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Posts Tagged ‘cons’

A perfectly competent example of a subgenre I’m bored with

I’m not going to list all the books I brought home from World Fantasy, because I don’t intend to keep all of them.

It isn’t meant as an insult. Normally I fly to WFC, and that necessitates strict limitations on what I bring home. This time we drove, though, and so I grabbed copies of things I knew I would never read, because I can (and will) donate them to the library.

The thing is, “I’ll never read this” isn’t necessarily a judgment of quality. We did the traditional thing of reading the opening page out loud, and I described one of the books from my bag as “a perfectly competent example of a subgenre I’m bored with.” Other people still enjoy it, and that’s fine; more power to them. Or take the Pathfinder novels I received: I didn’t even bother with the opening page, because I know I’m not interested in the first place. But somebody at the library book sale might very well snatch it up.

If I really thought a given book was bad, I wouldn’t even donate it to the library. Like approximately 93% of the con attendees, I dumped one book on the swap table, and thought “good riddance.” I won’t name and shame the author, but it was self-published and rampagingly full of the stalest cliches, including one that I find offensive. I’m not inflicting that on the library.

So I won’t list all the books I brought home, because I don’t want to imply a major criticism when I don’t keep them. But there were some really good-looking ones in there (including Guardian of the Dead! Which was on my wish list!), so look for those to show up in my “books read” posts later.

*is ded*

The crappy internet access situation at the WFC hotel means I am irretrievably behind on LJ; as such, I will not be attempting to retrieve it. If you posted something since last Tuesday, I haven’t seen it; if you want me to be aware of it (e.g. you have good news you want to brag about again, or a charity thing you want to promote, or whatever), then please do comment here. Because my brain, it is oatmeal, and needs help being turned back into a brain again. 🙂

(Oh, and WFC was a blast. I almost managed to see and spend time with everybody I wanted to. Not quite — since that is an unreachable target — but I gave it a pretty good try.)

World Fantasy, here I come

Off stupidly early tomorrow morning for World Fantasy. I forgot to mention it before, but I’ll be doing the event at Mysterious Galaxy, starting at (I think) 6:30 p.m. My panel, in the meanwhile, is at 11 on Sunday. Hope to see some of you there!

Vail, here I come

Last year we had lovely weather for much of Sirens — just warm enough in the afternoon to make a walk pleasantly brisk, and (if memory serves) not very rainy at all. This year . . . yeah, not so much. Highs just above freezing, and likely rain or snow.

Ah well. I guess I’ll hang out in front of a roaring fire instead. 🙂

I head off tomorrow, and look forward to seeing some of you there. For all the rest of you, blogging and such will be sparse for a few days. (As if it isn’t sparse at other times, too.)

I promised to post it ages ago . . . .

. . . so here it is at last, my costume from Sirens last year:

This was for both the masquerade ball at the end of the conference, and the A Star Shall Fall launch party beforehand. I described it as “non-specifically Lune,” in that it’s her colors and an Elizabethan style, but not me trying to actually dress as her.

(The other person in the photo, incidentally, was one of my two frontrunners for winner of the costume contest, until somebody solved my problem by mentioning that she was staff and therefore ineligible. Alas, I can’t seem to find a shot of the actual winner, who dressed as an aspen fairy, and was gorgeous. But the one you see there — her armor! It’s made from a cut-up-basketball! And she brought a RAPIER!!! <swoon>)

So yeah. That was my costume. I paid somebody to make it for me; I’ve had the fabric and design planned for ages, but never had the time (nor quite the gumption) to attempt something that difficult. This, my friends, is why god invented SCA costumers. 🙂

Now I just need to find more excuses to wear it . . . .

save me from my “friends”

So I fear it may have been lost in the DDoS attacks on LJ, but I’m looking for suggestions as to what costume I should wear to the Sirens masquerade ball. The theme is “monsters,” and so far, the only idea proposed — by some people who claim to be my friends <g> — is that I should dress up as Sarah Palin. I therefore look to you, oh Other LJ Readers Besides Those Two, to give me some better alternatives.

I like costuming a lot; I just don’t have any good ideas right now. And depending on what I settle on, I’ll need some lead time to prepare it, hence asking now. Any thoughts?

Two things about Sirens

shveta_thakrar is hiring herself out as a copyeditor and proofreader to raise money to go to Sirens this fall; read her post for more details. (You can also just donate directly if you wish.) You all know I think Sirens is a wonderful, wonderful event, and I’m going back this year myself, so if those services sound useful to you, pop on over there and let her know.

