GCLS: Saturday, part 1

[hrj]

It's all over but the awards evening, at this point.

Went to a reading in the first session as I'd sort of promised one of the readers, who was worried about nobody showing up at 8:30 after a late night of carousing. Dithered around for a bit then caught the last part of a presentation on "tech tools for writers" which at that point was focused on useful single-purpose apps.

Then came the keynote address by Dorothy Allison who held the entire conference enraptured, not only by her stories but by her enthrallingly theatrical delivery. I think she got a 5 minute standing ovation afterward. I can't do any justice to summarizing the contents, so I won't try.

A very light lunch in the bar, since the meal schedule is going to be completely thrown off by the awards reception/presentation. (Smack dab at dinner time, but not enough food served to be able to rely on it entirely.)

Lunch ran over into the start of the next session, but I caught about half of the panel on lesbian Sci-Fi. It wasn't all that interesting, unfortunately. Pretty much no awareness of what's going on in the larger sff community (beyond media properties) or trailing several decades behind. (E.g., with "what if there were a planet/culture entirely of women?" considered daring.) Also still very stuck in the mode of "romance and X".

Finished up by attending a panel of new authors talking about how their books developed from idea to book. (This is a standard panel every year, but obviously with different speakers each time.)

Stopped by the reg table to discover the fate of my donation to the silent auction. (I donated a historic name consultation package.) As of this morning it had been the only one of perhaps 50 donations to have zero bids, but it got a last minute pity-bid from someone I'd mentioned this fact to. I don't know that she has any use for a historic name consultation (she writes contemporaries), which leaves me feeling rather weird about the whole thing.

In half an hour we're going out for a light early dinner with some other folks and then it will be nail-biting time. In case anyone has managed to miss it, my debut novel Daughter of Mystery is short-listed for a Goldie in the Science Fiction/Fantasy category. The Goldies are a bit unusual in that they choose three equal winners in each category out of a short-list of eight. There are fifteen categories, plus assorted special achievement awards, so there's plenty of time for nails to get bitten. I've sweated over a brief little acceptance speech, in case it will be needed. I just wish I didn't get an uncontrollable adrenaline reaction in situations like this. (It doesn't do any good to tell me to "relax" or "don't get so worked up". It's a purely physiological reflex equivalent to performance stage fright.)

Comments

[patoadam]

what if there were a planet/culture entirely of women?

Wikipedia tells me that Joanna Russ wrote "When it Changed" in 1972. There may well be many earlier examples I am unaware of.

[cryptocosm.livejournal.com]

Given that "When It Changed" appeared in Again, Dangerous Visions I would expect it was groundbreaking. Or, at least, Harlan Ellison thought so. (That was also my first thought.)

[kyrademon.livejournal.com]

"Herland" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman was written in 1915. The idea is not exactly cutting edge at this point.

[hrj.livejournal.com]

Well, yes, and that's sort of my point. There's this lack of awareness of the existing field and its history. In many ways, LesFic SFF seems stuck in a timeless '80s loop of "planet of women" and "embattled amazon tribes" (apart from following the fashion for paranormal romance involving lots of vampires and werewolves).

[kareina.livejournal.com]

Is there any productive use to which you can put that adrenaline? If your body is going to provide the extra chemicals to the system in such situations, you may as well find a benefit from it--your writing will certainly get you short listed for other awards, if you keep writing to the standard that book is written.

I haven't even finished it yet (reading it out loud to my sweetie means that it takes more days to complete than it would if I were reading silently), but your talent with story telling really shows. I suspect that I am even more aware of the good turns of phrase since I am reading it out loud.

Despite how long it takes to read this way, I am really enjoying the ability to speculate with him about how things might go as the story unfolds--we are now up to the bit in the summer where B has just been sent off on an errand that could take weeks.

[lferion]

I do hope you win! The book & your writing are more than deserving.