Call Me a Dreamer

This weekend I spent at the Tucson Festival of Books (TFoB), on the University of Arizona Mall. I can't stress enough what a wonderful, well-organized, and amazing celebration of reading and writing this is. Even more amazing is that it is entirely free, yes FREE!, to the public. Check out the list of authors who attended. If you're local, I hope you were there (and if you weren't, why not?); if you're not local, consider visiting Tucson for next year's festival, to be held March 12-13, 2011.

The TFoB is both like and unlike a science fiction convention. There were many, many fans and authors, panels, discussions, and workshops. In that respect, it was very like a con. But, there were no (or I missed them) fans in costumes, although there were a few costumed characters, such as the Easter bunny and Little Critter (whom both I and another writer misidentified as Little Monster), who were willing to pose with kids while their parents took pictures. *sigh* It's just been too many years since I read Mercer Mayer's books with any regularity. There was also spectacle, in the form of a "literary circus." There were multiple activities for kids, musical performances, food booths run by local restaurants, and booths for just about any organization or group with a literary connection that you can imagine, plus several with no obvious literary connection; as I commented to a friend Sunday afternoon, readers and authors all generally live in houses and drive cars.

( far too much detail-lol )

Arriving at TusCon 36 around 5 p.m., I checked in and got my participant packet. Pulling out the schedule, I saw that my options for the next hour included a panel (Star Trek: Heresy or new revelation?) or a reading by David Lee Summers, the editor of Space Pirates, the anthology in which my collaboration with Karl, "Ship's Daughter," appeared. Guess which option I chose.

( David Lee Summers )

I arrived a few minutes late, so I missed the opening of "Electric Kachinas", a story published in Science Fiction Trails #2, According to David, this story is also part of Owl Dance, a novel currently in progress. His second reading was a selection from his novel The Solar Sea. Both stories were a lot of fun. David's a good reader, too, and some of his books are available in audio formats. I discovered that his novel, The Pirates of Sufiro, is available in a free audio version from Podiobooks, so you might consider giving it a try.

( Elaine Charton )

Now that I was in the reading room, I hung around for the next reading, by Elaine Charton. She read from her novel The Man in the Mirror, which is currently out of print. The Man in the Mirror, which combines fantasy and romance. Another fun read and I was glad I stuck around.

After that, it was off to the Meet the Guests party, which I will cover in another post.

I had a great time at TusCon yesterday evening and am looking forward to a fun and busy day there, today. It's always great to touch base with other writers and since I've been attending TusCon for over 15 years, I've got lots of friends among both pros and guests. This year, there's a CosPlay event with a steampunk theme, which should be lots of fun.

All of my panels are scheduled for today: I'm on a panel on "Retelling Fairytales: How does the medium and the culture affect the story?" at 11 a.m., do my reading at 4 p.m., and have a second panel on "Teaching Old Tropes New Tricks: Making formulae interesting" at 5 p.m.

I'm taking lots of blurry cell phone pictures and trying to make notes of the con highlights, so I can make a proper report at the end of the weekend. It'll probably be spread over multiple posts and I haven't quite finished the Comic Con series, so you can expect several posts from me in the next couple of weeks.

Last Saturday I attended the second annual Tucson Comic Con, a one-day event held in The Hotel Arizona in beautiful, downtown Tucson. Entering from the West side entrance into the lower lobby, I didn't have to ask for directions as the crowd of people, many wearing costumes, were all headed in the same direction, to the right through the nearby antechamber and the ballroom beyond it. Both rooms had tables full of interesting comic-related items, but it took me only seconds to realize that the artists and writers and their ilk were in the ballroom, so that's where I headed first.

( blurry picture of Tucson Comic Con crowd )

I tried to get some kind of contact information for each of the exibits I stopped at, but looking through my stash, I think I must have lost (more than) a few before I had a bag in which to plunk them, because I sure don't have nearly enough cards for the number of people who were at the show. The first table I stopped at was exhibiting plastic models. It turns out that the artist re-scuplts figurines so that they conform to either his, or his customers', visions. Unfortunately, after searching through all my stuff and clicking a lot of links on the Comic Con website* I can't find any information about the artist. If anyone else who attended happens to read this, and knows who this guy was, please let me know so I can update this post.