Which brings me to the second thing. Just yesterday I was bemoaning the fact that I have so few costuming opportunities these days, compared to when I lived in Bloomington. Then it occurred to me that I have an absolutely smashing opportunity coming up this fall: the masquerade ball at Sirens!

The theme for Sirens this year is “monsters.” I could costume as one of those, or as somebody who hunts the same. The sensible thing to do would be to raid my closet and re-use a costume I already have — but who wants to be sensible? And really, the only monster-type thing I have is my old Hel costume, but I am damned if I’m going to repeat the makeup and hair you see in that icon; it was a bad idea once, and I’m not stupid enough to do it twice. I have a couple of other options, but one isn’t exciting and the other doesn’t count as “re-using a costume” so much as “re-using an accessory and buying a new costume to go with it.”

This is where you, my faithful LJ readers, come in. Who or what should I dress up as? Get as creative as you like; just remember that a) I’m not going to cut or dye my hair and b) whatever I do has to be easily transportable via plane. Suggest as many things as you feel inspired to, and let me know if you think somebody else’s suggestions sound good. I promise there will be pictures afterward. (And, er, I’ll get around to posting the pics I have from last year. I swear I will.)

Have at it!

Sirens programming

So a) I’m going to Sirens again, and b) once again, I have no idea what I should do there, programming-wise. This year’s theme is Monsters, but I’m not sure what I could do on that topic; on the flip side, while I don’t have to stick to that topic, I’m not sure what I could do off it, either.

Any suggestions from the peanut gallery? Workshops, panels or roundtables I could try to recruit other people for, whatever. The deadline for proposals is May 7th, so I need to figure out something soon.

newsletters make it official

If you are San Francisco Bay Area-local, or capable of traveling here in March, you might want to check out FOGcon. It’s a new con starting up March 11-13, with a theme this year of “The City in SF/F;” having looked at their programming possibilities, they definitely have some interesting and varied ideas for how to approach that topic.

I’ll be there, and will presumably be on at least one panel. Furthermore — I guess it’s official, since it got mentioned in the recent newsletter — I’ll be running one of their writing workshops. Looks like the setup will be stories under 10K, submitted with cover letter by February 15th; default arrangement is for a Clarion-style workshop, with each student reading and critting the other pieces in addition to the instructor’s feedback. Erin Cashier, Jed Hartman, and David Levine are the other instructors, and we’re each getting our own section, so if you have a preference for one or another of us (or want to specifically run away from me), mention that in your cover letter.

(This will actually be the first time I’ve run a workshop like this at a con. But I have taught writing before, for one semester.)

Anyway, if you’re interested, register soon! I hope to see some of you there.

Oof.

Got home last night from my family reunion the World Fantasy Convention, which was its usual splendid self. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that it’s gotten better over time: a lot of people are con regulars, which means that it’s easy to build up a community of people you know and look forward to seeing each year. Also, I’ve gotten less stressed about being there; I used to worry about the moments where I seemed out of gear, not able to engage with people the way I wanted to, Squandering my Valuable Time There — but these days I just chill out, and lo, the issue resolves itself. Trusting that makes the whole thing a lot easier.

This one was especially good because it featured a lot of meeting up with people I know online, but have never really hung out with in person. time-shark, saladinahmed — heck, I even met jimhines for realz! Not to mention many other wonderful folks I didn’t know well at all, but had great conversations with nonetheless. Also, the location meant a bunch of my B-ton friends were able to come, whether from Indiana or the places they’ve scattered to since, and seeing them was especially nice.

And now my voice sounds like somebody raked it over a cheese-grater, because that’s what WFC is to me: the place I go to talk all weekend long, often over the roar of several hundred other people doing the same thing. Then I come home exhausted and halfway to mute and happy.

It’s my family reunion. Complete with hugs and drunkenness and the occasional bits of Personal Drama, and then we all scatter to the four winds until next year. Which in this case will be San Diego; I’m thinking of driving down. It would be a ten-hour drive by the coastal route, but if I can get a co-driver it might be worth it. Heck, I might even take an extra day, stop for the night somewhere along Highway 1, make a bit of a vacation out of it. We’ll see.

Spending October at home is for the birds!

