCON? I went to ONE at CONvergence. Well, okay, one and a main stage performance.

So, how did it all go?

The above might sound like a complaint, but it really isn't. I had a lovely time. I just didn't DO very much at con. I ended up meeting up with

naomikritzer on the light rail (it goes right past the end of my block) and we made our way to the convention center. After getting our badges and discovering that CONvergence no longer requires proof of vaccination (though they did require masking in most places,) I followed Naomi to her first panel, "The Big I."

"The Big I" was a panel about using the first person... so, and no shade on Naomi or her fellow panelists, but not exactly a contentious or dynamic subject matter. Nevertheless, I wanted to scream at one point. Actually, at several points. I had to sit on my hands. I had to distract myself on my phone because I had made a conscious decision not to derail the panel, for the sake of my dear friend. However, I nearly died when I heard panelists say things like, "Well, you could never tell the Murderbot stories in third person, because all you'd have are the actions," and "Of course, in third person you can't get into people's heads."

I'M SORRY, WHAT?

I ended up writing a furious string of texts to my wife at home. Because someone needed to know that the panelists seemed to be confusing point of view (1st, 3rd) with narrative voice. FFS, you absolutely can "get into people's heads" in 3rd person, it's called close and/or limited 3rd person. You don't have to do this (which is the fun flexibility of 3rd person), but you absolutely can use the main character's "voice" in 3rd to describe scenes or people. You are not required to write like a newspaper article. "He wore a tie." Instead, you can say, "The tie Frank wore was hideous. Bob hated it. It reminded him of his late father-in-law." Or whatever the fuck. You can use long, rambling sentences in third person to imply that's how the character thinks. You can use shorter sentences and chose words that sound militarist to imply, in 3rd person, that's how your character sees the world.

It is, without a doubt, EASIER to do this sort of thing in 1st person, but it's not, by any stretch of the imagination, impossible in 3rd. (or 2nd for that matter.)

I never went to another panel after that.

This is why, in fact, I rarely sit and listen to panels. I have OPINONS. I feel feelings very strongly about things that really don't matter, like verbs, and narrative voice and whether or not the ending of Bleach sucked rocks (Spoiler: yes.) I'm kind of argumentative? But, I'm totally sitting, very sincerely at that booth that also says, "I Believe a Thing: Change my mind," because one of my favorite things in life is a spirited debate. My mind can be changed! So, like, maybe I'm wrong about p.o.v. and narrative voice, but I'll tell you what. If I'd been on that panel it would have been hella exciting!

But, anyway, after that panel I don't entirely remember what else I did? I may have headed home because I'd sort of spontaneously decided to join Naomi and didn't have good plans for dinner. She'd offered to go somewhere with me, but I would have had to hang out quite a bit longer and I wasn't up for it. Not when I was feeling all my narrative voice FEELS.

I did go back on Friday evening, however. I ate dinner at home and then hopped the light rail again. I will tell you that taking the light rail always makes me feel so grown-up, like a grown-up who lives in a City. I'm also always fascinated to watch people living their lives and there are always a lot of characters on public transportation, you know. My friend Barth Anderson used to write-up some of the random conversations he'd had or overheard on the bus and I thought of him a lot as I listened to a guy very sincerely explain to his friend on the other side of the phone that you should never buy a Mercedes Benz; Always buy Honda.

I discovered during the long walk down Nicolet Mall that there's a group of citizens who are patrolling as violence disruptors. I ended up accidentally pacing them on one of my walks to the convention hotel, but it was fascinating to overhear their conversations, as well.

Once at the con on Friday, I texted Naomi and discovered she was still at dinner. I decided to head to watch Ms. Shannon Paul do her comedy routine on the main stage. I am generally fond of comedy shows, and no one else in my family really is? So, it was a treat to watch her, although I really noticed the extent to which certain types of comedy require the audience to buy into certain kinds of normativity, most of which, I simply don't experience/never have. Like, I apparently fail, "would you eat a pie that appeared on your porch that none of your friends claim to have sent you?" (My answer: pie!) Long story, but Ms. Shannon was trying out a bit and explained that a mystery pie had been delivered to her house and she threw it away without ever opening the box because "of course." But, she wanted to know who in the audience would have tried the pie and which of us wanted to know what kind of pie it was. I wanted to know, and I wanted to try it. I am apparently a freak of nature. Not a lot of people agreed with me. I will say that for the rest of her routine, I found myself thinking about whether or not the scenarios she presented were things I would do or not and it kind of changed the humor for me? Like I say above, I noticed the ways in which much of the humor required buy-in to a "normal," because for things to be funny they had to fall outside of it, you know?

Anyway.

Naomi and I ended up attempting to make a "bar con" at the CONvergence hotel by hanging out in the lobby. It worked? It took some time to gather some friends, but we did at least run into some folks I'd been hoping to see. This is a perennial problem for me at this "new" hotel because I just haven't figured out where people go. The conference rooms also go up in a central column, rather than being spread out flat, so there isn't as much "passing people in the halls" because people are going up and down different sets of escalators?

The dealer's room was also surprisingly sparse. The main audience they seemed to be catering to was RPG gamers, which includes me, but like almost every booth seemed to have sets of dice for sale? Given that the con's focus this year was cosplay, I was a bit surprised to see ZERO clothiers in the dealer's room--no kimono, corset, boot, or steampunk hat/goggle makers/sellers. It was kind of weird? There was one bookseller, though they didn't have a large selection (it was not Dreamhaven or Uncles.) I dunno. I did have some luck finding fun things to buy in artist's alley, however.

The con, of course, went on for two more days, but I didn't.

I still had fun? But, it was very low participation for me this year.

There were a number of factors in my decision to go to WisCON virtually this year, but the main one was that I'd have to turn around almost immediately after returning home from a road trip to do another one. Even for someone like me who loves to road trip, that was too much.

However, as I've reported in the past, WisCON has run a good virtual con, so I had no hesitation dropping the very cheap virtual membership ($25) last minute in order to attend online. This year the virtual track consisted of a Discord with multiple channels, hybrid panels (basically in-person, but streamed to Zoom), and Zoom-only panels.

I didn't do much of anything at the con on Friday because I was busy doing things with my family. However, I got a taste of Wiscon via an email from

naomikritzer in which we chatted about the workshop critique group that she'd facilitated. Emailing with her reminded me of the one time I did the workshop as a facilitator... (I remember it well because

davidlevine was in my group and he was already so sufficiently advanced that the sum of my critique consisted of where to send "Tale of the Golden Eagle.") I think I also did the workshop as a nascent writer being critiqued, but I have no idea when that might have been--sometime in the 1990s?? I was just browsing the list of GoHs, wondering if seeing a particular name would jog my memory and the only one that did was Melissa Scott, because I interviewed her for the local gay paper, focusPOINT, and sold the unabridged interview to Science Fiction Chronicle that year, which, according to the website was 1997. Not my first WisCON, I actually attended WisCON for the first year in 1984, because Elizabeth A. Lynn was a guest and I talked my father into driving me and my then-boyfriend, Ben K., down to Madison for a day, just so I could see this lesbian writer FOR REASONS (Sorry, Ben!)

The thing is, I also remember deciding to see if I could sell that Melissa Scott interview because a friend of mine who was working at the gay paper as a reporter said, "Since you're going anyway...." so I'm sure I was attending fairly regularly before this, but when exactly I started going regularly, I have no idea. I should ask Laurie Winter if she remembers, because I used to hitch a ride with her, Terry Garey, Rebecca M., and Eleanor Arnason.

At any rate, on Saturday my first panel was a hybrid one, which I wanted to catch because Naomi was on it. It was called "What I Wish I'd Known When I'd Started" (Writing is implied.) I have to say kudos to whoever set up their hybrid panel room, because the camera was positioned close enough that I could see everyone--including read their names on the table tents!--and I could hear everything in the room, even the un-mic'ed audience members (even though the moderator very carefully repeated questions from the audience.) I did miss the beginning of this panel because I was figuring out where and when and how, but someone also took abridged notes (like, while it was happening, a kind of live-stream) in the Discord Channel, so I could easily catch up. Naomi and I have been talking a lot about normalizing mid-career slumps and, apparently in the part I missed, she talked about her own. Two of the other panelists were self-published and so the topics hopped all over the place between trad, self-, and hybrid publishing. It was a good panel. Because the tech was so slick, I really felt like I was there.

The next panel I attended was Zoom-only and that one was "The Trans History of WisCON," which I wanted to see because my friend

bcholmes was on that. Speaking of nostalgia, the other reason I wanted to go is because I was on a very early trans panel about trans representation in SF/F because my Archangel Protocol books feature a character who is a trans woman (one of the four archangels, actually.) But, this panel has become rather infamous (or famous?) because Charlie Jane Anders, myself, BC, and Elizabeth Bear were on it--and Charlie Jane now talks about it as though it was her and Bear and "some other people." (<--a direct quote from a panel she was on later in the con.) But, I remember it well for a number of reasons, but mostly because of a really profoundly pointed (in a good way) comment from the audience from

jiawen in response to Bear's "Well, if you're lacking the right kind of representation, you should write what you want to read!" And jiawen rightly pointed out that not everyone wants to be a writer, but readers still want to see themselves reflected in their fiction. That stayed with me for years and years and years, and I strove to live up to that directive in everything I wrote.

My memories aside, the "Trans History of WisCON" panel was very good, although they had one woman who skirted right up to the edge of being a little bit behind the times, but she was self-aware of her lack of understanding, and that made a huge difference, you know? The rest of the panel was supper fascinating and full of a lot of things I was not obviously privy to throughout WisCON's history. BC suggested that 2000 was the first year she'd attended and that seems unreal to me, because I can hardly remember WisCON without imagining both BC and jiawen there.

