Post-con...
Mar. 8th, 2009 04:15 pmWell, truthfully taking the day off because I was tired and needed some down time. Time changes always knock me for a loop.
Marscon was a fine time, as usual. I met friends for dinner on Friday night, then went to a few of the parties.
The ghost stories panel on Saturday morning was not very well attended but we had some interesting discussion about ghost story tropes, how they've changed over time and a sidebar on Wisconsin ghosts (from an audience member). The Rapidfire reading after that went well - everyone (except me) did a great job. I hadn't gotten around to giving my story excerpt, "Great Reckonings, Little Rooms" one more go round beforehand so I ended up stumbling around a bit in the fairly heavy style that I used to invoke the writings of Marlowe and Shakespeare. That's what I get for not resisting the temptation to edit on the fly. :-(
After that, I attended a poetry reading by P.M.F. Johnson, Ruth Berman, Rebecca Marjesdattir and a couple of folks whose names I didn't catch. Attendance was quite sparse on this one, which was a real shame because many of the poems were quite good. I was glad I opted to eat my sandwich quietly in the back instead of skipping it to go to lunch.
The small press panel was excellent - lots of good discussion, trading ideas back and forth, answering audience questions about where to find good small press books, etc. Glad I proposed that one and got good panelists in the bargain. The Reading outside the SF Mainstream panel after that would have been more successful if Bryan Worra hadn't gotten sick and had to skip the convention. As it was, there were just the two of us with some input from the audience. Not bad, just not quite as vibrant as I hoped for after the small press panel.
From there, it was off to dinner, hanging out with friends and watching the masquerade. Got to see some folks I haven't hung out with for awhile and had a generally swell time.
It sounds like I may be adding another 2 conventions to this year's schedule but I need to get some of the details worked out.
And best of all, I came home to a reorganized and cleaned up basement, as well as a postcard from Iowa, courtesy of mr_bad_example - "Worst fears realized. Seth and Rueben too. Send gumboots." :-D
Marscon was a fine time, as usual. I met friends for dinner on Friday night, then went to a few of the parties.
The ghost stories panel on Saturday morning was not very well attended but we had some interesting discussion about ghost story tropes, how they've changed over time and a sidebar on Wisconsin ghosts (from an audience member). The Rapidfire reading after that went well - everyone (except me) did a great job. I hadn't gotten around to giving my story excerpt, "Great Reckonings, Little Rooms" one more go round beforehand so I ended up stumbling around a bit in the fairly heavy style that I used to invoke the writings of Marlowe and Shakespeare. That's what I get for not resisting the temptation to edit on the fly. :-(
After that, I attended a poetry reading by P.M.F. Johnson, Ruth Berman, Rebecca Marjesdattir and a couple of folks whose names I didn't catch. Attendance was quite sparse on this one, which was a real shame because many of the poems were quite good. I was glad I opted to eat my sandwich quietly in the back instead of skipping it to go to lunch.
The small press panel was excellent - lots of good discussion, trading ideas back and forth, answering audience questions about where to find good small press books, etc. Glad I proposed that one and got good panelists in the bargain. The Reading outside the SF Mainstream panel after that would have been more successful if Bryan Worra hadn't gotten sick and had to skip the convention. As it was, there were just the two of us with some input from the audience. Not bad, just not quite as vibrant as I hoped for after the small press panel.
From there, it was off to dinner, hanging out with friends and watching the masquerade. Got to see some folks I haven't hung out with for awhile and had a generally swell time.
It sounds like I may be adding another 2 conventions to this year's schedule but I need to get some of the details worked out.
And best of all, I came home to a reorganized and cleaned up basement, as well as a postcard from Iowa, courtesy of mr_bad_example - "Worst fears realized. Seth and Rueben too. Send gumboots." :-D