yet another wiscon 2008 report

[aamcnamara]

'curious boundaries of YA fantasy': This panel seemed mostly to rehash the limits that people who read a lot of YA SFF are familiar with. No explicit sex, usually, but swearing is okay and so is violence. The debate about whether or not warning labels should be placed on books goes back and forth, because there are salient points on both sides: for some kids, incest and abuse might be triggery, but people could also use these warnings to keep these books out of the hands of the kids who need them the most.

'here's where the story ends': I'll admit to not paying very much attention to this panel. Sorry.

'the "real city" of urban fantasy': This was a fascinating panel. I had thought of de Lint's Moonheart as the "first urban fantasy novel", but it seems that War for the Oaks and the first Bordertown things came out at about the same time. Either way, they're all awesome.

Book titles I wrote down at this panel: Rats and Gargoyles, The Butterfly Kit, Three Three Four, The Fifth Head of Cerberus, One for Sorrow, The Secret History of Moscow (I believe, though this may have been a different panel). Some titles may be distorted by bad hearing, large rooms, different accents etc. Also, "Veronica", though I'm not sure if that's supposed to be a title or half an author's name.

We seemed to get past the "real city" part pretty quickly: everyone agreed that most fantasy cities are based off of a small list of 'real cities', on which New York and London were the most prominent. (Everyone hates Los Angeles.)

Just as the panel was ending, I thought of DWJ's The Merlin Conspiracy, in which cities are anthropomorphised into humans. This is, of course, only one small part of the book, but it'd be an interesting discussion to talk about them, anyway.

'terry pratchett: bend that trope': Most of the time was spent in discussion of the basics: this trope is bent, this trope simply carried out to logical (though ludicrous) extremes. Still, it was fun.

Again just as the panel was ending, I thought of the golems: we'd just gotten onto the topic of the recent books such as Making Money, The Truth, Going Postal etc. The issue of golem freedom is an interesting one, because though it parallels in some ways suffrage in 'real history', the political system of Ankh-Morpork is One Man, One Vote (Vetinari is the Man, and he has the Vote) and no one except for Vetinari has votes... men or women.

'inside the magic book machine': Basics of What Happens After Your Book Is Accepted, with large caveats of this-isn't-always-how-this-works and this-is-different-everywhere. It was cool to get the perspective of the small press, though, and I wrote down a couple of things in my notebook. For one thing, though it seems like common sense, delays in getting things like copyedits or page proofs back to the publisher has effects far beyond what you might think they have.

'like quills upon the fretful porcupine': A reading, not a panel. Same difference. Notably, larger readings should Not Be In Coffee Shops. Smaller readings, in the back room, would be fine, I think--but taking over the main room, though satisfying in a sort of triumphant way, ended with people having to pause for the coffee-grinder or milk-steamer to stop making loud noises so that they could keep reading, and even the ambient noise was pretty loud.

Despite this, it was a fun reading. Elizabeth Bear read a scene from Ink & Steel, which is coming out this summer; Sarah Monette read a couple of short pieces; David Levine read part of a short story in his collection, and Ellen Kushner read a scene from The Fall of the Kings that has a lot of TPOTS characters in it.

'welcome back to riverside': The best part of this panel was staying afterward with four other people and Ellen Kushner, and talking for forty-five minutes. Thankfully it was the last panel before the dinner hour, so a) no new panel came in to interrupt and b) no one was missing any other panels. The last two book titles up there in the 'real city' panel may have come from this panel, I can't quite remember; I do know that Rats and Gargoyles was plugged again (so I really should find that!) as well as Georgette Heyer. I may have to find some of her books one of these days and read them...

'how you gonna keep 'em down on the farm?': The panel (three people) had either grown up on farms or lived/worked on farms, and it seemed like half the audience did, too, so most of it was trading anecdotes and factoids about farm life. Which was fascinating. It sounds like the moderator might set up a Yahoo group for trading information (the city kids ask and learn, the farm kids answer and... also learn, hopefully, because otherwise I'm not sure what they would get out of the deal, except maybe books with better farm scenes).

'fundraising for small nonprofits': Being, well, the only teen, and the only person (out of five or six) who hadn't done serious fundraising before (unless you count 'asking my parents' friends and my relatives to help me go to Odyssey'), I felt a little awkward sitting in on it. Out of all the panels I went to, this was the one with most potential for idea-swapping; unfortunately, I was inexperienced and had few ideas to swap. But it was still interesting.