At some point in here, jiawen and I jumped on to jitsi to do our version of barcon, where we hang out and gossip about the con and talk about life, the universe, and everything. It's become a tradition for us at Virtual WisCON and it's surprising how much those kind of things really help a person feel like they're there, at the con, and not just spectating from a vast distance.

Also, later on Saturday evening, I also attended "Tell Us About Your Virtual RPG" for obvious reasons. As anyone who reads my blog regularly knows, I'm in an RPG that has been virtual from the start, some four years ago, with a bunch of folks here on DW. As I told jiawen later, the panel was interesting (in the non-Minnesotan sense) but not mind-blowing. I find that Zoom panels are often very 101? Like today, I attended a Zoom-only panel called, "Writers Groups and Gaming Groups" because my friend Kristy was on that (and it's something that jiawen proposed based on things that she and I have talked about) and I asked a question about problematic members and what to do with them. And this isn't meant as shade on the panelists, but they all just talked about the easiest solution (which also assumes that all members are expendable, and unteachable which isn't actually always true) which is "just kick them out." Also, as someone who has been the facilitator of a number of writers' groups over the decades that I've been writing, there is no "JUST" in kicking someone out. It's actually always a hard and painful process, especially if your group is full of peers (which mine always are. I don't set myself up in an "instructor" roll, even when I'm the one organizing a group.) If I had been on the panel, I would have liked some frank discussion about how in writers groups (less so in gaming groups,) there are members who have elevated status in the group because they have more publications and that complicates "just kick them out." I mean, in gaming, this is akin to "what if your GM is the problematic one?"

At any rate, I felt like the Virtual RPG panel also operated on this level, which was kind of Virtual RPGs 101. Which didn't make it a bad panel, I just didn't feel like I'd learned much or heard anything fully new attending it. Although, the Virtual RPG panel did have an interesting discussion about how to deal with maps, mini figs, and the like, virtually, but it got more technical than I was interested in since I'm (so far) never the GM in these games.

On Sunday, today, the only thing I did was attend the Gaming Groups/Writers Groups panel, which, as I note above, did not knock my socks off, but neither was it a complete waste of time. I'm trying to decide right now if I will go to the streamed GoH speeches. Rivers Solomon and Martha Wells have not been, so far as I could determine on any of the streamed or Zoom-only panels (nope, I just missed "Healing from Cispremacy"/Rivers and "Intersectional Robots"/Wells), so I may want to go to at least say that I've seen them/heard them talk. There is one gaming-related Zoom-only panel tomorrow, Monday, that I might check out, but probably this it for me?

I realize that milage varies substantially with Virtual Cons, but I have always loved them. I wish they would continue more robustly than I suspect they will? I really love not having to leave my house to attend. I can afford SO MANY more cons this way, just in general, and when done right I don't really miss the in-person experience. Like, Discord (which, to be fair, I am deeply comfortable with) can feel like those random hallway conversations and they almost always have channels labelled "bar" or "lobby con" so you can "hang out" there and get something akin to the in-person experience. I say this as an extrovert, who likes people? So, I don't know. Like, I say, obviously, this is very subjective. I'm a big proponent.

This last weekend, I attended Minicon 56. (Guests of honor: Martha Wells, Sara Felix, and Greg Ketter.)

Since the pandemic, I haven't been hanging out at cons the way I used to. I tend to drive in for my panels and then leave. Since I'm not eating at restaurants yet, either, this cuts into a lot of my social time at a con. Even so, this has been a nice way to ease back into things.

On Friday night, I had my first panel at 8:30 pm. If you're curious how this one went, I believe that Justin Grays recorded it and will have some kind of write up about it over at xyr blog: https://www.justingrays.org/my-blog. I was the moderator and if I had to rate myself on a scale of 1 (being worst) to 10 (being best), I would give myself a solid 5. I felt a bit hampered by the fact that there were five panelists and three microphones. The microphones were also, for some reason, taped down to the floor and, thus, their cords could only be moved a few inches in any direction. I tried to mitigate this problem of three people sharing one mic, by sitting on the "wrong" side of the table. I found that while that worked for panelist wrangling, it did nothing for being able to track/sense audience response.

Plus, not gonna lie, I'm not at my best after 7 pm. I am a very early-to-bedder.

All those excuses aside, I think the panel went OKAY. I may have started us off on the wrong foot by not taking some time at the very beginning to define parameters and general terms. We were using robots, androids, machine learning, and AI all rather interchangeably. At least one audience member felt the need to call us out on that near the end, and, honestly, that's on me. I also was far less interested, personally, in REAL LIFE artificial intelligence (or machine-learning) than I was in fictional representations. If I'd been a bit more on top of things, I would have been clear that was what I, personally, wanted to talk about and what I'd be directing most of the conversation towards.

I do think that, substantively, by the end, it was an interesting discussion.

I hung out in the panel room with

naomikritzer and Justin for awhile talking about menopause, being back at cons after a long hiatus, and life in general. I like them both a lot and, had it not already been deeply past my bedtime, I could have hung out a lot longer.

Saturday morning I was initially slotted to be part of the author smorgasbord readings, but ended up needing to cancel. ( Content Warning: discussion of stillbirth from 20 years ago )

So that was a rough way to start the second day of con, but time well spent.

My next panel of the weekend was at 1pm, so I stayed and had lunch with Shawn, and then headed out to the con. As a random note, had great parking all weekend. I was always able to find a first tier spot. The lot was always decently full, but it seemed that whenever I need one, a spot appeared!

My one o'clock was Humor in SF and, technically, Eleanor Arnason was the moderator, but, since I felt I had less to say on the subject than she did, I took over moderating by asking all the questions and generally making sure that the panelists all got a chance to answer. Because of this we kind of dug a little deep and tried to tackle the question of what makes humor work? Generally a fun panel, though.

My second panel followed directly on that one and it was GLBTQIA+ representation in the media and that one got... I don't know a person could call it derailed, but we ended up down the rabbit hole of What The F*ck is Up With Publishers These Days and honestly that discussion is always depressing, but it's also really clear that the pendulum is swinging again towards queer book burning and loss of representation. So, while the conversation was good and necessary, the mood was low.

I went home after that mostly because, given our morning, I didn't want to be away from Shawn for too long.

Sunday was my longest day at the con and, of course, I arrived for my 10 am panel to a parking lot already clearing out. I tried to get coffee at the nearest Caribou, but even though they did not have a "Closed for Easter Sunday" sign on the door, they clearly were. The place was dark and the doors locked. Thwarted in my attempt to get extra caffeinated, I headed into con, where I promptly ran into Anton P., who is everyone's favorite guest liaison. I did not meant to complain in such a way that would activate Anton's liaison instincts, apparently, I said just the right magical words, that when I was five minutes into moderating the "Professionals Writing Fan Fiction" in walked Anton with a VERY LARGE, very welcome hot mocha for me.

If Martha Wells hadn't been speaking at that very moment, I suspect he would have been greeted with a round of applause.

This panel was by far my best. I mean, it may help that the panelists were all people (with the exception of Martha) that I knew well, and, of course, this is a subject that generally garners a lot of enthusiasm--both from the audience and the panelists. So, mostly my job as moderator was to keep the ball rolling and make sure that everyone got a chance to talk. Martha Wells has clearly been kicking around the fan fic community probably longer than most of us on that panel (Anna Waltz might be the only other contender,) but I was a relative newbie having only fully fallen into fanfic writing in 2012. To be fair to me, I was reading fan fiction longer than that, but mostly what I'd do, as a fan, was discover the Buffy or Star Wars fic I was yearning for, read it, and that was my entire interaction with the fan community. Martha sounds like she was already writing fic way back in the APA days, which is pretty impressive.

I rode high on the adrenaline of that panel (and, of course, the extra boost of caffeine, curtesy of Anton) and so I spent the several hours between that panel and my last one at 2:30 pm hanging out at the con, mostly with Naomi, but then I was joined by a bunch of other folks in the Green Room.

The final panel I was on was called the "Power of Play" and suffered very greatly for being scheduled during straggler con. Most people were cleared out by the time we were starting up, including the art show and the dealer's room. The only people left, I think, were the fabric swap folks. But, despite low attendance and end-of-con energy, I think the discussion went okay. We had a very broad definition of play, actually, that meant we could talk about all sorts of fun things including "weird road trips" as play, and "I threw myself a divorce party" as play. One of the audience members introduced me to the idea of "hacker spaces," which is apparently an anarchist answer to "maker spaces," many of which are project/build oriented and have some kind of sponsored hierarchy, like a library staff, etc. Hacker spaces apparently don't require that you end up with a finished THING, but just that you go and mess around with things, which sounds very fun, indeed. We, of course, also talked about the lasting power of role-playing games and other games adults are allowed as play.

I would say that, for me, it was a good con.

I'm looking forward to, at some point, being comfortable enough to go out to eat with people again, etc., but, in the meantime, this was probably the closest I've come in a long time to feeling like the pre-isolation part of the pandemic times.

I had been expecting to run into more people that I knew--at least two of my current students were supposedly in attendance--but I think the fact that Saturday was my least present day contributed to that.

How was your weekend? Did those of you who celebrate Easter have a good one? Do I know anyone celebrating Ramadan? Or, perhaps, Death of Margaret Thatcher day? I understand that Passover is still happening, and many of you are in the throes of that, so how is that going?

My last day of Virtual Chicon was actually Saturday, which is two days ago now, but I'll my do my best to recap for those that are interested.

