Brief notes from Chessiecon

Not a real con report (especially since it's still going on) but some brief jottings of programming I've attended or was involved in (the latter marked with a "*").

Friday

New GLBTQ Books -- This is a regular annual feature where a panel (sometimes a lone panelist) puts out a personal list of notable GLBTQ books from the previous year and then audience members offer their own suggestions. Thanks to my on-going quest to actually be aware of the current state of the market, I was able to make some contributions to the discussion.

*Diversity in SF/F -- This was a fairly basic 101 panel, reviewing the importance of literature that reflects real-world diversity both for the sake of story and for the sake of reader identification. There was discussion of writing within and across identity categories and resources for the latter. And there was a practical illustration of how the lack of self-awareness and self-monitoring can result in privileged individuals dominating the conversation to the exclusion of the the voices of marginalized groups.

*What are we Ignoring? Tech that SF Overlooks -- The discussion was wide-ranging enough to be hard to summarize. A recurring theme of "who does the tech benefit? what purposes drive innovation?"

Saturday

Using History and Alternate History in Your Stories -- Sources and inspirations, research tips, writing the other, a lot of focus on relatively modern eras. Favorite historic characters incorporated in your fiction. How much faithfulness to or divergence from historic is optimal? At what point should you just call it a secondary world?

Beyond Christianity: Rituals and Religions in Speculative Fiction -- The topic got a bit diverted from the title, given that the panelists were skewed towards Christian topics and backgrounds. There was a tacit assumption that most SFF writers come from a basically Christian background. . What makes religious elements in a story come alive? They need to be an integral part of characters' lives. What do writers find daunting in writing outside their own traditions? Not just being sensitive in how real-world religions are portrayed, but in how they are "played with" in the fantasy context. Discussion of examples of badly-handled religious themes in fiction.

Brief notes from Chessiecon Part 2

I had half a dozen people at my reading -- not spectacular attendance, but probably par for the course for the convention size. I rewarded those who showed up with the booklet version of "Three Nights at the Opera" (still leftover from GCLS this summer). Read section 3 of that (not really chapters, so I don't know what to call them), then one of Antuniet's chapters from an earliest part of The Mystic Marriage, and finished with the opening section of my Queer Mabinogi story "Hoywverch". May have sold one or two copies of Daughter of Mystery on that basis. (The main bookseller in the dealer's room was out of copies, so I handed him what I'd brought with me and well settle up whether he wants to keep any beyond what he sells at the end of the con. I was somewhat gratified to discover that he was "out" as opposed to "never heard of it".)

Went to a panel on "non-kick-ass female protagonists" or: who gets to have adventures without having to be Special. Decided on dinner in the hotel coffee shop despite knowing from breakfast that they had (as has happened before) badly under-projected how much business the con would give them--and then on top of that they had a no-show waiter. We did get fed eventually and were very nice to the sole waiter covering both the tables and the bar. Caught a little of the Tom Smith concert, but it isn't really in my style and Lauri wasn't getting enough of the in-jokes to appreciate it. May stay up to catch the Hallelujah Chorus sing-along--we'll see.