I was pleased to run into betsywrites, who was there with other members of the Tucson Roller Derby. She told me that this coming Saturday (in conflict with TusCon, which is this Friday through Sunday) they're having a match between the "Children of the 70´s" (and earlier decades), and the "Children of the 80´s".** Go Children of the 70's!

I enjoyed visiting with Paul Fini, whom I'd met previously at a library panel discussion, his lovely wife Christy Cameron Smith, and their friend, comic book artist Clay Lewis. Paul Fini is the founder of indieonlycomics. Paul is the author/artist of the semiautobiographical comic, Bliss, as well as several other comics (Plant Guy is a blast!), and he's also published the Warlock’s Home Brew Adventure: The Outpost on the Edge of the Far Reaches role-playing books. He and Christy used to be in a band together; I don't remember the specifics of the music or who played what instrument, for which I must ask your forgiveness, but I do remember that Christy was a singer for the band. Oh, and I happened to catch sight of her sketchbook; she's a good artist in her own right, although she's a bit shy about it. Clay is working on the fabulous project, Moon Mission Filey, the first episode of which should be available as a Flash animation sometime around the end of this year. Of all the gorgeous art I saw on Saturday (and there's lots!) I think this was my favorite. He's working in a style reminiscent of art from the 1920´s and 30´s and the hero of his Buck Rodgers-inspired comic is his cat, Filey. Unfortunately, there's nothing up, yet, at the website (so the link I gave you is dead), but I'm hoping it will be live soon.

I also spent some time talking to writer/publisher Anthony (Tony) Garcia, of TwentyToSix Books and his (sister?), singer ArleneWow!. His most recent (I think) publication is Crown of Spears. His website describes this as "an historical fiction that chronicles the Shuar rebellion against the Spanish Empire in 1599. The Shuar (aka) the Jivaro headhunters of Ecuador are the only indiginous tribe to successfully repel the Aztecs and the Spanish conquistadors. This story takes you to the wilds of the Amazon to witness these historic events through the eyes of a young priest who falls victim to their sway." He's even entered into a deal with the Shuar to produce some gruesome looking "shrunken heads" (actually leather masks with attached fur or hair, but still suitably horrific).

( Tony Garcia and shrunken heads )

Now, I'm sure that, notwithstanding the tradition of comics as a male bastion, there are plenty of female comic book artists and writers out there—heck, my sons went to school with some very talented female artists, at least one of whom was publishing some very fine comic books while still in high school—but you couldn't tell from the line-up at the con, as I only met one, count her, one, female artist/writer. I sure hope that the folks who run the Tucson Comic Con will work on making sure that the word gets out that the con is female comic creator friendly (and that this is true), and I hope that more women doing work with comics will sign up to exhibit at future cons. (This is not to say that there weren't plenty of women sitting at the various tables, just that most of them were there in support of guys.) The one woman I met who was exhibiting her own work was Tanya Burr. Hot off the presses—she told me she'd just opened the boxes that morning—was the first issue of her first comic, Dreds, the story of a dreadlocked meditation student who, despite his desultory approach to the activity and his relative n00b-ness, experiences some fabulous astral travel. Check out her DeviantArt page, where you can see a picture of her in her cow hat and view examples of her art; I also learned there that she's posted the entire comic online at her website, starting with the cover (just follow the links in the comments below each image).

Trivia fact about Tanya: she works at R-Galaxy and says that owners Rick and Maritsa were instrumental in helping her to get her start.

Rick and Maritsa were also at Tucson Comic Con, with what was probably the largest selection of comic book and anime-related merchandise. I've known them for over ten years, since R-Galaxy is the place where my boys and I first went to rent anime. Now that my boys are out of the house, I don't get by very often, but they still remember me, even in a crowd as big as this was.

This has turned into a very long entry, so I'll end it here and finish up tomorrow or Friday with the costume-related portion of this program.

---

* You can find a complete list of the various artists and vendors who attended here.

** If you're a roller derby fan, there's a discount offered for active military and for fans dressed in 70's or 80's style.

Today I arrived early at the TusCon booth, although not so early that there weren't already several other people there. The morning started a bit slower than yesterday. At the time, I thought this might be because many people were still at church, but I was reminded later that today was also the St. Patrick's Day parade. However, as the day went on, we had a steady stream of people. As before, many of those who visited the booth were unaware that Tuscon has a science fiction. I frequently heard people say things like, "I've lived here for twelve years and I never knew there was a con here." Given that we're heading into the 36th annual convention, it's frustrating to have confirmed just how poorly we've done at letting people know about the con. However, we can hope that many of the people who passed by the table will not only attend the con, but tell their friends about it.