I had a great couple of panels on Thursday, despite being ten minutes late to the panel I was most excited about "Satoshi Kon: a Retrospective." The panel moderator was Alina Sidorova and she was very kind in that, despite my late arrival, she gave me an opportunity right away to dig into my theories about the transness of some of the reflective images in Kon's work. This sparked a very lively conversation. I think, generally, this was a really great group of individual fans, each with their own unique perspective. I wish, in fact, we'd had more time to explore Osawa Hirotaka's point that Kon, himself, has said that he was deeply influenced by music, and that there is often a connection between art and music. I know nothing at all about music, since I'm not actually much of a fan (I always dread the classic author interview question which is: What kind of music do you listen to when you create? My answer: none, are you nuts? How can I hear my characters talking over someone else's lyrics??? But NO ONE likes that answer. I'm supposed to have a playlist. I fail playlists.) So, I mean I would like to hear from people for whom music and their art are intrinsically linked, and we ran out of time before we could go deep on that. I was also on that panel with Nick Mamatas, who was also on my later, much more chaotic panel "Noir and SF/F."

The Noir panel was rough for me for a couple of reasons. First, my internet decided to be deeply unstable. Second, while I wrote a noir cyberpunk, I don't actually read or watch a lot of it otherwise. So, every time there was a question like, "What are you reading now in the noir genre that you would recommend?" or "Are there noir SF stories with alien detectives?" I had no clue how to answer. But, luckily, both the moderator T.C. Weber and Nick had a lot to say on pretty much everything (<--I say that with a smile, I really liked the both of them a lot.) Marissa James and I stayed out more often than not, though me more intentionally that she, I think.

Virtual panels seem to come in a lot of varieties. I actually saw at least part of one "Cyberpunk in Different Cultures" that was set up like an Academic presentation, where each expert actually ran a power point presentation. Then, after each person gave their separate speech, they would come together and discuss as a group. I am not a super fan of this? I mean, I feel it can be quite good if it's a survey topic, like "Cyberpunk in Different Cultures," where what the viewer wants at the end is a list of books or materials to consume.

There are others, like the "Noir" panel where everyone talks whenever they feel like it and it's in constant danger of devolving into chaos, albeit a fun chaos.

I actually thought that our "Satoshi Kon" panel was a good hybrid in that, while we didn't have a power point prepared, it was clear that each of us had a THING that we wanted to say about Kon's work. But, instead of waiting until the end to discuss, when ideas might get lost, we would each say our piece, have some excited cross talk, and then it would be the next person's turn. I absolutely credit the moderator for being able to orchestrate this kind of discussion. Alina was really good, too, at making sure everyone had an equal voice and ample time to speak.

It's really hard to make an online panel as fun and informative as an in-person one, but I feel like I had two really decent experiences, even the more chaotic "Noir" one.

I will say that I find that there's something about video conferencing that makes a lot of panelists into expressionless robots. I don't know what causes this, but some people go really flat, like they're staring into a TV screen. I notice that very few people smile or nod along and that brings the energy down. In an effort to counteract that I always make it my habit to smile, nod, and turn off my mic so that I can say the "uh-huh" noises to myself without breaking up their audio. It's an effort to stay engaged, but it's not that much more of an effort than it is in Real Life (tm) in my opinion.

I watched the Hugo Award ceremony on YouTube and I have opinions on that, too, but they're probably not for public consumption. The only thing I can say about it is that I think there's something very insular that happened this year. Same people, different award happened more than once. That being said, I was so happy to see Neil Clarke get a Hugo this year. I also want to be clear that I feel everyone nominated was very deserving, winner or not, it's just that... well, I had to wonder this year how much "ah, I know that name!" went into the voting decisions of WorldCon members. Though who knows what happened given that the Hugo's are decided with the run-off ballot style. Perhaps what I noticed was a matter of people winning a majority in the number 2 ranking. Who knows?

Anyway, it was still lovely to watch. Someone's speech always makes me tear up a little, and this year was no exception.

In other news, I spent far too much time today debating with a reader of my fan work about why I was not writing their favorite character the way they saw them. I tried to answer with the simple, "Because I'm writing my vision of the same character." To which they responded, "But why, though," and then dropped me a (and I kid you not) THREE PAGE GOOGLE DOC letter. The letter might have been more useful to me, but it seemed to mostly be comprised of "Why did you write him this way, when he's obviously this other way?" without any supporting documentation. This is fan fic, show me where you get this idea from canon. I want page number and panel, so I can reconstruct your thought process and reasonably discuss our differing takes on the same moment in canon. I am always, 100% up for that.

Me, discussing Bleach canon:
The conspiracy guy from "Sherlock," I believe

The conspiracy guy from "Sherlock," I believe

Image: The red string conspiracy guy from "Sherlock," I believe.

It's that, or accept that you just like Soft!Aizen and there isn't canon support for your preference and you don't care (but then don't argue with people who write Hard!Aizen.)

This person also seemed upset that my story had "an agenda." "You were trying to paint the villain as a good guy!" I had to break it to this fan that every story has an "agenda." It's called a "theme," in your English class. If a writer doesn't have something they're trying to say, they probably will run out of steam before it's finished. But, the theme or agenda it doesn't have to be as big as my exploration of "What if Aizen was evil, but also not wrong about the Soul Society and Ichigo helped him win?" It can be, "What if Ichigo really liked knitting?"

Both of these are "agendas," because the fic writer is probably also saying something about why Ichigo might like knitting or why knitting is cool. In the story, they'll PROBABLY CENTER KNITTING. (This person was really upset that I centered Aizen, and I was like, well, that's because to make the case that Aizen is evil but also not wrong, I have to let him talk about it???) But, the point is, all writing is about SOMETHING. It's also not illegal or wrong for me to want to make a political statement in my fan fic, even if canon doesn't support it. Fic writing, for me at least, is about the exploration. You've got this world you want to play in for some reason, often because you find something gnarly or toothsome in it and you want to chew on it. That, I explained to them, is the point of it all, and what that might end up feeling like is an "agenda."

I have a very bad feeling that I, at 55, might be arguing with someone who is, in point of fact, 12. I am trying to be emphatic, but not rude. Twelve or twenty or two hundred, I felt really compelled to explain that I don't owe anyone their vision of this character we have in common by the happenstance of fandom. This is fan fic.

If I want to write non-canonical, out-of-character stuff in my fan fiction, I'm actually allowed? I actually prefer to write as in character as possible, but that's my preference. It's not a requirement of the format.

My first panel yesterday was at 3:30 pm. So, I spent much of the morning doing the usual Saturday morning things, and left for the light rail at around 2 pm. By chance, there happened to be a Street Art Festival happening on Nicollet Mall. I snapped a few shots of some of the cool art.

Image: Art on the sidewalk of downtown Minneapolis. A woman and a wave, unfinished.

Image: A spray paint street art booth in downtown Minneapolis. A Black girl, surrounded by vibrant colors, staring out at us intently.

Image: Food booths set up under a skyway.

Technically, I was meant to have two panels Saturday, but I bailed on my 7 pm panel in favor of my Star Trek RPG. The panel I did attend was "What Cyberpunk got Right," which was amazing. Rob Callahan who was the moderator did an amazing job, partly by acting as an emcee who walked around on the floor of the room and passed around the microphone so that people in the audience could be heard.

I'm trying to remember what we talked about, though. I feel like, in this case, even though the topic was broad, the genre is not, so it was much easier to focus on comparing the fiction of the past (in a way, though many of us confessed to still writing it,) to the now. We talked about what makes a consciousness, how laws might define that, if machines have rights (like copyright of the art and stories they produce,) and kind of on and on in a lovely meandering way. It very much felt like a conversation with a room full of smart and interesting people? It helped that there were no That Guys in attendance, I think.

Today I had my last panel "Culture and Diversity in Anime," which I moderated. I thought about doing a Rob, but the room wasn't very crowded and so I ended up staying up with the panelists. However, since the other panelists were all BIPOC, I happily did my job as a moderator and asked questions and then stepped back to let them do their thing. It was one of my better panels, honestly.

So, that's a wrap, folks. See you next year.

Yesterday started with a conundrum.

On Thursday, I just drove directly to the con and parked in the hotel lot. It was super convenient, etc., but I never even looked at the prices. I sort of foolishly assumed that the rates would be reasonable. As I was leaving after two hours? TWENTY-FIVE DOLLARS (for my international friends, that's about 31 Canadian dollars, 21 English pounds, or 24.50 Euros). INSANE. So, I woke up yesterday very determined not to bankrupt the family parking in the hotel ever again. It was raining very hard when I woke up, and so the thought of public transportation daunted me a bit. It looked like I'd be able to get a ride in with

naomikritzer , but then Mason reminded me that I'd promised him a ride to pick up some stuff at his work, so the timing didn't work out. I ended up taking the light rail in much later (my first panel was at 12:30 pm,) and that was FINE. It's a long walk down Nicollet Mall, since the light rail drops off almost at the butt end opposite part of that area of downtown, but there were buses I could have hopped on? So, it turned out okay.

I tell myself I probably needed the exercise.

My first panel was "What If...?" a fan panel about the Marvel animated series of the same name. There was nothing overtly wrong with that panel, but, as I was telling another friend of mine afterwards, something about it felt very 1996. There were five panelists, two of which were women and one woman of color. The dude bros at the far end of the table were all comic book fans and had a very insular vibe? Like, I don't think they were INTENTIONALLY ignoring the female (and queer) end of the table, but they kind of liked the sound of their own voices a lot? (I mean, that can definitely be me in some situations, so no shade, necessarily.) BUT, at one point, I just grabbed my mic and started asking my fellow lady-appearing panelist questions. And, I am also a long-time comic book fan, but I think there is value from hearing from people who are only MCU fans. A lot of value. I say that because there was a bit of an unspoken "Comic book fans are the One True Marvel Fan" vibe, as well, which no one ever said, but was heavy in the air, you know?

Anyway, I feel like I had to fight a bit to be heard on that panel and since the pandemic started the amount of spoons I have to make that happen is pretty low.

