Darkovercon Report

[hrj]

I can reconstruct the convention from the schedule on the back of my tent card. They kept me quite busy. GFiNY and I dodged around the Macys crowds Thursday morning to catch our train at Penn Station and discovered that a "reserved seat" on Amtrak doesn't necessarily mean you'll _find_ a seat without walking from one end of the train to the other. We settled into the cafe car because it offered the first available pair. Don Sakers picked us up in Baltimore (Penn station again --we passed through an additional Penn station going through New Jersey) and delivered us to the hotel. Then it was dinner at the hotel buffet with the usual pre-convention crowd and then hanging out socializing in Judy's room until bedtime.My forestalled cold was definitely back, determined to progress through all the usual stages, so I got snifflier as the weekend went on and skipped out on late-night activities. Friday I three panels, the usual one on "researching historic details for fiction and why do people love medieval fantasy so much anyway?" Next was a very energetic and (I think) successful panel on "Do/Should minorities get a 'pass'?" in the sense of "Should authors avoid making minority characters into villains/victims?" I'm told by an audience member that watching the body language of the panelists was as much fun as listening to what was being said. Last up was an alt-history panel on "what would have happened if famous people had been of the opposite gender?" On which my position was the largely boring "mostly they would never have had the opportunity to do what they became famous for."
We'd had dinner before my third panel with the_cheese_lady and her husband, but afterward bumped into GoH Nalo Hopkinson who was about to have dinner alone and joined her for company. (One of the secrets of Darkovercon is that it's a great opportunity to snag GoHs for cozy chats around meals.)
Saturday I had a solo panel on designing names for use in fiction which had a small but enthusiastic audience. The afternoon panel "Making it real" (how to use details to create realistic settings) covered ground from how to research and use expert consultants to writing techniques for how to insert those details into your story smoothly. I went to the all-authors autograph session but no one dredged out any old copies of Sword & Sorceress or "Baby Names for Dummies" this year, so I mostly took notes for the panel I'd be moderating later. The post dinner panel was "Alien Romance", which had a prompt suggesting how laws and ethics might handle relationships with sentient non-human beings, although the discussion covered a fair amount of speculation on mechanics as well. (For actual alien species I have a hard time getting past how much groundwork you'd have to do after first contact before something like "informed consensuality" could reasonably be discussed.) I skipped the midnight Hallelujah Chorus for the first time in years because I was still fighting through the cold and sleep seemed more important.
I had a reading scheduled for 11am on Sunday but my only listener was the GFiNY, so rather than reading from Daughter of Mystery (which she's read) I read the prequel short story "Three Nights at the Opera" (its debut). I was a little disappointed to not have a bigger audience, but I did spend all weekend being allowed to squee about the novel sale. My last panel was to moderate "Reinventing Religion" on various topics relating to fictional religions and the uses I'd theology in world-building. The day finished up with the all-author Q&A session which was more lively than some have been in the past. It also allowed me to line up a ride to the train station for the trip back to NY, which is where I'm typing this at the moment.

Comments

[kahnegabs.livejournal.com]

It sounds like you had a good time (except for the cold). Our weather here has been just lovely. I suspect you will arrive just in time for the predicted rains to arrive.

[dr-zrfq.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry I completely missed you this year. We were on site for all of 22 hours, and in no shape to attend any panels. (I'd have even skipped the Clam Chowder concert save that I had a date. Though I did sing the Hallelujah Chorus, complete with my traditional role of giving the basses their cues.) I suppose I'll get to meet tGFiNY at *some* point. Hope the rest of your trip east goes well.

[mneme]

Giving the basses our cues was really helpful! (as usual). My command of the piece is getting better over the years, but I have a pretty good idea where I'd mess up if you weren't around.

[mneme]

Sounds like a lot of fun! I didn't do a lot of panels, but the tail end of the author Q&A looked like fun.

Any chance I can lure you down to the Friday night Bardic next year?

[hrj.livejournal.com]

I've really just drifted away from filking -- it stopped making me happy.

[klwilliams.livejournal.com]

I've discovered that problem on British trains, too, though I've also found asking the youngest and strongest person nearby if they'd give me their seat because I was handicapped can get around that problem. Obviously that doesn't work for everyone.

What was the consensus on "Do minorities get a pass?"

11 am on a Sunday following a midnight "Hallelujah Chorus" sing may be the single work time for a reading.

[hrj.livejournal.com]

The general consensus on "do minorities get a pass" was "no" -- on "should minorities get a pass?" it was more along the lines of "if you can't be bothered to include more than individual token minority members, then don't get your nose out of joint if readers/viewers interpret how you treat that one character as standing for the entire class".

The Sunday morning reading slot was actually less likely to conflict with other desirable activities than other times. This was fairly par for the course (I think my overall reading audience average for Darkovercon runs around 1, which is why I've declined a slot in years when I don't have any new work to read). I guess I've got plenty of people happy for my success but haven't quite gotten the knack of acquiring "fans".