Category: Events

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Dragon*Con 2024 Write Up

I am pretty sure that this con has been better for my mental health than many other things have been. Even considering that I’m a smol introvert who likes to hide in the dark with her keyboard.

I had a great balance of panels and workshops this year. I moderated four panels, taught two workshops, and was on another five panels. Slow year (I only walked 15.83 miles) and that was actually pretty sweet. I was also minioning for a lot of the Hourly Writing Workshops which also helped me with working on some drafting and also learning more things! I always get useful things out of listening to Mike (Stackpole) and Bryan (Young) and Benji (Richards). We had a great group of attendees too – lots of good questions.

I am extremely blessed in that I had amazing panelists for each of the panels that I moderated. DB Jackson/David B. Coe and DL Wainright are always amazing to have on panels, as is Constance Wagner. Meeting new people, Daniel Schinhofen, Ryan Cahill (who the rest of the Irish mythology panel agreed we could just to listen to forever with that sweet Irish accent), Seressia Glass, Roy Kilgard, Milton J. Davis, Shane McInnis, Kevin A. Davis, and D.R. Perry! Seriously, they’re all fantastic creators and academics and I still cannot get over the fact that we got an actual astrophysicist for the Astronomical Phenomena in High Fantasy panel y’all.

The panels I didn’t have to moderate also had some fantastic moderators and I love them for it. Panel Moderation is NOT easy. Jennifer Liang, Kristin Jackson, Sue Kisenwether, Carol Malcolm, and ChelseaBytes were superlative, like I cannot tell you enough about how much they are good at their jobs and keeping all of us on track and on topic.

Fellow panelists who just rock it out of the park every time: K.T. Hanna, K. N. Lee, Erika Lance, Marx Pyle, Alison Tracy, Lilbit, Jess L. M. Anderson, Bethany Brookshire, Wayland Smith, Michael Collins, Morgan A McLaughlin McFarland, Niki Veasey, Brian Doob, Shayna Adelman, and Billy Todd.

EDIT: Because I’m an idiot, I totally forgot to thank all my Track Directors and their hordes of volunteers who make everything smooth going for guests and attending professionals. It takes a village and they exemplify awesome each and every day. So here’s to Kellen-Kelley Harkins, Carol Malcolm, Jennifer Liang, and the awesome cabal that runs the Digital Media track.

High points from the con:

“How many murders for a novel?” Question from a workshop discussing mystery story structures.

Getting to hang out with Alli Martin.

Random swag getting shoved into my hands as I made my way through the Marriott – including two small bags with dice, cards, and stickers and quite possible the absolute best piece of swag I have ever gotten – A bright red Campaign button proudly exclaiming “Handmaids for Harris.”

Getting to talk about magical contract law and why words matter for 2 panels back to back (because Jennifer Liang loves me).

Seeing the panel room for the Asexuality panel full to bursting again for the second year in a row. It makes me so happy and teary.

Sue gave me Ace Flag Lego earrings.

Bethany Brookshire and I got to sit next to each other on our panel which both of us were way more amused by then it probably merited.

Multiple people telling me that they loved the panels I was moderating/workshops I was teaching and that I was a good moderator.

Getting to see and hug so many friends.

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There is no Required Reading to Join the Genre/Fandom

The Hugos were this weekend and as you might already know, they were a mess. A fixable, completely unavoidable MESS (kind of like the US right now, but we’ll stop that analogy there). There have been a LOT of posts and threads about it – Jason Sanford’s Genre Grapevine (Hugos/Worldcon Edition) has a LOT of links to different threads and posts (https://www.patreon.com/posts/genre-grapevine-40014596).

The nominees and winners are all AMAZING and you should definitely check them all out if you have not read them yet ( https://www.tor.com/2020/07/31/announcing-the-2020-hugo-award-winners/ ) – it is a dazzling display of talent and imagination.

However, Meg Elison on her Twitter had a very interesting thread (https://twitter.com/megelison/status/1290046758525886464) and it hit upon something that I myself had struggled with in the past and to be honest, I didn’t realize that I had needed someone to say what she said. It is not necessary for you to read all/any of the SFF classics to understand the genre itself. The genre today is not the same as the genre that Asimov and Heinlein knew. And that is A GOOD THING.

But if you are looking into getting into the genre as a reader or writer or creator, you are not required to go back and read all the “greats” before you get your member of [x] fandom card. Your nerd cred will not be revoked if you have not read Heinlein or Asimov or EE Doc Smith. At best, the classics will give you an idea of what science-fiction was, not what it is now. If you want to learn the history of the genre and how certain things came about – there are write-ups about it. Someone somewhere has done a link roundup or blogged a reaction to it. I guarantee you that. If that is your jive thing, go forth and prosper. There are resources out there for you. However, if you don’t want to? You do not have to. It is not required that you go back and read everything Heinlein/Asimov/Campbell ( or others, this list could go on forever) wrote in order to participate in the genre and the fandom. Gatekeepers, at the end of the day, don’t actually care what you have and haven’t read. They’re just going to know that you don’t belong – because they’re convinced they can tell that about someone by sight. So don’t even worry about them.