The "Faith in SF&F" panel was... well, I was talking to Naomi afterwards and I don't think she saw it as quite the disaster I felt it was. There were, in my opinion, a couple of things working against it from the start: 1) the topic is almost too broad, and 2) it was happening at CONvergence where the line between "are we talking about speculative FICTION, specifically, or are we talking about the entirety of SF/F fandom?" is very nebulous. The moderator did their very best, but religion is also a hot button topic and so, at one point, That Guy in the audience asked whether or not all of Judaism is negated by the fact that there is no archeological evidence for Exodus. If I had been the moderator, I would have said, "Either reframe this question to include spec fic, or shut the f*ck up? This is never the venue to call into question anyone's religious beliefs." BUT THAT DIDN'T HAPPEN. So, we had to have a whole ten minutes of one of the panelist making all sorts of counter arguments which were 100% unnecessary, because religions are based on faith? So who the hell cares if there is archeological evidence for any of it?? (Says the former Unitarian, now Witch, who has had to sit through these arguments, particularly among pagans who really, really want the Stone Age goddess worship to be a singular, unbroken line between then and now, rather than sh*t a bunch of weirdos thought up during the Victorian Age. For myself? If the shoe fits, who cares who made it or when!")

ANYWAY, you can see how that nonsense derailed us.

It wasn't our only moment off the rails, though? One of our panelists really, really wanted to talk about the Satanic Panic. This came up in our email chain pre-convention, and I might have tried a bit harder, if I were the moderator, to figure out exactly what they wanted to discuss--if only because its connection to SF/F is kind of tenuous? I mean, there was a whole lot of freaking out about D&D, which I remember having lived through this period in American history, but role-playing games are starting to stretch what I would consider speculative FICTION. I mean, yes, they are part of nerd culture and are a kind of private, living fiction, but are they stories in the traditional sense and, even then, what point do you want to make about the Satanic Panic and its effect on D&D or other spec fic related issues? Like, are there any novels that actually deal with this? Maybe that terrible movie with Tom Hanks, Mazes and Monsters, from 1982, which I feel like I saw a novelization of in my school library (and maybe even read), but otherwise I can't think of any bit of fiction that was either directly affected by this (banned or what have you) unless what the person on the end wanted to talk about was horror movies? Again, movies aren't technically FICTION in the strictest sense? So, I dunno. I might have been more specific as a moderator and said, "Okay, but what specifically do you want to say about how the Satanic Panic relates to spec fic?" and try to draw that person out a bit more. Like, they barely got a chance to talk at all? I would have tried to coax more out of them, in general.

But, if you ignore those two wildly divergent tangents, the panel was OK? I'm not convinced that there was more substance than flailing about, but some panels are like that.

I hung out with Naomi and a couple of other friends in between my two panels in the Con Suite (and then later outside on the Nicollet greenway, which was LOVELY,) and one of the things that kept coming up whenever I complained about how a panel went and how everything kind of felt a bit like the entire con was reverting to some less enlightened age is that apparently CONvergence is having a bit of a personnel shake-up? I don't know very many details about this, except that there was apparently some kind of great exodus of volunteers this summer due to some cult of personality types deciding to retire/quit/what have you. And we speculated that some of the things that used to be done by careful assigning of panelists, etc., might just have become, "Whelp, whatever!" in a mad rush. So, maybe that's part of why the whole thing feels like an earlier version of itself? I don't know about that, but it's interesting to consider.

Meanwhile, I got my final ChiCon panel assignments and, as my UK friends might say, I am well chuffed. I will post about them after I finish all this CONvergence write-up stuff.

I probably won't be able to keep up a full con report, but I thought I'd try.

Despite my better judgment, I'm doing CONvergence in-person this weekend. I will say that registration was pretty slick. As you approached the registration area, someone directed you to the first table, where you showed your ID and proof of vaccine card. If you passed that first hurdle, they gave you a validation card (kind of like when you go and vote), which you then hand off to the people pulling badges. It was slow, but I made it through the line in less than a half hour. (I have seen lines for registration at CONvergence that were kind of insane, like wrapping around the whole hotel floor and then doubling back on itself.)

The moderator of panel was willing to remind people in the audience that masks were NOT optional, too, which was nice. There was a brief discussion before the panel started where it was asked if the panelists were willing to remove their masks. I'm never willing, so everyone on the panel followed my lead.

The panel I was on today was called "Never Meet Your Gods." The description was: What happens when regular people interact with mythic figures, such as Lucifer or Odin? Participants: Aimee Kuzenski (mod), Larry Swain, and Lyda Morehouse.

I have to admit that I have been fighting a headache all day. (This was the second one in a row for me and since I normally don't get headaches at ALL, I took a COVID test this afternoon just to be sure - it was negative.) So, I did not go into this panel at my very best. Plus, I don't entirely feel like myself with long hair, so I was definitely fighting more awkwardness than I normally have sitting on a panel.

That being said, I think it went pretty well. I was surprised how many people came to the panel, given how barebones the description was. Aimee did a pretty good job moderating, though at one point I joked that some of her questions felt a bit like a pop quiz that I was not entirely ready for. Name your favorite human/god interaction! What are the best/worst depictions of gods!? My answers all started with, "Uhhhhh...." Like I said, I was just not batting a 100. I did NOT ace the pop quiz.

I was also easily dragged off topic because one of my fellow panelists, Larry Swain, is a Biblical scholar and that's my catnip. So, at least one point we went down a Biblical rabbit hole all the way to Simon Magus.... apparently Larry is going to be on a panel about weird Biblical stories and I might have to see if I can make that (okay, looking for it on the schedule, it looks like it's on Sunday. I may be able to stay because I think I have an early morning anime panel that day.)

Anyway, I do think that because I was easily distracted and not terribly on the ball, it was not a top ten performance? Was it a good and lively discussion? YES. Was it write-home-about amazing? Probably not.

After the panel I hung out with some old friends for a few minutes--Bill and Melissa and Leah Cutter.

Tomorrow's panels are:

12:30 pm "What If" Inspired by the Marvel Comics series, What If? is an animated anthology series on Disney+. Narrated by The Watcher, the series explores alternate timelines in the multiverse showing options if major moments from the MCU films occurred differently. Participants: Robert Becka, Tim Lieder, Mark Lundberg (mod), Charlene Holm, Lyda Morehouse
3:30 pm "Faith & Religion in Speculative Fiction" What does it take to make faith and religion "work" in speculative fiction? Are those factors the same as those required for faith in real life? How has reading or writing about religion influenced your own beliefs and practices? Participants: Tim Lieder, phillip andrew bennett low (mod), Hertzey Hertz, Naomi Kritzer, Lyda Morehouse

I am not planning on attending CONvergence this year. There are several factors that went into my decision. I am ready to do a lot of socialization, finally, but.... not with three thousand people, indoors. But, on top of that August is generally going to be a crazy month for me because we will be sending Mason off to Connecticut for school (Wesleyan University, for those who are interested.)

When they made their decision to go in-person, I was asked if I wanted badges for me and Mason and I told them just what I told you. Next year, I'll be up for it, but this year I am taking a pass for reasons of COVID + College.

Somehow the message didn't quite get through? Possibly because, long ago, I also filled out volunteer form? I did so, however, when there was still talk of possibly hybrid, we don't know.

A couple days ago my panel assignments arrived.

They both looked great? I would happily done both of them (and more) in any other year. And, I re-read the descriptions a bunch of times but there were notes like "panelists should arrive in the room x minutes beforehand," and I started to worry that this was not a virtual room they were talking about, but a physical, in-person one. The biggest clue was that there was no link to a Zoom or any other technical info for an online recording/live-stream.

I hated doing it, because I don't want to get on someone's off list. but I had to say, "If this is in-person, which it seems to be, I am not attending this year. Please take me off?"

I feel especially bad about this because, independently, I happened to be part of an earlier email chain of a half dozen people who, when asked if they'd be willing to be a warm body to help save a panel that a friend of mine wanted to turn viable, EVERY single ONE of them also said that they wouldn't be attending in-person this year. Given that experience, I'm also wondering if I killed two panels? I'm a little worried that they might be having a talent problem--I would find it difficult to believe that CONvergence, of all local cons, couldn't find enough volunteers to sit on panels, but maybe? Especially since they're limiting attendance?

I will say that I was surprised that they didn't do a better job with their online con. Last year, I took part in at least two panels at Virtual CONvergence. One was a live-stream and the other was a recorded reading (which they scheduled opposite one another? They had a full weekend schedule to fill and my fans had literally a single choice, either listen to my reading OR watch me talk, live. I mean, I don't have a lot of fans? But that one person had a tough choice! Which, I mean, I was finally on two panels at once, which is kind of a dream of every author...) But, anyway, that part seemed to be exactly like most on-line cons I'd been to that year, but I found their chat/hangout space to be much harder to navigate. For reasons known only to the con com, CONvergence didn't use one of the pandemic-standard chat platforms, like Discord or Slack. Instead, they had their own web site that you had to remember to go to? I think I went to it once. It's weird when smaller, less structured/organized/well funded cons did a better job with their pandemic cons... and so I very much understand the desire to be back in the venue that they shine in?

But this also makes me fairly certain that there will not be a hybrid option for CONvergence, which make me sad. I am fond of virtual cons?

Am I the only who is going to miss them??

Tie-dyed fabric close-up, many colored stripes.

Image: A piece of tie-dyed fabric hanging on a clothesline. It is a classic rainbow striped number.

Yesterday, it was lovely outside so I decided to tackle a project that I'd been meaning to do for awhile. After the whole medical craziness of Monday, arts and crafts were just what I needed to de-stress.

