Call Me a Dreamer

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.