Tonight I leave on my third trip of the month, this one to World Fantasy. The weird thing is, it’s the first time this month I’ll be flying on my own dime; the first trip was my GoH gig at Sirens, and the second . . . last weekend, my publisher sent me here:

About a stone’s throw from the Kodak Theatre, no less. But it isn’t nearly as exciting as you think.

I was not there to meet with a high-powered Hollywood producer about how they want to pay me lots of money to film one of my books. I was there, instead, for the Southern California Independent Booksellers’ Association annual meeting. This is an industry event that brings writers in to schmooze over dinner with staff from local independent bookstores. I’d never done one before, so it was interesting; the authors got fed beforehand, so we wouldn’t have to choose between talking and eating (or end up talking with our mouths full), and then during everybody else’s meal we got shuttled from table to table, chatting up the people there.

Serendipity was my friend at this event. Not on the travel side — two-hour flight delay on the way there, three-hour on the way back, for a flight that’s a little more than an hour long — but with the new friends I made. I got to the hotel just in time to fling myself into nicer clothing and run downstairs, whereupon I got my registration and stood trying to catch my breath, wondering if I would have anything other than the basics in common with the other writers there. (They come from all corners of publishing, nonfiction as well as fiction, children’s picture books to adult.) But lo, I was not standing a full minute before I heard the phrase “historical fiction” come from two women nearby.

I drifted closer.

Then I heard Newton’s name.

I drifted closer still.

Ended up with two new friends. One was a writer of historical fiction, Laurel Corona, who’s bopped all around the timeline even more than I have; her most recent book, Penelope’s Daughter, is set in Homeric Greece, and her next involves an eighteenth-century mathematician, Émilie du Châtelet. The other, Deborah Harkness, is (if memory serves) a professor of history whose debut novel A Discovery of Witches will be coming out soon; it’s about a researcher at the Bodleian Library who comes across an alchemical manuscript that gets her into all sorts of trouble. Oh, and Deborah’s a giant Tudor geek, too.

Nah, we didn’t have anything to talk about.

Best part was, Deborah was at my third table, and so were two women currently reading her novel and loving it. And the table host was a big SF/F fan. So I spent the dessert course geeking about alchemy and how Newton was a complete jackass. Friends, this is what we call success.

Anyway, that was my Hollywood adventure. Now I go off to the much colder environs of Columbus, Ohio. Send me warm thoughts . . . .

I suppose I should post a World Fantasy schedule.

I’m going to be a busy little swan this WFC. I’ve only got one official event:

The West Doesn’t Exist, 4 p.m. Thursday
For all the world is round and most educated people in antiquity knew this — Why is it that in so many fantasies, there are places on the map that you just can not go?

But I’m also part of a thirty-author group event at the OSU campus bookstore from 11-1 on Saturday, signing and doing a giveaway. Furthermore, akashiver is reading, and therinth is reading, and jimhines is reading, and and there’s a giant mass Black Gate reading Saturday night, and I’m supposed to have dinner with my editor in there somewhere, and gahhhhh I can already tell I’m going to be running all weekend. (For values of “running” that translate to “sitting or standing around having fabulous conversations and then realizing I need to be somewhere else and crap how did I get through the whole weekend without ever finding the time to hang out with <insert various awesome people here>?”

So yeah: look for the braid, come up and say hi. Especially if you’re somebody I don’t see very often. (Or have never actually met in person — jimhines, I’m looking at you.)

Why is Faerie ruled by Queens?

By popular request, my keynote from Sirens. The actual speech I delivered was a little different — for one thing, this version doesn’t have the comments about Helen Mirren as Prospera in Julie Taymor’s upcoming film of The Tempest — but the gist of it followed this pretty closely. I’m debating whether to post it to my website as-is, or update it based on the comments and feedback I got at the con; thoughts?

Why is Faerie ruled by Queens?

Sirens recap

I have a lot to say about Sirens. Con reports aren’t something I usually do in detail, but this was my first experience with the con, my first con of that particular sort, and my first time being a Guest of Honor; unsurprisingly, this produces Thoughts. I’ll put them behind the cut, but for those who don’t want to read the whole shebang, here’s the short form:

It was amazing.

If your idea of a good con is one where you can spend pretty much your whole weekend in really good conversations about books, or hang out without feeling there’s a divide between the Authors and the Attendees, or get actual face time with the Guests of Honor, you should take a look at Sirens. I’m going to try to go back next year if I can, which should tell you something right there.

Also, Vail is pretty stunning in early October.

For more detail, follow me behind the cuts.