Several weeks ago, Shawn picked up some sheets on the "buy nothing" Facebook group for our neighborhood. They had looked decently blue in the photo, but when we bought them home they were a very washed out barely-there color. Shawn had been planning to use the fabric as an accent for some of her rugs and was vaguely disappointed. On the drive home, I asked, "What if I tie-dyed them?" Shawn got suddenly very excited by the idea of trying a rug made out of tie-dyed material, and so we got serious about finding a tie dye kit that was easy and color-fast. Shawn found a kit for kids on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Tulip-One-step-Tie-Dye-Party-Kit/dp/B01FV60TAS/

I will say, this could not have been easier.

tie-dye on a clothes line

Image: a bunch of fun patterns of tie-dye on a clothesline.

I will admit to having had WAY too much fun. In fact, my hands are still purple because I blew off the instructions to wear gloves (in the Before Times, I would be mortified. Right now? I'm still very much, "by the time people see me, these will be back to normal." Not actually considering that, you know, I might go off to buy coffee this morning.)

Image: Purple and blue close up, kind of spiral?

It totally worked to de-stress me.

Some medical updatery under the cut.

( Read more... the short of it: we got the appointment for Thursday )
Will keep those who want to know posted on those developments.

more fabric on the lines

Image: more fabrics on the line (in shadow, apparently, but hopefully you can see the general patterns.)

The other thing I did last night was attend the Lammy's, the Lambda Award Ceremony. They had a Discord and so I actually connected with some folks in the SF/F community, which was nice. I am just going to continue to say that I am often surprised by how much I truly enjoy online events. This one was very "bare-bones," in that they broadcast the actual awards on YouTube and hosted a short-lived Discord. The cool thing was that people came in from all over the world. I hung out in the lobby for a long time watching people come in and there were people from India, Botswana, the UK, and... dozens and dozens of places all across North America. This is the thing, I don't know that the Lammys is usually such an international event? I certainly never bothered to go when I would have had to travel and pay for hotel.

The Nebulas are also this weekend and I'll be attending that... as is something called Cymera, which you may recall, I added a reading to? I have no idea if they accepted it in their Open Mic, but hopefully so. Fun times!

I'm currently attending FutureConSF.

This is the con seemed to spring up right after I complained about how strangely un-international WorldCON felt to me. Obviously, FutureConSF was already in the works, but it was like an answer to everything I'd been wanting. Of course, gave them money and signed up IMMEDIATELY after hearing about it.

I have been to:

Future South & East Asia: What Future is Taking Shape in India, Pakistan, Philippines?
Science Fiction in Translation: A Hidden Treasure to Innovate the Genre
Solarpunk: New Seeds from the Ashes of Cyberpunk
Future East Asia: Techno-traditions in Japan and Korea
Future South America: The Melting Pot of Creativity in Brazil

And I'm really looking forward to tomorrow's panels:

Future China: The Rising Phenomenon of Chinese SF
Future Africa: Visions from Nigeria and Uganda

These are just some of the panels you can listen to, as well. If you're curious about the entire schedule, it's here: https://www.futureconsf.com/schedule

The bonus about how this convention is structures is that if you're looking at the titles of these and thinking, "Damn, I wish I could have gone to XXXX." You STILL CAN. They are all available, free, on YouTube. In fact, just now, when I was making dinner I decided to catch up on the "Solarpunk" panel and it was great. I mean, you can't join in the chats about these panels once their posted or get questions asked, but you don't have to miss the content?

Also I was talking to

quadong (but don't tell him, since it's still coming in the mail) about the ways in which I've found to enjoy virtual experiences. One of them is to find real time/real life friends willing to "go to panels" with me. Keep in mind, I'm extroverted so cons for me were often about hanging out with and meeting people. So, like, this morning, I got up at 6:30 am so that I could connect via video chat with

jiawen and we could watch the "Future East Asia..." panel together. Then, later I was telling a friend in Canada about this con and so she jumped on and watched "Future South America..." with me while we WhatsApp texted back and forth about what we were watching. I mean, it's NOT the same as wandering the halls. Likewise, I realize that panelling is not even always what people sign up for cons FOR, but for me, someone who, in fact, did love the panels best, it's pretty close.

I think the problem is the effort involved to some extent. I was really pleased that

jiawen reached out to ME last night about this morning's panel so we could arrange something. I roped my Canadian friend in, but it was spontaneous... and lucky that she was interested.

"Seeing" other people really does help me consider a virtual con a success.

I am sad that I missed the virtual hangout that the con had organized, a kaffeeklatch, but it looks like they're doing one Sunday, too, so hopefully I can drop by, because cons for me used to be a combination of meeting old friends, panels, and meeting new friends. A zoom with strangers is often the antidote for that last one.

As an aside, I love zooming with strangers. This is very weird and I recognize that anything I'm saying about this should not constitute "advice" because as

quadong reminded me, zoom is also work for a lot of people? It is for me, but in a totally different way... and I seem to be one of the rare individuals out there that actually really feels a certain amount of connection via video chat? I don't find it particularly more or less awkward than in-person communication. Talking to people I don't know is something I really enjoy in-person and so doing it on-line is not all much different.

But, this is one of the few upsides to being an extrovert during the pandemic? I'm used to instigating conversation anyway? So, uh, life finds a way.... as it were, only in my case, conversation finds a way.

I think, too, that one of the things that makes me happiest about virtual cons is the fact that so many of them are insanely affordable. If you don't want to (or can't afford to) contribute to FutureSFCon, you don't have to. It's all out there, for free. Also, this one, in particular, makes me feel like I'm traveling. Listening to people LITERALLY all over the world is AMAZING to me.

It's possible I'm just easily amused.

Picture: New Kitty, Willow, smiling.

Since so many of my friends here have an icon of their black cat, I should probably make this one of mine. It is often so hard to take pictures of black cats, but Willow is turning out to be surprisingly photogenic.

We have discovered that Willow will play fetch. It is massively adorable.

Also, there appears to be sunshine today, a minor miracle. Here is St. Paul, Minnesota, we have been drizzly and overcast for several days in a row. Hopefully, today after I take Shawn in for her physical therapy (she's developed an arthritic thumb), I can drive along the Mississippi River and catch some of the fall colors. When I posted pictures on Facebook a few days ago and I suggested we were close to peak, someone corrected me and said we were at 50%. It just might be that my favorite time is actually not peak. I guess I like it when the yellows, reds, and oranges are contrasted to the few remaining green trees.

leaves along the Mississippi

Picture: gray day, but lovely colors of leaves along the mighty Mississippi (Lake Street Bridge, looking south, for the local folks.)

Tonight, I'm planning on going to the meet-and-greet dinner at Gaylaxicon. I don't have to be back at the con then until late Friday, which is good, because I am still frantically trying to get through my revisions for Unjust Cause. Because so many of these changes are bone deep, I've been having days, like yesterday, where i work ALL DAY and end up with a -1 word count. THAT was frustrating. But productive? I like the story a lot better now. I am sort of dreading today's work, however, because i'm approaching a section of the previous stuff that, even when I wrote it, I remember thinking, "Wow, this is sort of off track," so goddess only knows what I will be able to salvage from that. Ah well. I'm still having fun writing again. Deadlines (and a contract) are good for me.

And, for

pameladean here is a lovely picture of my big orange, Buttercup:

Buttercup, the big orange kitty, being amazingly photogenic

I call this batch "A Sound of Thunder" for reasons....

dinosaurs and butterflies

For those that might not be familiar: "A Sound of Thunder" is the Ray Bradbury story in which a time traveling tourist goes back to the age of dinosaurs and is warned to stay on the predetermined path. They end up stepping off the path, accidentally killing a butterfly, and famously think, 'Ah, well, at least it wasn't anything important,' only to discover the world is monumentally changed by this single, 'insignificant' act. The term "the butterfly effect" was coined, in part, due to this story.

I made these nerdy cookies in order to share them with my cousin Tracy who lives in Saint Louis. She's a former chemist and all around geek, so I suspect that they will make her smile.

Yesterday, besides making and decorating these, I finished our Yule decorations, including prepping our Yule Log. Our Yule Log is birch and was 'liberated' (read: stolen) from the Eloise Butler Nature Center by Shawn and our mutual friend Julie, back in the 1990s. We drilled three holes in it for candles and every year I staple some pine boughs to it and decorate it with pine cones and ornaments. If I remember, I'll take a picture of it at some point. It sits on top of our piano, which serves as our mantle, where we hang our stockings.

Yesterday, I also hung out with

naomikritzer who has finished up her yearly "Gifts for People You Hate" post over on her WordPress blog, which is always a delight to read.

Thanks to a conversation with her (and then again later with my wife Shawn) about the Loscon 45 incident with Gregory Benford, Shawn and I started to read the link he posted to about victimhood (in lieu of an apology) that seems to imply that people are just too sensitive today and are over-exaggerating issues of oppression in what the authors consider today's "victimhood culture." Okay. I'd been feeling sympathetic with Benford having been escorted out of the con in the middle of his signing--which I still think was overkill--but maybe just apologize for some bad behavior too? Instead of linking to an article that basically implies YOU PEOPLE ARE TOO SENSITIVE?

I think there are a number of issues going on here.

One of them is going to be an on-going problem until the next generation decides they whether or not to fully invest in the culture of live, in-person science fiction conventions, and, that is, "you get what you pay for." Which is to say that panels like the one Benford was on are assigned on VOLUNTEER basis.

It sounds, in fact, like LosCon _tried_ to have decent representation on this panel--a woman panelist was a no-show and there _were_ two people of color on the panel (which led to Benford's other alleged comment about Latinx names having "too many" vowels for him to properly remember them). So, this con had enough volunteers to attempt to mitigate the "old, white guy" problem. Unfortunately, the more incidents like this, the less women and PoCs feel WELCOME both in the audience, but ESPECIALLY at the table, as it were--to volunteer to be on the panel. So, this sort of thing is likely to remain an issue until we swing the demographics in our favor--and provided that that's what we want. That is, people may chose to abandon cons entirely. I'm not sure I would blame the next generation if they did just that.

