Surviving Worldcon...
Aug. 1st, 2020 02:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
catherineldfOr almost, at any rate. It's been a week. It has also been something of a mixed bag. It was New Zealand's first Worldcon and I was supposed to be going to Auckland and taking the train down the coat to Wellington. I was looking forward to seeing friends, celebrating The Voyages of Cinrak the Dapper with A.J. Fitzwater and generally having a pleasant time. Well, we know how that worked out.
As you may or may not recall, I wasn't on programming, then I was a late add. Then I decided to get a virtual book table. Then the Dealer's Room folks decided to have us essentially organize and build a secondary website, just for the con, the week before the con. That took awhile and I was not best pleased at the amount of time and effort to set up something that...linked back to the existing Queen of Swords Press website. But it eventually worked and I did get some sales so it was by no means a total wash. Speaking of which, the CoNZealand coupon, CONZL20, is still good for 15% off ebooks on the Queen of Swords Press website through tomorrow (8/2) which happens to be Day 2 of Outwrite D.C. I am also a vendor there, but am not on programming.
Which is good, because I am utter and complete toast. There's been a lot of mad scrambling to keep the vendor stuff going (things weren't working, then were kind of working, but no one knew where we were, etc.). I did one 10-11 PM panel (my time) and 1 midnight to 1AM panel (my time) and did a reading. During the reading, something got stuck in my throat and I coughed until I lost my voice for a bit, which was not fun. But otherwise, the panels went reasonably well and I did get to chat with some friends and got to a couple of readings and panels that I liked, so it was okay from that perspective.
And I caught the first hour of the Hugos (my reading was scheduled during Hour #2). I have...feelings about the Hugo Award ceremony. On the one hand, super glad to see some great people, including Elise Matthesen, win! So that was awesome. And then there was the rest of it. Bear in mind that the last time I actually showed up at the Awards, I got to hear a prominent author go out of her way to sing the praises of a serial sexual harasser, who was at the con and harassing more women there, during her acceptance speech. She knew about multiple previous occasions, but chose to drape her mantle of shiny around him anyway and I have not read that author since and do not plan to do so. Mostly, I look upon the Hugos as a license for the old guard to behave badly, whine about not getting awards, whine about not getting enough awards, be snotty to those of use who have never been nominated, etc., etc. But I plodded through the first hour, listened to GRRM hold forth about not getting an award, butcher people's names and the name of FIYAH Lit, one of the finalists, hold forth about Silverberg (dear ghod, why?) and turned it off when he started on Campbell. I tuned back in for about a half hour after my reading, but the feed died during the In Memorium and I called it a night after confirming that Elise and other people I like won.
Okay, so generally, I expect little from the Hugo Award ceremony and it has frequently lived down to those expectations. I mean, this is an award ceremony where Harlan Ellison once groped Connie Willis and people argued about whether or not that was tots okay because Ellison will be Ellison, paraphrased. It just makes me want to scream; the recent finalist lists and award winners have included some terrific work, but the ceremony itself is just not growing up with the field. I don't want to listen to old white men pat themselves on the back and pat each other on the back and ancestor worship the great old white men of their past. The number of fans who do want this is gradually shrinking, finally. Most of us deserve better.
As you may or may not recall, I wasn't on programming, then I was a late add. Then I decided to get a virtual book table. Then the Dealer's Room folks decided to have us essentially organize and build a secondary website, just for the con, the week before the con. That took awhile and I was not best pleased at the amount of time and effort to set up something that...linked back to the existing Queen of Swords Press website. But it eventually worked and I did get some sales so it was by no means a total wash. Speaking of which, the CoNZealand coupon, CONZL20, is still good for 15% off ebooks on the Queen of Swords Press website through tomorrow (8/2) which happens to be Day 2 of Outwrite D.C. I am also a vendor there, but am not on programming.
Which is good, because I am utter and complete toast. There's been a lot of mad scrambling to keep the vendor stuff going (things weren't working, then were kind of working, but no one knew where we were, etc.). I did one 10-11 PM panel (my time) and 1 midnight to 1AM panel (my time) and did a reading. During the reading, something got stuck in my throat and I coughed until I lost my voice for a bit, which was not fun. But otherwise, the panels went reasonably well and I did get to chat with some friends and got to a couple of readings and panels that I liked, so it was okay from that perspective.
And I caught the first hour of the Hugos (my reading was scheduled during Hour #2). I have...feelings about the Hugo Award ceremony. On the one hand, super glad to see some great people, including Elise Matthesen, win! So that was awesome. And then there was the rest of it. Bear in mind that the last time I actually showed up at the Awards, I got to hear a prominent author go out of her way to sing the praises of a serial sexual harasser, who was at the con and harassing more women there, during her acceptance speech. She knew about multiple previous occasions, but chose to drape her mantle of shiny around him anyway and I have not read that author since and do not plan to do so. Mostly, I look upon the Hugos as a license for the old guard to behave badly, whine about not getting awards, whine about not getting enough awards, be snotty to those of use who have never been nominated, etc., etc. But I plodded through the first hour, listened to GRRM hold forth about not getting an award, butcher people's names and the name of FIYAH Lit, one of the finalists, hold forth about Silverberg (dear ghod, why?) and turned it off when he started on Campbell. I tuned back in for about a half hour after my reading, but the feed died during the In Memorium and I called it a night after confirming that Elise and other people I like won.
Okay, so generally, I expect little from the Hugo Award ceremony and it has frequently lived down to those expectations. I mean, this is an award ceremony where Harlan Ellison once groped Connie Willis and people argued about whether or not that was tots okay because Ellison will be Ellison, paraphrased. It just makes me want to scream; the recent finalist lists and award winners have included some terrific work, but the ceremony itself is just not growing up with the field. I don't want to listen to old white men pat themselves on the back and pat each other on the back and ancestor worship the great old white men of their past. The number of fans who do want this is gradually shrinking, finally. Most of us deserve better.