Gaylaxicon Con report

Toddled my way out to St. Louis Park on Friday, arriving in good order to deal with a minor snafu or two and to say hi to Ginn Hale, Rob, upstart_crow (my co-panelist) and assorted other friends. The Beyond the Blonde and the Brunette panel was pretty well attended by a mostly male audience, which was a bit surprising but all good; at the previous Gaylaxicons I've been at, it seemed like any lesbian/queer women-themed panel involved a small number of female-identified folks talking to each other. Several people made interesting comments about the state of both the industry for lesbian/queer women writers of sfnal work that isn't romance (not terribly optimistic at the moment) and fan fic, specifically. Good discussion all around.

After that, it was off to hang out with several other friends of a writerly flavor at Meet the Pros, including queenofillusion, lee_martindale, Warren Rochelle, mr_bad_example and some other folks. I had forgotten that my friend Mark was coming in from Florida (I'm blaming it on wedding brain) so it was lovely to get to spend some time with him too.

Saturday, I made it to Warren's reading. In fact I was the only audience at it for a bit (more on that in a general way shortly), which was a shame since he's got an interesting fantasy novel series in progress. After that, I went to a reading (poetry, nonsfnal gay novel) by GOH Lawrence Schimel. I love Fairtytales for Writers. Nothing says Grim(m) like fairy tale protags wandering through the perils of the publishing process. :-) From there, it was onto Sex and Death and Shapeshifters, Oh My! and a nearly full house.We had an interesting if bit scattered discussion on paranormals, the dearth of popular paranormals with queer main characters outside m/m, the history of queer vampires and (a bit) on shapeshifters, tv fandom and fan fic and well, stuff, and lots of it. People seemed to stay interested and I think we all had fun.

Post panel was lunch with Pam Keesey, Eric Heideman, Lyda, Eleanor Arnason and mr_bad_example . We had a great discussion about gender presentation versus identity and how the two can fail to be one and the same while still having a lot of impact. We also did so more industry chat for queer publishing specifically by way of helping Eleanor prepare for her Sunday panel. Then I invited Pam and myself onto the Minnesota SF/F Writers panel which then included Eric, Pam, Lyda, Eleanor, Lois McMaster Bujold, Rob Callahan, Naomi Kritzer and yours truly. We were pretty much one big ad for moving to and living in Minnesota. Eleanor declared that she was moving here when we were all done. :-) And I put in a plug for my favorite yay for Minneapolis work, War for the Oaks. Warm fuzzies all around.

After that, there was more socializing, and the Spectrums where Ginn and I cheered for Nicole Kimberling (finalist) and others. Short fiction and Other will be announced later on this year due to computer snafus. This was followed by the banquet, where I actually sat down with new (gasp) people. These included a gentleman at his first ever con, a nice couple of guys from Iowa and an amiable librarian from St. Paul and her friend. We had a pleasant time and the food was pretty tasty. mr_bad_example  and I hung out for a bit afterward, then went to Kruschenko's, where there was yet more discussion about books and reading.

Sunday, I woke with a migraine, yippee, but dragged myself out to meet friends for brunch. Convention magical moment: as I wove through the lobby in a haze of white dots and pain, desperate for coffee, Ginn popped off the elevator and handed me a cup. Not only is she talented and charming, she's psychic. :-) An amiable soul wandering by plucked the cup from my hand and applied a sleeve lest I singe myself, then placed the cup carefully back into my twitching fingers, and thus the morning was greatly, greatly improved.

After which point, we went for terrific dimsum brunch at the Yangtze Restaurant. Mark's hubby, Lawrence, newly in from Orlando, was able to join Jana, Rob, lee_martindale and myself and we ate many yummy and occasionally inexplicable things.

Back at the hotel, I laid down on a bathroom bench until the drugs kicked in, then went to the Broad Universe Reading where Lou Hoffman did an outstanding job with her first ever reading. The rest of it went reasonably well too and we got some brochures and lit out.  Upstart_crow , mr_bad_example and I went to a long lunch with lots more discussion of various and sundry things like the marketing of books and current works in progress. I finally called it a weekend after a bit more socializing with Lawrence, among others.

Fine, fine convention weekend. My congrats to the con com for doing a fine job.
And next weekend, Arcana.