Let me just say, that I love going to science fiction conventions and have been doing so, as a fan and as a professional, since some time before the internet.... which was when cons were particularly useful, as it was one of the ways to find one's fan group, one's people.

The thing is, I recently did a podcast with my friend Minster Faust, who is the author of COYOTE KINGS OF THE SPACE-AGE BACHELOR PAD (among other things.) I met him at a science fiction convention, NorwesCON, when we were both up for the Philip K. Dick award. He's Canadian and a PoC and when we chatted, WorldCON 76 was blowing up, and so we talked about all of this. He was very leery of the benefits of attending cons-because travel is expensive (in his case, international), and the question is: do you get anything out of it other than a slap in the face? I spent some time trying to convince Malcolm that the sense of community was worth it, but I ended up stopping myself from pushing that idea too hard, because this girl has all sorts of privilege that Malcolm would not. And, it's not just an issue of systematic racism, which is absolutely a factor, but also because I have a ton of advantages, including being well-known to my local capital-F, Fandom (which is to say, the in-person, con-going community, as opposed to a specific interest group) AND living in a town where you can hardly turn around without hitting a local science fiction convention that only costs me, at MOST, the price of admission.

A lot more people out there are in Malcolm's shoes than mine, which is to say that they are trying to make financial decisions (as writers or fans) about travel, hotel costs, food expenses, etc., and weighing the question of "is all that money worth it" against the whole series of issues, including very basic ones, like, will they even get impanelled, as it were, being somewhat "unknown"? Add to that concerns of having to deal with being misgendered in the programming material or being actively harassed on a panel for having too many vowels in your name or just looking around thinking "WTF, am I the only [queer, trans, PoC, disabled] person here?? How uncomfortable is this??"

So, to me, this is the number one issue that these incidents like Benford's blow-up and non-apology represents. The more crap like this happens, the less likely it is to convince people that cons are a worthwhile venture. If fewer people show up, the smaller the list of panel volunteers there will be, and... you guessed it, the more of these fails will happen because all that will be left are the dinosaurs...

The other general issue that things like this keep bringing to mind is that authors of a certain age, but really, all of us, need to understand the ways in which "the interwebs" have changed con culture.

It used to be, back in the late Jurassic, a person could say something that was maybe even just an innocent "failure mode of humor" (= a$$hole) and only offend the 70 or so people in the room. Now, you say something like that and there is a statistically significant chance that it might go viral. Or, at the very least, if you are an "esteemed con guest" be noteworthy of a site like File770.

I have no idea to the extent to which Benford's comments were, in fact, the failure mode of humor, but it doesn't matter.

As an author, he should know that authorial intent really doesn't mean diddly if the audience doesn't read things that way. This is a lesson learned I learned in critique group when I was twenty-five years old: if six or so people, out of the seven who read your work don't GET the point and, in fact, take it the opposite way you intended the scene to read, you have FAILED to express the scene appropriately and the story needs revision. That's just how writing works. And, as it happens, real life. If you fail at a joke and accidentally fall into failure mode (aka a$$holery), you can apologize and try to be better the next time, aka, a kind of revision of the story of your life.

/rant

Anyway, the cookies are delicious. And, apparently, Mason's favorites.

Well, CONvergence has been over for almost a week now and I never managed to write-up my con report. All I can say to that, is that this week STARTED with me showing up to my library gig at New Brighton at quarter to five on Monday only to hear them announce that the library would be closing in fifteen minutes....

Luckily, it wasn't that I had completely missed my shift, BUT that I'd showed up a day early.

OMG.

I had somehow mentally shifted my entire week in my head, because then I also had a panic about a talk I'd agreed to give at the University of Minnesota, which I suddenly worried conflicted (it didn't. That was last night, Wednesday.) The only good thing that came out of that is that one of my colleagues at work might have me come to her library science class at St. Kate's and have me talk about manga/anime for libraries, which would be neat.

Last night, I was a guest at "From Rocket Ships to Gender Politics." There were only about 11 students, so that was a pretty perfect size, and they had all just finished reading Neal Stephenson's SNOW CRASH, which was a nice segue into my version of cyberpunk. I only feel a little badly because I am a very bombastic personality (Scorpio with a Leo Rising, heavy on the Leo Rising!) and I pretty much dominated the classroom discussion for 2 and a half hours. I gave away various copies of books that I had lying around, which was great. I'm almost nearly entirely out of RESURRECTION CODE hardcopies.

But, that was a good time. I had initially expected to only have to carry 45 minutes or so of the class, but we were having too much fun and I ended up staying longer and longer. :-) In fact, I ended up staying all the way through and even listened to the class discussion of SNOW CRASH, which was interesting, since I haven't tried to re-read that book since it came out.

Okay, so, backtracking to CONvergence....

My CONvergence was fairly good. It ended on a down note for me, but that was kind of me just feeling like a fraud/loser who hasn't published anything since 2013 (which is accurate, but mostly I don't feel the loser/fraud part so keenly.) I think having two panels in a row about literary awards is what caused that, alas.

One of the first things that happened when I got to con on Thursday was that I ran into my old editor (now writing colleague) Laura Anne Gilman. Laura Anne and I ended up hanging out together, getting coffee, and generally having a great time chatting about state parks and road trips and things like that. I mean, I never know how she feels about me, but, this many years later, I have nothing but fond memories. I ended up following her to her panel on "How to Say 'No' to Your Editor." I probably embarrassed her by publicly commenting that I thought that her editorial letter, while LONG, actually made my novel better. Which is all true, and it's not like sucking up to her NOW would help my career any.

From there I had a panel, which I moderated, on DEATH NOTE a manga which has spawned a zillion adaptations, including an American remake for Netflix. I thought that panel went very well. I think it helps that I reread the entire manga a few days earlier, so all the character interactions were fresh in my mind.

I did a lot of bumming around at con this year because I was semi-chaperoning three teenagers: Mason, his girlfriend, and their mutual guy friend. So, I took them all out to dinner and whatnot and ended up watching part of the "Infinity War" panel with them. But, while waiting for my teens to get their acts together, I ran into

opalsong and talked fandoms and the various things she's been podcasting. I made Thursday an early night, though. I think we were all home by 8pm-9pm.

Friday I had a 9:30 am panel. I saw Eleanor having breakfast in the hotel restaurant and so I crashed her table for a few minutes (and an extra cup of coffee) before my panel. Anne Lyle was there so we ended up talking about the World Cup and some of the other differences between American and U.K. life.

My panel, another one that I moderated, seemed to also go pretty well. This one was about Timothy Dalton as Bond and I think we ended up with a fairly lively discussion, despite the early hour.

At some point later, I ended up at "Judging a Book By its Cover." CONvergence always has this track of panels that are really more like entertainment, Villification Tennis, Power-point Karaoke, the Poetry Slam, etc. This one is one that Mason and I have seen before and it is almost always quite hilarious, even if the 'panelists' flail, because the covers they find for it are always worth the price of admission. But, the performers were all amazing, so it was very entertaining.

I spent a LONG time sitting on the floor near the costuming atrium near the pool/cabana area chatting with Ty Blauersouth about... kind of everything, which was lovely.

Then, I was one of the judges for the Poetry Slam, which went very well. It was enough fun that I think I'm going to try to catch it next year, even if I'm not a participant.

The final panel of Friday for me was another one I moderated which was the Chuck Tingle fan panel. I'm not sure how well that one went, but the audience seemed to enjoy it as one of them gave me a "good job" ribbon afterwards (which is only ironic since I really felt like I'd flailed around a lot.) But, I mean, the subject matter alone is fairly entertaining, so there is that.

Saturday was my off day, but I did get to have lunch with

naomikritzer and Ms. Shannon Paul, which prompted me to hit the comedy show to watch Ms. Shannon perform, which was, by far, the highlight of my day.

I ended up skipping con entirely on Sunday because I was WORN OUT.

Yesterday, at work, one of the librarians came over and asked me, "What's this thing you were a...speaker (?) at recently? Or maybe coming up?" I look at her for a long moment, because, honestly, I have a terrible time remembering the names of people I work with regularly, and I'm also thinking, 'do mundanes know about cons?' Hesitantly, I say, "Uh, well... I'm going to be a guest of honor at MiniCON over Easter weekend?" She shakes her head, "No, no this would be something recent." "MarsCON?" I offer in my squeakiest, most uncertain voice. She smiles with recognition. "Yes, that's it!"

Then, without missing a beat, she adds, "What *is* it?"

Which is good, because, briefly, I was totally freaking out that someone outside of our community might actually be aware of the local SF scene. I mean, heaven forbid! (TEASING. It would be lovely if regular people started knowing more about what we do.)

I've been wracking my brain ever since, trying to figure out how this person even heard of MarsCON in the first place. It occurs to me only just NOW that John, the branch manager at Roseville, called me Saturday morning hoping I could work a few hours. I told him that normally, I totally would, but that I was headed off to a panel at MarsCON. It's entirely possible that John mentioned that in passing (because I gave HIM a quick low-down on what MarsCON was, too) to other folks at the library. Probably people figured it was something as cool as ComiCON in San Deigo and were shocked that something like that existed here in Minnesota. (Don't worry, I put that idea to rest. I told the librarian "You can think ComiCON, but think on a significantly smaller scale with more nerds and fewer celebrities." I think that's fairly accurate, wouldn't you?)

That was one interesting thing that happened at work.