We, right now, are in a new Golden Age of SFF. The genre is so much more inclusive and spectacular and breathtaking. We are dismantling barriers that previously excluded people from joining, we are reckoning with past issues from racism to sexual harassment to the need for accountability, and we are trying to be the best versions of ourselves. It’s not perfect, there are still A LOT of issues that need to be re-evaluated, there are still problems that need to actually be fixed instead of patched over or ignored. There is still work ahead of us to make things better, both as a genre and as a fandom. There’s been things hardbaked into the foundations that need to be excised and replaced because they’re toxic.

This genre and this fandom is ultimately one of hope. So read Amal Al-Mohtar, RF Kuang, Meg Elison, Fran Wilde, Rebecca Roanhorse, Seanan McGuire, Jim Hines, Keith DeCandido, SL Huang, JY Neon Yang, Charlie Jane Anders, Annalee Newitz, Premee Mohamed, Gerald Coleman, Nicole Kurtz, Tate Thompson…find your weird and your wonderful with FIYAH Magazine, Strange Horizons, or Uncanny Magazine.

And then come back here and let’s talk about what you found.

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The Royal Wedding

So this weekend, I like many other people watched the latest Royal Wedding. It was glorious. The ceremony was gorgeous, the bride and groom looked like they were truly in love. I still cannot get over how lovely the bride’s mother was. It was pure class all the way through.

It also was astoundingly progressive for the royal family and a good marker of how the British monarchy has changed and evolved.

For those of you who might not be aware of it, the last time a member of the Windsor family fell in love with an American divorcee, it ended up with a constitutional crisis only resolved by an abdication and I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that it broke the royal family for several generations.

The abdication of Edward for Wallis Simpson was seen by many people as one of the highest forms of betrayal/treason. He passed up on his sworn God-given duty for the love of a woman who at the time was in no way politically or socially suited or suitable to be Queen consort, according to the Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom and the Dominions. It also conflicted with Edward’s position as the titular head of the Church of England, which at the time, frowned deeply upon remarrying after divorce if the ex-spouse was still alive. That’ll be important later.

With his abdication, the throne passed to his brother, King George and it made his niece, Elizabeth, the new Heir Presumptive, later Queen.

The effects of the abdication were still felt years later on, as her sister, Princess Margaret wanted to marry Group- Captain Peter Townsend, a divorce, with two sons from the previous marriage. Likewise with her uncle, Parliment did not approve, and Elizabeth as Queen and Head of the Church, could not approve. The romance was eventually fizzled out (with significant help from the government) and both parties married others, however it did open a breach between the sisters.

Still later on, in 1992, her annus horribilis (horrible year), both Princes Andrew and Charles separated from their wives and Princess Anne separated from her husband. All three separations ended in divorce. Out of the three, only two of them ever remarried. The Princess Anne and Prince Charles.

Any controversy over Charles, who would inherit the title of Supreme Governor of the Church of England, marrying a divorcee were laid to rest when the Queen, the government, AND the Church of England all gave their consent to the marriage. That was 2005.

Now, in 2018, Prince Harry has been able to marry a gorgeous mixed-race American divorcee in Meghan Markle with the full blessing of his grandmother and the government. So instead of breaking the family further instead it seems like this marriage will heal a lot of the previous damage done. Several commentators remarked on how this wedding moreso than some of the previous royal weddings will be the one to change the world. It has already changed England.

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Dewey’s Readathon!

Wow.  This October marks the 10th anniversary of Dewey’s Readathon, and if you have no idea what I’m talking about, I urge you to check this link out.    It’s an amazing thing that I look forward to every time it rolls around.    This year they are doing 30 Days of Readathon leading up to it and it looks like a blast.   So here’s the chart if you want to keep up with me.

 

I’m a few days behind, but I’ll try and catch up as quickly as possible, when life allows me to.  Being a writer with a day job does have it’s downsides.

30.  Favorite Book

Gosh, that’s like trying to pick a favorite child or pet.  My library isn’t 2500+ strong because I’m not really a big reader.  There are a few that I habitually go back to, some that I own in several formats, and then there are some that I continually buy and re-buy because I keep flinging them at people (Good Omens, if you’re curious. I’ve bought it about 19-20 times by now).  So I will talk about one of the books that I re-read frequently.   It’s an old book, written by Edgar Rice Burroughs back in 1912 and it’s the first in the Barsoom series.  I’m talking, of course, of A Princess of Mars.   You might be more familiar with the movie based on it that Disney put out years ago, titled John Carter.  The movie itself is excellent and a fairly decent adaptation of the first two Barsoom books.   This book mixed my love of fantasy and history with my love of space and gave me exciting adventures

Cover (taken from wikipedia.com)

on a far away planet. It gave me a heroine that wasn’t the traditional damsel in distress.   She’s a competent adventurer, fully capable of defending herself and surviving the wilds of Mars without John’s help.  The movie made her the leading scientist of Helium, which was something I adored.   It gave me a healthy romance pairing and aliens who weren’t humans in funny costumes.  It gave me a world that felt alive and lived in.

It’s the first out of a long series and overall, it’s one of my favorite reads and re-reads because it’s all around a great story.

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