My panel attendance was light for a convention with so much good programming, but heavy compared to other Confusions.
The first panel where I took notes was "The Golden Age of YA Literature" with Justine Larbalestier, Scott Westerfeld, Steve Climer, Suzanne Church, Peter Halasz (who I had spilled coffee on in the green room earlier that day, much to my chagrin), and Catherine Shaffer. There was a very brief discussion of "does everyone know what YA is?" (in which most people in the room nodded, and then later, a wan library school student poked up a hand and wondered *how* everyone could know what it was when her class on YA literature had discussed what it was for a whole semester, and mostly, I think that's just way overthinking it. It's just like any other publishing category--there are blurry lines--but you can mostly tell what's YA and what's not just by looking at it. Or having a four-month discussion. But hey, I understand library school, and I understand that someone out there wanted to overthink it so they could have a whole course devoted to reading it.)
I'll leave aside the inconclusive hashing out of whether or not we have Rowling to thank for starting the YA golden age or just for invigorating it. Lots. And I'll get right to the point of recording everyone's recommendations.
SW: has written adult books! Risen Empire being one.
He recs: Sweetblood by Peter Hautman, about a diabetic who thinks she might be a vampire?, and Skin Hunger by Kathleen Duey, which I had just ordered on the Thursday before the con, as the anti-Harry Potter (evil wizard school).
SC: rec'd Bucking the Sarge by Christopher Paul Curtis, which I believe was pimped on Unshelved not too long ago. He also mentioned the classics The Giver by Lois Lowry, which I've got but still haven't read, and Bud not Buddy, also by Christopher Paul Curtiss.
PH: rec'd the "bats and airships series" by Ken Oppel, which SC confirmed.
JL: rec'd Sonya Hartnett
SC: Dragonkeeper by Wilkinson & sequel. And "the kids love the Pendragon books... no one knows why..."
CS: coming soon, The Liberan? by Anne Harris.
JL: The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart
SW: Flora Segunda: Being the Magickal Mishaps of a Girl of Spirit, Her Glass-Gazing Sidekick, Two Ominous Butlers (One Blue), a House with Eleven Thousand Rooms, and a Red Dog by Ysabeau S. Wilce &
Emma Jean Lazarus Fell Out of a Tree by Lauren Tarshis.
JL: The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation and Feed by M.T. Anderson.
There were a few other names thrown about, but I can't find them on Amazon, so that's it!
The next panel that was worthy of note-taking was "SOAP!" Actually, it may have had another name... but it was about soap. Half history lesson, half chemistry lesson, led by Kevin M. Dunn (the science GoH and author of Caveman Chemistry, we learned how people got stuff clean before soap, and that, indeed, the whole "ashes and fat wash into a stream and thereby soap was first made" myth is, indeed, a myth... I think you can get most of the lecture out of Caveman Chemistry... and you should.
The next panel where I whipped out the notebook was "Evolving as a Writer" or somesuch, which was with Jim C. Hines, Sarah Zettel, Paul Melko and John Scalzi.
It wasn't so much a panel where I recorded everything the panelists said, but took notes on what I was thinking, including:
"thinking in sentences versus thinking in paragraphs--no, I really don't get the difference there" (this engendered a conversation betwixt the writers at lunch, and at least Mary Lou and I agreed that we just don't THINK like that about or while writing. We just... flow. But it seemed to make sense to Dave and one of the Julies).
Quote: "the self-loathing of a writer is always a pathetic thing to see." (No memory for who said it, though.
"Do you choose to discard the romanticism of being a writer?"
(Answer: It all depends on which parts you romanticized, doesn't it? Personally, sitting for a four hour stretch at my computer (was a typewriter) and being there, in your own world, in the moment, for all four hours, is the kind of romanticism I had about it as a child, and honestly, that's still my ideal. On a regular day, I don't get four hour stretches. But I get them often enough, that I'm not all disillusioned. I wrote every day as a kid, and I don't think I had any illusions about the process of writing, and as for the process of publishing, I only had a blank fog in my mind.)
And the usual advice--one way to get to be a good writer, you have to edit for a while...
So, those were the panels... And thus endeth my con report, section 2.
Confusion is my hometown convention, and according to my con notebook, 2005 was only my first one, though it feels like I've been going forever. Strangers' faces look ever more familiar, and every year there are more friends and acquaintances in the halls and at the bar...
Confusion was first introduced to us (and by us, I mean me and my psychic brain-twin, Splash, or Julie) by our other psychic brain-twins, Julie (a completely different Julie) and Mary Lou. Mary Lou happens to be sister to the famous Dave Klecha, and in turn, Dave is married to Tarri. Dave, Tarri, Mary Lou and the Completely Different Julie (in short, the core of what Scalzi has named "The Klecha Clutch") have been going to Confusion since the late 90s or thereabouts. So, we have had native guides for this experience since the beginning.
This was a particularly awesome iteration of the convention. It's always a pleasant and relaxing time--there are always the usual con things, like a well-stocked con suite and a masquerade to distract us--but this year, the panels were extra-special great, and the various GoHs were so superfantastic bubbly that I almost don't have words.
My best experiences (outside of having a seriously fun time sitting in the bar with the Clutch and Steve Buchheit) centered around the panels I was on.