Of course, the weekend wasn't all just panels.


The Tiptree auction was a lot of fun, as were the GoH speeches. I feel like they are reported thoroughly enough that I don't have to do so here.

Social highlights of the weekend: ... well, okay. I have learned that one thing that I could do better next year is Find Friends Who Also Want To Go. Because sometimes there isn't a panel you're interested in, and instead of going to one that you don't really care about, it'd be nice to just go talk to people instead. However, comma, it was still fun.

But speaking of people I met: sdn and ellen_kushner both recognized my Eddi and the Fey t-shirt. I also briefly met matociquala and truepenny. And deliasherman, of course. 1crowdedhour signed my copy of A Scholar of Magics for me.

Additionally, I met a couple of nice girls, olivia_circe and penguinkye, who were two of the other four people who hung around after the Riverside panel.

On Sunday, I was wearing my "The People's Glorious Rising Crescent University" t-shirt.



ellen_kushner and deliasherman were kind enough to pose for a picture with me, and it.

(ETA: relevant links: the t-shirt is from http://www.cafepress.com/swordspoint and minami_neko designed it.)


Today, I had to go back to school. Eight more days.

Comments

[huladavid.livejournal.com]

You mentioned a book titled The Butterfly Kit. and I'm wondering if you mean The Butterfly Kid. The latter was written/set in New York during the 1960s, and dealt with a recreational drug that released people's magical powers.

Sorry if I'm butting in here, but I didn't want you miss out on a book you were interested in.

[aamcnamara.livejournal.com]

Aha, thank you. That's probably what it was supposed to be. (That was one of the titles I was uncertain about. I think someone mentioned it in passing, and I didn't think of writing it down right away, and then didn't quite remember it.)

[bluestalking.livejournal.com]

Be strong, Alena! Soon the year will end!! :D

[aamcnamara.livejournal.com]

Thanks! Only seven more days now. Of course, we aren't doing anything any more, but that's even worse sometimes--having nothing to do, but you have to sit there anyway and watch whatever movie they've decided is Educational.

[aliseadae]

yes. and in my history class it is movies we've made but in English it is just any movie anyone's brought in. It is rather bothersome.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Umm. . . . what's the URL for that T-shirt, again?

It looked incredibly cool on a *cream* background with your brownish/olivish shirt! Now we must all have one! Kudos to the designer.

[aamcnamara.livejournal.com]

My bookmarks list informs me that it is http://www.cafepress.com/swordspoint

Oh, definitely. minami_neko did a great job with it.

[minami-neko.livejournal.com]

THANK YOU!!!! *blushes*

[aliseadae]

Oh, all of that sounds quite lovely and I've told you, well, a lot, how jealous I am/how lucky you are to have gone. Though I'm going to Fourth Street. I'll tell you about how that goes.

I'd put A Secret History of Moscow on my book-buying list when I went to Uncle Hugo's on Saturday but I didn't get it as books are rather expensive and Sally has not all that much money.

The 'real city' of urban fantasy does sound quite fascinating. I enjoyed recognizing landmarks and things when I read War for the Oaks.

[aamcnamara.livejournal.com]

You'd better! I'm annoyed to be missing it.

I already have a lot of things on my To Be Read pile, so my list from Wiscon might have to wait until after I get back from Odyssey, unfortunately...

[aliseadae]

those To Be Read piles just keep growing, don't they? Not that that's a bad thing. Just a semi hard to keep up with thing.

[aamcnamara.livejournal.com]

Especially when you're leaving for six weeks. *woe*

[aliseadae]

Alena, you're leaving to go to /Odyssey/. You'll be having fun there.

[aamcnamara.livejournal.com]

Yes. But still. I will probably have some time for reading, and I don't get to bring many books with me. And who knows what their library systems are like out there. (Certainly I don't have a New Hampshire library card.)

[olivia-circe.livejournal.com]

We are nice girls, aren't we? And it was lovely to meet you, too! :)

[minami-neko.livejournal.com]

SWEET.

Man, I wish I could have been there. (I live 40 minutes from Madison but I couldn't get tickets).

[aamcnamara.livejournal.com]

That's too bad. Yeah, I had to register pretty early to get in. Maybe next year?