After my primary stint at the TusCon booth, I headed for a presentation by Charles de Lint, at which he read an essay, "Exploring the Outsider in Fantasy Fiction," which was followed by a question and answer period. I discovered that while I can usually keep my cool around sff writers (after all, I've been hanging out with them for nearly twenty years), I turn into a starry-eyed fan girl in the presence of de Lint, who is one of the authors whose writing I most enjoy and admire. (Heaven help me if I ever meet Lois McMaster Bujold.) It was truly wonderful to have both de Lint and his wife, Mary Ann Harris, present as participants at the festival. (I was told that because of the sponsorship of many, many corporate groups, the festival had deep pockets, so the participants received honorariums, in addition to having their travel expenses paid.)

I arrived early and sat in the front row. Next to me was a young man who reminded me a lot of my younger son at about fifteen or sixteen, except that his loose afro was jet black in comparison to Keith's brownish-blondish. He wasn't familiar with de Lint's work, but was there as part of book club with his school's librarian. We talked for a while about the books I had with me and I tried to express what it is that I love about de Lint's writing and his characters, especially with regard to the ways in which it might appeal to a teenaged boy. At one point, the librarian got up from where she was sitting with the girls in the club (this young man seemed to be the only boy in the group) and was asking me which of de Lint's books I would recommend the school purchase next. Out of all the books de Lint has written (and learning today that there are 67 published volumes, I now know I've read only a tiny fraction of them) I was at a complete loss as to which would be best for a high school library! The librarian was, I think, a bit miffed at my weak recommendation that she simply buy the most recent book (The Mystery of Grace, available pre-publication at the festival), given that she couldn't buy the complete set.

Later in the afternoon, following de Lint's signing (two more books signed!) and another stint at the TusCon booth, I attended a panel discussion on "Writing Fantasy for Teens," part of the festival's programming for youth. The panelists were Laurie Brooks, whose book Selkie Girl is now on my to-read list, janni, and Charles de Lint. It was really wonderful to be in a room with thirty or forty people, about half of whom were in their teens and interested in writing fantasy. (The remaining half of the audience seemed to be either friends or family of the teens, or adults interested in writing fantasy, or both.)

Following the panel, de Lint and his wife dashed out to get ready for their concert. I stayed a few moments to talk to a couple of young writers, then headed out to find my husband, who was on his way to join me for the concert. Fortunately, despite the crowds, we found each other easily and headed over to the concert tent, where the concert was already under way, de Lint on guitar and harmonica, and also singing the main vocals, and Harris on mandolin. We enjoyed the concert very much.

This weekend, as mentioned in earlier posts, is flycon2009's big weekend. I totally wanted to participate, but this weekend has turned out to be extremely busy.

This morning, I noticed the water in the shower was draining slowly, so after my shower I cleaned the drain with this nifty plastic tool I bought a couple of years ago for the sink. It's got little hooks on either side, that grab hair and other obstructions, allowing me to pull them out of the drain. It was only supposed to be used once, then thrown away, so as to prevent injury and possible infection, but I cheat and have used it many times.) Initially, I was pulling the expected tangles of hair out, but then I hit a nasty, sludgy tangle that was wrapped around a slender bit of root. So, now I know we have roots in the sewer line, which could be a real problem. It's nothing we can deal with at this moment, so I'm just going to have to keep my fingers crossed and hope that the root was old, dead, and from the tree we had to have removed a while back.

In the early afternoon, I had to attend to some business matters which took most of the afternoon. This evening was the going away party for my long-time friends' son, who is entering the marines. I've known this young man since he was about four or five, so I really felt I had to be there, even though his decision to join and his desire to see combat really saddens me. (His mom is my friend who was recently diagnosed with MS, plus his youngest brother who is about to graduate from high school has also joined and will be leaving in a few months.) In between my obligations, I tried to check in on Flycon, but ran into some technical difficulties that prevented me from doing more than reading a few posts.