The other is that a few minutes later, I had to show something to the librarian... regarding their change in how graphic novels are going to be shelved. They've decided, I think wisely, to shelve by title. Okay, let me back up, here's what's dumb is that they kind of did this before, but it was somewhat haphazard. Like, they might collect a single copy of something, like AMERICAN BORN CHINESE and shelve it by author (makes sense) and then put all the SPIDER-MANs together (also makes sense, until you get to the fact that 9 out of 10 circulation staff don't READ comic books, don't bother to check the list to see which titles are series being collected, and don't understand how graphic novels are organized in terms of is Spider-Gwen and Spider-Man title, yes or no?) The previous "solution" (which actually worked fine for the most part) was to organize first by collected series title (Spider-Man) and then by author (Bendis) and then by volume (number.)

As any long-time superhero comic book reader will tell you that MOSTLY works, until, of course you hit the end of JMS's run of Spider-Man and the final volume in that series is actually written by someone else entire, since JMS quit over artistic differences. (which is, of course, very different than manga where the mangaka and the manga are inseparable. You could organize manga by author, since the author never changes. They do those by title, because that's how most readers look for manga.)

To solve this, the libraries figured that they would just switch to volume title and volume number. Hahahahahaha! Yeah, that's WORSE. Because they're not collecting individual comic books (which are, for the most part numbered sequentially) but graphic novels, which collect, say issues 147-153, but might be volume 5 of Fraction's run. So, I pulled out three AMAZING SPIDER-MAN volume 5s to show them this problem. I should have shown them the title page that explains which issues are collected, because honestly, if they organized this by ISSUE numbers they could mostly solve this.

But, the likelihood that they care this much about graphic novels is low. The comic book section will become a complete mess where Spider-Man will have 17 number 5s ALL FROM COMPLETELY DIFFERENT STORY ARCS and readers will be like, "WTF" and probably stop bothering to follow an arc.

Which is too bad, because, frankly, comic books/graphic novels are expensive and I feel like more comic book fans would read collections via the library if they knew they collected them (and how to find the ones they wanted.)

So, yeah, that was work.

It's Sunday evening, and I am at home... all con'd out. I will do my best to recount Saturday and today, but my frazzled brain is not responsible for gaps in the narrative. (Also, there may be more typos than usual. My apologies in advance.)

Saturday started with a panel I was a little worried about because there was only one other person on it. Luckily, that one other person was Lois McMaster Bujold:

lois mcmaster bujold and lyda morehouse

Our panel was "Of a Certain Age" talking about stories that feature older protagonists.

I'm happy to say that this picture (by Mary Loving) is as it should be. Lois is talking and I am listening. The room was packed, despite it being 11 am, so my assumption was that most people were likely there to hear Lois, a Guest of Honor this year. I had prepared what I called a "binder of women" (old joke from, ironically, a brighter time) which was actually prepared by

catherineldf and you can find the first part of it here. With Catherine's hardwork as our guide, we had a pretty good panel.

Saturday was my day of loose ends. I did a lot of wandering around and catching up with people. I had one thing I *had* to do besides my later 8:30 pm panel and that was to stop by the Just Enough Trope Podcast table. They asked me if I'd be willing to be part of their show. Since Naomi had only gotten a couple of hours of sleep, I actually brought her with me so that she could skip her later time slot and catch a decent afternoon nap. I am SUCH a good friend (plus I figured they'd more likely use the segment if Naomi was in it. Who's a Slytherin? You're the Slytherin!) I had tentatively scheduled 1 o'clock but they were busy and while I waited for them to be free and for Naomi to join me, I watched a Marvel cosplay meet-up. I really wish I'd remembered to bring my camera, because there was some seriously good costuming, including a guy who had 3-D printed his Dr. Doom armor. Such a Doom thing to do!--well, if you added magic as well as technology. My other favorite person was a perfect Domino, who kept not ever getting a call-out because so many fans are focused on the MCU and not the comic books. But, they eventually called for a photo shoot of "mutants" and she was able to go.

If you've never experienced one of these group shots, they're really fascinating. They're often in the program, but can also be semi-spontaneous (like flashmob, at least in terms of getting the word out via twitter) where everyone who is cosplaying from a certain fandom shows up in one location. A loud-voiced person will voluntarily jump up on a chair and start shouting out organizational commands. It always starts with EVERYONE and then breaks-out. "All the Spider-Men...", etc.

Thor was late this year, possibly because the God of Thunder does not the Twitter, but he came with this adorable Hulk-child. Watching the little Hulk play with what was obviously daddy's cape, made me ridiculously charmed and weirdly broody for all the Thor kid-fic.

The one other thing that was a "do not miss" was Seanan McGuire's signing. I got the book signed and it will be ready to ship off to my friend in Oregon tomorrow morning. So, yay!

I did a lot of wandering around which, for me, was not necessarily a good thing. I'm the kind of extrovert that feeds on interaction and being at loose ends makes me vulnerable to being overwhelmed by the crowd and the noise and the busy-ness. I probably should have gone home for a couple of hours, but there never seemed to be quite the right time and so I decided to take my laptop over to the Caribou for a little downtime. I ran into Dana Baird and her husband Eric in the most amazing steampunk Lady Groot and Rocket Raccoon. I didn't realize the amaze of her costume at first because I just saw this intensely ornate Victorian dress (and she was out of the stilts and not wearing the mask.)

Here's what the full thing looks like:

Lady Groot and Lord Rocket, Steampunk

Photo credit: Emily Dyess.

Here's another with just them:

Lady Groot and Lord Rocket, steam punk

photo credit: Audrey Casteline

Hanging out with Dana is always a ton of fun and I can not get over that she made that whole costume herself (including Eric's Rocket, though he made the steampunk gun.) The sheer amount of talent (let's be real: FABRIC ART) on display is staggering, and that's just Dana. The costumes are always mind-blowing.

And humorous:

t-rex can't hug. Their arms are too short

t-rex can't hug. Their arms are too short

Photo credit Michael J. Egglehorn

I ended up having dinner with Eric and Dana at Subway and they stopped by their car so Dana could put on the stilts (an amazing process to watch!!) and then I headed over to my last panel of the day, "Local Urban Fantasy."

I was not in the best headspace for this panel. Plus, I never know if, with a title like that, people want a laundry list of what's out there or an exploration about why people write it/tips for writing it, etc. I tried to provide a balance, but I'm not sure how successful that was. I think if I had been in a better place it would have been find, but I left feeling like the panel was all over the place... A little defeated by that, I headed home.

Today I had only one panel, "Ms. Marvel Fan Panel," and I it was probably one of the best ones in terms of my abilities to moderate... and, hardly anyone saw my crowning achievement because: 9:30 am. The room wasn't EMPTY, but I bet there were less than a dozen brave souls. I stayed around afterward because I wanted to catch up with Naomi after her "From Fan Writer to Pro Writer" panel. I actually ended up watching that and then Naomi and I went out to lunch to catch up. We'd mostly missed each other this con--which is hardly surprising given her extra load as one of the GoHs.

After that, I headed home, promptly crashed for a 45 minute nap. I woke up, had a home-cooked meal, and then started to feel mostly human again.

Which is good, because tomorrow at 9 am I teach "More than the Zombie Apocalypse" to TWENTY TEENAGERS. Normally, I cap my Loft classes at 15, but I agreed to add 5 more because THERE IS A WAITING LIST. I'm feeling a little pressure, if you can't tell. But, I looked over my syllabus and I should have plenty of time tomorrow to think about ways around the fact that the class is WAY TOO BIG to successfully do peer critique. Unless I super-limit the size of the sample? Hmmm, now I'm thinking we could do "first pages." That might be fun, actually. We can be sure to talk about hooks tomorrow and I'll have them bring in a first page. OoooOooo, that might work!

If you can't tell, I'm naturally a very organic teacher. So a lot of how tomorrow goes will depend on whether or not I can get some response from my teens. (You're shaking your head, but I LIKE teenagers. Plus, these ones have all volunteered to be here.)

That's me. You?

I'm at the Caribou/Einstein's Bagel across from the con hotel; Mason is at home, still asleep. My extroverted introvert announced last night that he has had a tremendous time, but he is officially DONE with people. I understand completely. I may be an extroverted extrovert, but that doesn't mean that a five day con doesn't wear on me.

Yesterday was an especially busy day. I had only two panels, but they were spread out over a whole day. My first one was at 2 pm and my final one started at 8:30 pm. Plus, I wanted to be sure to catch Lois McMaster Bujold's signing because I had a faraway friend who wanted an autograph, and that was at 12:30 pm. Naomi had invited me to meet her and a friend at Caribou at 11 am, too, and while the kids and I managed to get to con by 11... we did not find parking until almost ten minutes later and I showed up at the Caribou around 11:30. I sent the kids off to DQ for lunch and ran off hoping hadn't blown my chance to hang out.

Luckily, I didn't miss Naomi. Even luckier, Tyler Tork, his wife (whose name currently escapes me), and Bryan Thao Worra were there. I have always liked Bryan, ever since some Minicon somewhere lost to the annals of time where he was the only person at a Krueshenko's party who could tell me what had happened to Captain America after Cap had been shot (I'd been catching up with Marvel comics at this point and I was a little desperate for news.) Plus, I've been following his travels via Facebook and, in the way of social media when it works as it should, that has bred a certain sense of connection and familiarity in my heart (even if Bryan doesn't necessarily feel the same way, you know?)

So we had a lovely chat about all sorts of things because everyone there was super-interesting. I could have had my own little con right there, all day, but Naomi being GoH and Bryan, being Bryan (and a former guest of honor, like myself,) had places to go. I wandered over to the signing, disappointed that there were no books by Lois to be had in the dealer's room. For whatever reason, there is only one bookseller in the dealer's room, and they're a publisher, so they are only selling their own authors... which I don't think includes any of the GoHs? I might be wrong about that. However, the con has dealt with this by having a certain number of author books for sale at the merchandise window, which normally mostly sells con tee-shirts. I was able to pick up something for my friend there and get it signed.