Wednesday . . . .

another brief missive, from near the end of the con

OH HOLY GOD THE OTHER THING WORKED, TOO.

(The other thing, in this case, being my costume. Pictures will follow. Only the crown bit was the subject of the Boggan Deathmatch a while ago; the rest, I paid someone to make, because sewing it myself while also finishing With Fate Conspire would have required paying a lot more money in psychiatrist bills.)

Early breakfast tomorrow, then shuttle back to Denver, flight back to home. This has been fabulous, and there will be a detailed report.

brief missive from mid-con

OH HOLY GOD IT WORKED.

(The stunt I alluded to before? I read a selection from With Fate Conspire . . . complete with RP and cockney accents. One attendee with a British mother said that if she hadn’t heard me speak in my natural voice, she wouldn’t have known I was American. This is pretty much the best seal of approval I could hope for.)

(I still don’t know that I’ll try that stunt in public again, though.)

concerning radio silence

I turned in a novel, and then my sister left for Japan, and then I had a house-guest, and now I’m heading off for Sirens. So the lack of posting is likely to continue for a few days yet; I may post updates during the con, but in all likelihood you’ll get the story after the fact. (Among other things, I have a keynote address to finish writing, a reading to practice that requires a certain stunt, and a workshop to plan out. So that will have me busy in my off moments.)

I am nervous and very excited. This is my first time as a Guest of Honor; I can only hope I do justice to the role.

I hope five things really do make a post

I hope that one of these days I will regenerate enough brain to post about a bunch of things piling up in my head: Ada Lovelace, Babbage’s childhood attempt to summon the devil, the manga I’ve been reading lately, etc. But that day is not today — not if I want to also get my writing done at a reasonable hour — so let’s just get on to the reminders and such.

First, something unrelated to A Star Shall Fall: if you missed it over the holiday weekend, I’m the most recent guest on Jim Hines’ “First Book Friday” series, talking about Doppelganger.

Second, tchernabyelo, you’re the winner of the birthday giveaway! Since you clearly don’t need to be introduced to the Lymond Chronicles, you can have your pick of either Fire and Hemlock, or Pamela Dean’s Tam Lin, or (if you already know and/or have both of those books) something else entirely, which we can discuss in e-mail. Drop me a line at marie [dot] brennan [at] gmail [dot] com with your mailing address and your preference.

Third, kinderjedi is the winner of the Sirens discussion giveaway. Same instructions as above, except that your prize is a signed copy of A Star Shall Fall.

Fourth, if you envy kinderjedi their win, you have a until the end of the day Wednesday (where I think “end of the day” is defined in a vaguely East Coast U.S. fashion) to leave a comment on the BCS forum thread for “And Blow Them at the Moon,” after which I will pick one commenter to receive a signed copy of the book.

And fifth, if you’re curious about the book itself, Kelly at Fantasy Literature recently reviewed it, so you can see what she has to say.

Oh! Sixth! (Which makes this TOTALLY a post, even if the five six things individually are not all that substantial.) I will be doing a reading and signing at Borderlands Books on September 25th. That’s in San Francisco, for those who are anything like local, and it starts at 3 p.m. I hope to see some of you there!

It’s ‘splody time . . . .

<bounce> I’ve been looking forward to this.

“And Blow Them at the Moon” has gone live at Beneath Ceaseless Skies. This is an Onyx Court story (though not the one I sold yesterday), and I am very pleased with how it’s turned out. It also constitutes the last pre-publication goodie for A Star Shall Fall, which comes out (eek) next Tuesday; Magrat, the main character from this story, will be showing up in the novel, too.

And, because chances to win a signed copy of the book are just FALLING OUT OF THE TREES, YO, the editor at BCS has conspired with me to give one away over there: all you have to do is leave a comment on the story thread in their forums. (You’ll need to be a registered forum user, so we can contact the winner.) That runs two weeks, i.e. until the next issue goes live. Together with Laura Anne Gilman’s virtual birthday party and the Onyx Court discussion threads on the Sirens community, you have three, count ’em three chances to get your hands on a copy. And don’t forget, there’s the secret history charity auction, going until Saturday! Bidding stands at twenty dollars, and every bit of it goes to help flood relief efforts in Pakistan.

(I promise actual content will return to this LJ pretty soon. But I’ve got a friend’s wedding this weekend, and the book release next week, so at the moment spare time to write interesting posts is in short supply. If you want reading material from me, have a story.)