My first panel was "Women Pirates" with Anne Harris, Catherynne M. Valente, Lisa Leutheuser and Erica Schippers, and it went relatively well. I had felt under-researched on this subject, but was able to contribute some relevant (or at least interesting) comments here and there. (I hear that somewhere across the hotel, Dave's "Fantastic Sports" panel with GoHs Justine Larbalestier and Scott Westerfeld was much fun as well.) I think Anne was saying she'd post her list of pirate-women research... Hey look! Anne already has her convention report up. (Also, she talks about the slash panel ("Rum, Sodomy and the Slash") in her report, which I hear was great.)
My second panel, "Piracy of Fiction on the Internet," was well-moderated by one John Scalzi, though between himself and Patrick Nielsen Hayden, the rest of us were just a teeny bit redundant. (Paul Melko and I were definitely on the side of PNH and the Scalvi, and we all agreed, basically, that fiction book piracy is not a true crisis with far-reaching financial consequences so much as a bit of a moral panic. Not to put words in anyone's mouths, but I think that's the gist of it.) Patrick Rothfuss didn't officially take that stance, though I think when he came into the panel, he was planning to, and switched horses midstream to play Devil's Advocate. In any case, we had some good discussion about many aspects of this, including a nod to, say, the Constitution's provision for copyright:
"The Congress shall have power... to promote the progress of science and the arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive rights to their respective writings and discovers."
Limited times. Finite. Yah.
Okay, so that was a panel pretty much in accord. Even the audience couldn't muster up much resistance to our obvious righteousness. Or maybe they were just afraid to argue with Patrick Nielsen Hayden. I could feel the intellect radiating from him all the way through Scalzi.
And THEN came "Juvenilia." With me, Scott Westerfeld, and Justine Larbalestier, moderated by Mr. Scalzi.
We had a rather small audience of... perhaps ten?... people, but it was so much fun. Everyone's brains melted and leaked out of their tear ducts. I saw it happen. Justine even asked for a Kleenex, that's how bad her brain was liquefacting. I may have failed in not bringing my pretentious teenage writings to the panel, but I feel that my choice succeeded in other ways. (I'll post excerpts in another entry, so you can lose your brains through your tear ducts, too.)
Anyway, that was it for my panels... I'll report on the panels I attended in Report II. And the least said about the bar, the better?
The Juvenilia Panel
Saturday, 1PM in Salon G
Writers dust off the storage trunks, turn off the shame meter, and read from their 5th- through 12th-grade works of unalloyed proto-genius... Justine Larbalestier (M), Scott Westerfeld, Merrie Haskell, K. Tempest Bradford and Marcy Italiano
I poked through my juvenilia folder last night, because I have one... and there's plenty of stuff in there, but I don't know if any of it's reading-worthy. It's not so much laughably bad as just stultifyingly, badslushly boring. I do have one point where I talk about "nameless emotions" and then proceed to name them, so that might work, but it's just two paragraphs. I wish I had a complete story to present that would also entertain, but I can't quite locate the short story I wrote in fifth grade... I don't know if it would be suitable, either.... because, otherwise, I didn't really write short stories. Or, if I wrote them, I didn't keep them. (I have a quaint thing called "The Library Murders" that was my very first submission, ever, but again, not laughably bad, just boring. Maybe. I may be too kind to myself on that one.) Most everything I have from this era is novels, or world-building for novels. Oooh, I could bring the pages and pages and pages of notes I have for my Anne McCaffrey knock-off. Just to show. "This is what I thought you had to do before you could write a novel...."
So, I have some thinking to do there... maybe I'll consult my critique group during the kibbutzing time. Maybe I'll bring the whole folder and let my Confusion roomies help me decide.
(Also, looks like I'll be going on panels straight from 11am to 2pm. I shall have to eat a hearty breakfast.)
So, it looks like the program is up for Confusion. It's very snazzy, both in terms of site design and the variety of programs.
Plus, I'm on it! Or, my alter ego Merry Haskell is. But she's just as swell as me. I swear.
Women Pirates
Sat Jan 19 11:00 – Sat Jan 19 12:00
Salon H
Buckler and bra - how does that work? How did it? A look at the feminine side of pirate history. From Anne Bonnie to Ching Shih female buccaneers are clouded in legend even more than their male counterparts, or perhaps so. However, in spite of all the swashbuckling myths and silliness, they were real criminals, who committed perhaps the most daring theft of all seizing a violent, active life from the grip of their oppressors.
(Anne Harris (M), Lisa Leutheuser, Erica Schippers, Merry Merrie Haskell, Catherynne Valente)
Piracy of Fiction on the Internet
Sat Jan 19 12:00 – Sat Jan 19 13:00
Salon H
What is fair use versus exploitation without compensation?
(Patrick Nielsen Hayden, John Scalzi (M), Jim Hines, Merry Merrie Haskell and Paul Mel[k]o)
While I can talk with a reasonable amount of knowledge about copyright law, I realized in a semi-panic today that it's largely related to, you know, academic library use. So, I'll be putting my ninja librarian skills to the test to become better informed. Because no one, absolutely no one, will care what I know about coursepacks, electronic reserves, classroom use, document delivery best practices, electronic journals, and the Berne Convention Implementation Act. Almost certainly.
Plus, you know. Look at my fellow panelists. *panics s'more*
As for women pirates, I know some, but... I need to know a lot more to be able to expound intelligently on this subject. But the good news is, I have a fantastic research library at my fingertips, so. Not so worried. Yet.
I hope to see lots and lots of folks at the convention! It's totally my hometown con, and it finally feels like my hometown con, after what, four? Five? years, so that's cool. (And, as always, I'll be hanging out with various and sundry members of the the Klecha Clutch.)