I wandered around for a while and, by chance, ran into the entire Slash panel (my 8:30 pm panel) in the cosplay poolside atrium. We were chatting and squeeing about Yuri on Ice and other current fandoms that are seeing a lot of slash action and we ended up talking a bit about Free! and I awkwardly recommended my Bleach/Free! x-over TO THE WOMAN WHO PODFICC'D IT (Opalsong) who, even more AWKWARDLY, I HAD ALREADY MET, in person, a couple of years ago.

At that point, I decided I may have "won" CONvergence for being the most braindead person, ever.

My first panel was "Take a Pew, Pew, Pew" about religion in science fiction, which I think went well, though... in the way of CONvergence panels, it wasn't necessarily very in-depth. The cool part of that panel was that we had a woman on it who is a Church of England vicar. She has written an FAQ about what vicars do, to which I teased, "since most Americans only know about vicars from the BBC" and then my friend/fellow panelist Bill cut in to add, "And yet somehow she left out all the bits where she solves crimes once a week!" But, so you see, that was the tone. It was funny and clever, but not terribly deep. I still had fun and learned some, so that was worth it.

I had wanted to hit Naomi's reading after that, but the kids were hungry so we went over to Friday's. By the time we got back, I was able to see "Refugee Life Hacks" which was amazing and Saymoukda Vongsay is my new girl-crush. She is brilliant and funny and bad ass, and I am now a devoted fangirl. I may actually have to attend poetry readings and theatre in my future just to catch more of her work.

The kids and I met up to watch "Judging a Book by its Cover" which is one of those annual "comedy/improv" panels that CONvergence does. The idea is that a team of panelists is shown a real-life book without its cover and they have to not only guess the title, but make up the story of the plot, as though they're experts on the book. It's one of those that's intentionally over the top. Even if you've read the actual book, you're supposed to come up with all the silly. It was very silly. I enjoyed it a lot. Plus, I found out that the vicar's husband is none-other-than Paul Cornell, who came over to introduce himself and tell me he enjoyed the panel, etc. That was kind of cool, because Paul has long been one of the "cool kids" of CONvergence.

My slash panel went much as it always does. As I was telling a friend, the point of it is to be a sort of "a state of the union" of slash--and overview of what's new and what's trending, and while I participate in the slash fandom regularly, I'm not an expert on All of The Things. So I had a great time because I love everyone on the panel, but I'm not a MAJOR contributor to the discussion. I talked enough not to feel excluded, but I'm pretty sure Bess and Jo could run that panel on their own. If you're curious what we recommended this year, Jo helpfully put together a great list: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EvaiDBDu6KFfQGH76lgbG9QvMFXQsJe-ZarsD7e7SvM/edit

Okay, I have to run off and collect my badge from the car, because of course I left it on the seat... and then I'm off to my 11 am panel today "Women of a Certain Age" with Lois McMaster Bujold.

We won't be heading out to CONvergence until about 11 am today.

Nothing much, in terms of programming, happens until 12:30pm today, anyway, but I think Mason and his friends want to make a full day of it. I was able to pick up my badge and his last night after the secret pro/con com volunteers GoH meet-and-greet, but we'll have to stand around to pick up the other two's and at least Ms. R---- will have have "the Talk" about weapons, I think. Mason might only need to have his "bone saw" peace bonded, and I don't know exactly what weaponry Mr. D---- is carrying, but planning on some standing around in lines is probably wise.

I will get a better picture (we took this late last night with the iPad because Mason wanted to show off his progress to his friends), but, yes, Mason's cosplay finally came all together and thanks to Shawn's sewing skills it looks really tremendous. This picture does not do it justice, but it's what I have at the moment. (I will get better ones today). What you can not quite see is that Shawn was able to quick tailor the lab coat so that it has tails and make it into a fair approximation of single-breasted. He's got a tiny little blood-stained dove on his shoulder.

Mason as Medic from TF2

So Mason is set and looks really GOOD this year. Everyone will easily recognize who he is (so long as they know TF2, of course.)

I did my first skim through the program booklet last night after I brought it home. Besides panels, I have a number of things I need to remember to do this year, so I took some notes on the pocket program booklet in the hopes that I will ACTUALLY remember to do them.

Today, the only thing on the agenda is getting all my young charges their badges, etc., and my 3:30 panel on artificial intelligences (which, knowing that Naomi is on it, I feel confident that it will be thoughtful and intelligent, even if a lot of *my* panel prep involved Wikipedia and Google.)

Mason has a number of to-do things checked off, including a LAN of Overwatch (one of the multi-player games he loves.) So I have no idea how late I'm going to end up staying at con tonight or how things are going to work with getting the various younguns back to their respective homes. Today, I am thinking of as "getting oriented and figuring out logistics" day, because the current plan is that the Terrific Trio want to attend tomorrow (Fri.) together, as well. Thing is, I can absolutely play con chaperone all night, if the kids want, and so long as their parental units are down with them being out late. CONvergence comes but once a year.

I need to tell one story about last night's meet-and-greet. It's going to sound a bit like bragging, but

offcntr will appreciate it.

In fact, Frank is in town. Yesterday, the four of us (Frank, his wife Denise, Mason, and I) went out to lunch at Zen Box, one of my favorite Japanese restaurants in town. (I should note, I would not necessarily have suggested it, had I known Frank was going to generously offer to pick up the tab. It's on the pricey side, being in downtown and all.) At any rate, we had a lovely time catching up and, as a long time SF/F fan, Frank lamented the fact that CONvergece doesn't offer day passes, because he totally would have gone because, OMG, OMG, Seanan McGuire is one of the guest of honor!! (A paraphrase, but the squee was evident.) I offered to get a book signed, because, while there are not a huge number of perks associated with being a pro writer, getting to hang out with other cool writers is DEFINITELY one of them.

So, there I am at the secret pro/con com volunteer meet-and-greet chatting with folks I know there, and all of a sudden I get the proverbial tug on my sleeve from someone who introduces themselves as Seanan McGuire's guest liaison. They say, "Seanan McGuire would really like to meet you, may I introduce you?" And, I have to admit to being taken aback because, WHAT, WHO, ME? And also, HOW CHARMINGLY FORMAL! So, of course, I jump up and say, yes, and introductions happen and Seanan says, "I just wanted you to know I'm a big fan of your work." And, I said, "Really??!!" because who knew, and also, wow! But I had to laugh a little and tell her, "How funny, because I am literally tasked this weekend with fangirl-ing you by proxy for my friend Frank."

We then spent the next half hour or so talking about cool bugs, frogs, endangered newts, and her Maine Coons.

A great start to con, if you ask me.

I'm at CONvergence every single day a you can see below. I'm a little surprised at the number of panels I'm moderating (including one with Lois McMaster Bujold and... me?) This should be an interesting con, of course, made better by the fact that my friend Naomi will be one of the Guests of Honor.

Thursday, July 6

3:30pm
DoubleTree Atrium 7
AI in Science Fiction: From Evil Overlords to Companions
There is a diversity of AI in writing and film, from benevolent to malevolent. How does an AI become good or evil? Are they just programmed that way? Panelists: Naomi Kritzer, Jamie Riedesel (mod), Eric Zawadzki, Lyda Morehouse, Lathan Murrell

Friday, July 7

2:00pm
DoubleTree Edina
Take a Pew, Pew, Pew! Organized Religion in SciFi/Fantasy
Beyond "The Force", how do creators deal with organized religion (and disbelief) in science fiction and fantasy? What do they get right, wrong, and what do they reveal in their thinking? Panelists: Caroline Symcox, Lyda Morehouse, Tim Wick, Bill Stiteler (mod)

8:30pm
DoubleTree Atrium 2
Slash Panel
Buckle your seatbelts, it's time for the annual panel about same-sex shipping! From Yuri on Ice!!! to married space monks, let's talk State of the Slash Union 2017. (This is an 18+ panel; talkin' about the porn is definitely on the table.) Panelists: Bess Stuvenoxend, Skazka 9000, Jo Thrace, Lyda Morehouse (mod), Kes S

Saturday, July 8

11:00am
DoubleTree Atrium 7
Of a Certain Age
What stories feature older characters as the hero? How do these stories hook readers? What can you learn from them when the storyteller does the job well? Panelists: Lois McMaster Bujold, Lyda Morehouse (mod)

8:30pm
Sheraton Whalon
Local Urban Fantasy
A panel of local authors of urban fantasy, stories set in or around the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. Panelists: David Lenander, Lyda Morehouse (mod)

Sunday, July 9

9:30am
DoubleTree Atrium 4
Ms. Marvel Fan Panel
Marvel has four different heroes under this same overall title. They're all good, but which is your favorite? Panelists: Kathryn Sullivan, John Seavey, Tim Lieder, Lyda Morehouse (mod)

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Day in the Life of an Idiot

Journal of Lyda Morehouse

Entries tagged with conventions

My Minicon Schedule

Where I Will Be This Weekend

CONvergence Write-Up

Virtual WisCON Report 2023

Minicon 56 Report

Virtual Chicon 8 Con Report (Day 2)

Convergence (Day 3 & 4)

Convergence (Day 2)

CONvergence (Day 1)

Virtual Cons, Speculation

Craft De-Stressing and medical updatery

FuturConSF

Starting With the Important Stuff

Even MORE holiday cookies... and a rant

What the...? Where Did this Month Go...?

Library Work and Fannish Things

CONvergence Wrap-Up

CONvergence.. Day... Three?

CONvergence, Day One....

CONvergence Schedule