Tomorrow and Sunday I may be able to peek at a few more Flycon events, but this most of the time I'll also be attending the Tucson Festival of Books, a huge event with over 300 participants that's being held at the University of Arizona campus. Since the group that runs our local science fiction convention has a booth, I'll be spending one morning volunteering with them. I also want to visit some of the panels, especially since Charles de Lint, one of my favorite authors who lives much too far away in Canada, is scheduled for a panel, giving me my first opportunity to meet him.

Somewhere in all of this, I'm going to have to make time to do some laundry, too, since I start my new job on Monday.

Coming soon to an Internet near you, it's flycon2009, an international online science fiction convention.

Via sartorias, in Flycon2009:

Here's the brief version of the explanation: Flycon will be an online convention planned to have activities during the peak hours of every time zone. It will begin midnight, Friday 13th in March 2009, in Australia and roll with the sun. We are looking for panelists, authors and editors and agents to host discussions, podcasts as readings, volunteers, and for people to spread the word through the blogoshpere. We will be having a couple of sites host forum and chat space, with everything co-ordinated through this Live Journal community with rss feeds, updates and eventual archiving. We will be running IRCs as well as bulletin boards, so that every time zone is covered.

Panels are still open for volunteers (just check back through the most recent four posts) and we're open to suggestions. We're trying to overcome the tyranny of travel and cost--and reach as widely as possible.

My first panel was scheduled for 5 p.m. Friday evening. I arrived about twenty minutes beforehand, picked up my badge and materials, and headed upstairs to the El Conquistador meeting room. The panelists were Janni Simner (janni), Jill Knowles (jillykat), Yvonne Navarro (yvonnenavarro), and myself <--New website. Our topic was, "What is urban fantasy today?" We acknowledged the early writers, of whom I remember Charles de Lint and Emma Bull (lj user="coffeeem">), because their works are among my favorites, although there were others mentioned. We discussed some of the changes, with urban fantasy moving toward a darker and more romantic palette. The other panelists were adamant that Tim Powers' works didn't feel like urban fantasy and, therefore, weren't. While I agree that they feel very different, I remain on the fence about whether they should be included, because they are very urban and very fantastic, but if I demurred at the panel I did so quietly and I'm not sure it was noticeable. While we did attempt to distinguish the differences between early urban fantasy and the urban fantasy of today, we also stumbled over the issue of defining urban fantasy. We didn't come up with an exacting answer, but fell back on that old standby: "I know it when I see it."

I'll be heading over to the InnSuites in just a few hours for TusCon 35. For information about my schedule, see my post: Tuscon 35 Program.

ETA: Karl and I will be reading this evening at 8:30 p.m. Although I don't know how much we'll actually get through, we're planning on doing a joint reading of "Ship's Daughter," with additional readings by each of us, which may include both prose and poetry. It should be a fun evening. :)

Attending the Conflux 5 minicon was almost like being in Australia. I got to meet, virtually, many authors, members of the con committee, and other guests. The blurb for each session mentioned that they were "hosting guests from four continents," so as you can imagine, it was quite an international event.

The convention format, aside from being an online forum, was as a series of "Meet the Author/Editor/Expert" sessions, with each of twenty-four guests (if I counted correctly) available in individual hour-long blocks of time. This format meant that the whole thing was driven by questions from the peanut gallery, so nutty people like myself were quick to take advantage of the chance to ask plenty of questions.

I loved the intimate feeling of the con--I didn't get to meet any of the participants directly of course, but I didn't have to worry about whether I could hear, or missing something if I had to sneak out for a few minutes. I'd love to see more online minicons like this one. Although the Internet, email, and social networking/blogging sites such as LiveJournal offer us far more opportunity to be in contact with each other, I found this a wonderful opportunity to learn about a group of people interested in and creating speculative fiction that I would never otherwise have gotten to know. I've got a long list of authors whose works I now want to read (far more than my budget can handle, at the moment, alas), and a sense of friendship (or at least acquaintanceship) with people in a distant part of the world. Australia is one of those dream vacation destinations for us Americans, so now I feel I have even more reason to visit one day, and I hope that when I do I will feel less a tourist, and more a visitor.

The minicon forum is still up, as is the forum from last year, so even if you missed the sessions, you can still head over and check it out. I really enjoyed "meeting" everyone there and hope that more people from around the world will participate in the next minicon. Oh, and don't forget to visit the Speakeasy, where much fun, food, and virtual-alcoholic frolicking was had by all.