Post WisCon
May. 27th, 2009 08:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
catherineldfAt the moment, I have something akin to battle fatigue. Not because of any dire event that occurred at the con, mind you, but I am just wiped out tonight. Thursday night, I did a presentation for my class at The Loft Open House. It went reasonably well; I spent some time talking to various and sundry and had a pleasant evening. It looks like the class has enough people registered for it to carry, so that was good news. I didn't find that out until after I got very keyed up and ran around until midnight though.This made for an exciting day of driving to Madison on Friday, but we enjoyed spectacular weather and a nice picnic lunch at some rest stop where I got covered in spiders. That part was less lovely but survivable.
Friday night, I moderated the ghost stories panel. We had a very tiny room and many, many people in it. But they all stuck around so I assume it was reasonably interesting. On the whole, i thought it went well but wished that given the sheer wealth of ghost stories by women authors, I could have lucked out and gotten at least one panelist who'd read stuff that I hadn't. I'm always on the lookout for interesting new books in this area. No such luck in that department, but there was a wealth of horror selections and sundry movies.
Saturday was the Farmer's Market with friends, followed by picking up Tiptree shirts (fabulous Freddie Baerness as usual), followed by my panel on women warriors on tv and movies. This one I found fairly draining, I must admit, though again, quite crowded in a small room. No reflection on the panelists and I did end up talking more than I perhaps should have, which may have accounted for my feeling the way I did. Some interesting questions and thoughts tossed around on various topics: the dearth of fantasy shows with kickass women characters, the rarity of shows/movies that can pass the Bechdel test, increasing militarization of the women depicted and women warriors without any community connections, including to each other. I think it just depressed me to realize how much ground it feels like we've lost in terms of representation in the last 10 years or so. Bleah!
After that, there was puttering and chatting and dinner, followed by the Tiptree Auction. Klages, Ryman and co. were absolutely hilarious. The Campfire Girls poem reading nearly made me fall off my chair. Definitely worthwhile. :-D
From there, we hit a few parties, then went to bed because I had a panel on Sunday at 8:30 AM. I made it up and about, marginally caffeinated. This time we were in the huge ballroom and the crowd was a respectable size, but far from huge. The discussion veered off from promotion dos and dont's into how wonderful Twitter is (I disagreed) and why every waking moment must be spent blogging (I disagreed here, too), interspersed with a few other tidbits of info which were, hopefully, useful to someone there. In any case, I was ready for it to be over a bit before it ended, possibly because it was followed by brunch with charming company at the Orpheum Theater, which I adore. After that, Jana and I went ring shopping with Laurie Edison (see previous), hung out with friends and so forth.
I made it down to Room of One's Own in time to hear Haddayr, Will, Barth and David read. They were all very good and I'm quite eager to find out how their stories turn out. There was some great stuff going on there. Our reading, which followed, could have benefited from a bit more discussion and prep beforehand. We threw things together and there had been a number of miscommunications due to emails going astray and such, and it showed. So thanks to everyone who rode it out despite a snafu or two. From there, it was off to dinner, then eventually on to the GOH speeches. I found Ellen's speech quite moving and was glad I had made it down for it.
After this, we went off to the Acting for Writers panel which had its moments. It, too, could have benefited from more planning and a bit less grandstanding, not to mention being weighed down with a rather silly closure. The folks in the audience had some useful comments though so it certainly wasn't a complete waste of time. And it got us thinking about ways in which it could be done better so all to the good. In contrast, the 8:30 I went to on Monday morning on tech tools for writers was filled with useful info and I ended up with lots of notes that I need to go through.
On the whole, a fine and excellent WisCon, though I got less time with friends than I wanted and much less down time than I wanted (mostly my own fault). But kudos to the ConCom for a job well done. Off to go pay bills and collapse now.
Friday night, I moderated the ghost stories panel. We had a very tiny room and many, many people in it. But they all stuck around so I assume it was reasonably interesting. On the whole, i thought it went well but wished that given the sheer wealth of ghost stories by women authors, I could have lucked out and gotten at least one panelist who'd read stuff that I hadn't. I'm always on the lookout for interesting new books in this area. No such luck in that department, but there was a wealth of horror selections and sundry movies.
Saturday was the Farmer's Market with friends, followed by picking up Tiptree shirts (fabulous Freddie Baerness as usual), followed by my panel on women warriors on tv and movies. This one I found fairly draining, I must admit, though again, quite crowded in a small room. No reflection on the panelists and I did end up talking more than I perhaps should have, which may have accounted for my feeling the way I did. Some interesting questions and thoughts tossed around on various topics: the dearth of fantasy shows with kickass women characters, the rarity of shows/movies that can pass the Bechdel test, increasing militarization of the women depicted and women warriors without any community connections, including to each other. I think it just depressed me to realize how much ground it feels like we've lost in terms of representation in the last 10 years or so. Bleah!
After that, there was puttering and chatting and dinner, followed by the Tiptree Auction. Klages, Ryman and co. were absolutely hilarious. The Campfire Girls poem reading nearly made me fall off my chair. Definitely worthwhile. :-D
From there, we hit a few parties, then went to bed because I had a panel on Sunday at 8:30 AM. I made it up and about, marginally caffeinated. This time we were in the huge ballroom and the crowd was a respectable size, but far from huge. The discussion veered off from promotion dos and dont's into how wonderful Twitter is (I disagreed) and why every waking moment must be spent blogging (I disagreed here, too), interspersed with a few other tidbits of info which were, hopefully, useful to someone there. In any case, I was ready for it to be over a bit before it ended, possibly because it was followed by brunch with charming company at the Orpheum Theater, which I adore. After that, Jana and I went ring shopping with Laurie Edison (see previous), hung out with friends and so forth.
I made it down to Room of One's Own in time to hear Haddayr, Will, Barth and David read. They were all very good and I'm quite eager to find out how their stories turn out. There was some great stuff going on there. Our reading, which followed, could have benefited from a bit more discussion and prep beforehand. We threw things together and there had been a number of miscommunications due to emails going astray and such, and it showed. So thanks to everyone who rode it out despite a snafu or two. From there, it was off to dinner, then eventually on to the GOH speeches. I found Ellen's speech quite moving and was glad I had made it down for it.
After this, we went off to the Acting for Writers panel which had its moments. It, too, could have benefited from more planning and a bit less grandstanding, not to mention being weighed down with a rather silly closure. The folks in the audience had some useful comments though so it certainly wasn't a complete waste of time. And it got us thinking about ways in which it could be done better so all to the good. In contrast, the 8:30 I went to on Monday morning on tech tools for writers was filled with useful info and I ended up with lots of notes that I need to go through.
On the whole, a fine and excellent WisCon, though I got less time with friends than I wanted and much less down time than I wanted (mostly my own fault). But kudos to the ConCom for a job well done. Off to go pay bills and collapse now.
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Date: 2009-05-28 03:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-29 05:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-28 11:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-29 05:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-28 04:30 pm (UTC)It was good shopping, and I look forward to seeing you at Convergence.
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Date: 2009-05-29 05:56 pm (UTC)