WisCON Report

We’re home safe and sound and now I’ve had time to reflect on the con and whatnot and I thought I’d do a quick write up. 

 

Shawn and I dropped Mason off at his grandfolks’ on Thursday night.  I should mention that as we left I discovered one of the tetra plastered to the bio filter quite dead and, upon closer examination, I noticed that the entire pod developed spots overnight.  I dosed the tank with PemaFix and left instructions with the house sitter to continue the meds.  Even so, I figured we’d come home to a dead tank.

 

We left in high spirits despite all that.  Shawn had wisely bought Mason a portable DVD player and we brought along all his favorites.  It made the trip really smooth. 

 

After spending the night in LaCrosse, Shawn and I headed off in the morning.  Last year, my folks reported that there were a few tears of missing ima and mama, but this time on Friday morning Mason looked at me (shortly after I told him he could not have chocolate sprinkles for breakfast) and asked, “Shouldn’t you be going to Madison now?”  Clever boy knows gramma’s a softie and the sooner the parents are off, the sooner the party starts.

 

We got to con early, but the hotel was able to get us in early.  Shawn always books us in the governor’s suite and I have to admit it’s a luxury I enjoy.  Chocolates on the pillow and access to the club with its continental breakfast and other goodies.  I’m telling you, rich people get all the perks.

 

My first panel wasn’t officially a panel at all.  It was the mid-career writers’ reception.  Naomi Kritzer was the official facilitator, but she’d asked me to be there to keep things focused on our secret agenda, which was to have this be the shop-talk version of the mid-career writers’ gathering.  It went well, but as no one really knows about this option yet, and they set it up so early in the con schedule (actually a good placement as the other one is traditionally at the end, but people wouldn’t necessarily have known to come early for it) it wasn’t extraordinarily well attended.  Hopefully, as people find out about it, we’ll get a bigger turn out.

 

Shawn and I went out to Porta Bella for diner.  We had a great time despite the fact that every time we go we’re struck by the fact even though the place has awesome ambiance, the food is startlingly mediocre.  We took advantage of the darkness to make lots of googly-eyes at each other and spend some much needed grown-up time together without the kidlet.

 

Fade to black…

 

The next morning, I had “Explain Slash to Me” at the ridiculously early hour of ten a.m.  Sharyn November <http://www.sharyn.org/> (editor, Firebird Press) was the moderator and that was a trip.  She ran the panel with an iron fist (to be polite.)    That being said, I felt it went better than panels like this has in the past, possibly _because_ Ms. November kept the audience participation to a minimum.  As much as I love hearing about all the various kinds of slash out there, sometimes that’s all the panel ends up being – an evangelical “witness” session for slash… so maybe her aggressive approach to moderation worked in this instance.

 

After lunch break, where I got to hang out with Anne Harris and Eleanor Arnason, I moderated “Sexism: A Spotters’ Guide.”  Frankly, I was dreading this and thought I might have to play the WisCon Drinking Game, wherein you take a swig of something any time someone mentions a feminist buzzword, ala. “Patriarchy.”  I would have gotten lightly buzzed at this panel, but I think we ended up having an interesting discussion if only because at one point I broke and got my media fandom all over the nice feminists.  I felt a little bad for Graham Sleight (SF critic, <http://www.gsleight.demon.co.uk/>), the token SNAG (sensitive New Age guy, although he was really more a SFG, sensitive feminist guy), but still.    And despite my snarkiness, I actually learned some cool things about language from our resident linguist, MJ Hardman (oh, what a ironic surname that is, isn’t it?)

 

Speaking of which I was actually in the company of a woman whose surname appeared to be “Mankiller” at the BroadUniverse rapid-fire reading, where I read a short snippet of my new-ish messianic chick-lit (novel?  Short story?) “The Second Coming of Emily.”  I actually wrote a little bit more on that and am seriously thinking about turning what I have into a chapter for Wyrdsmiths.  The other readers were the usual mix, which is part of the fun of the BU reading… it’s always a complete mixed bag.  I fell in love with Jennifer Pelland’s (SF/F author, <http://www.jenniferpelland.com/>writing all over again when she read a little bit of what I called her, “Elephant Man story.”  I begged her for the full version and I believe she said it would be out in Helix Magazine some time soon, so watch for that.

 

Shawn and I spent Saturday night in… wink, wink, nudge, nudge.

 

Sunday morning was the “Transsexuality as Trope” panel, which given that a surprising number of the panelists weren’t quite sure how we ended up on the panel went pretty well.  I made, perhaps, the worse personal mistake of my life (and one that may guarantee that I will never moderate the T panel again,) when I used the wrong gender tag to refer to one of our panelist.  She was very kind when I apologized profusely afterward, but I felt like, as they say in England, a “right prat.” 

 

Despite my personal snafu, the rest of the panel went well. E. Bear and I scuffled it up a little, but the dust hardly even flew (which is too bad in a way, since, as I have said, I rather enjoy fighting with her.)  The panelist I enjoyed the most was Charlie Anders (author, co-editor of Girl Geek, <http://www.charlieanders.com/>), who had some awesome ideas for stories that might include historical T characters.  She sent me the links to their wikipedia page –

 

I’m actually doing a little thinking about this challenge, since I have never set out to try to write a T story and there really do seem to be a dearth of things out there -- good or bad.  Plus, I’ve always loved a good spy story and maybe I can science fictionalize some of the bits of these people’s lives… like it might be fun to do a “send up” of the classic Amazonic “utopia” and have a trans character infiltrate that culture.

 

Anyway, the next panel was the BSG one and it also went well, but it was clearly one of those topics where I thought we could very easily have talked for six hours instead of one.  We hardly spoke of Starbuck at all, but Jef Smith gave me the link to a great new time waster, the LJ community What_The_Frak? <http://community.livejournal.com/what_the_frak/profile> I’m totally planning on joining up (actually, I already sent in my request and am waiting for approval) and spending all my writing time yakking about BSG.

 

The only party I attended was the Wyrdsmiths’ on Sunday night, but I stayed up until the last swan sang at 2:00 am.  I got a chance to hang out with

charliegrrl

 and one of her partners, Annalee Newitz (Wired editor and much, more <http://www.techsploitation.com/>), whom I also had the pleasure of “debating” on the BSG panel.  They introduced me to all of their awesome friends who I’m deeply honored liked me just as much as I liked them (or at least made me feel that way.)  We spent a lot of time fondling my monkey (long story) and making up the “two a.m.” panel ideas, like, “Animals: How They Get High” and other such silliness. 

 

 

I drove back home in a sleep-deprived haze, especially since my father had to unexpectedly work on Tuesday so we didn’t overnight in LaCrosse as planned.  As usual, I’ve come back from WisCON anxious to write and inspired to do some good… or something like that.

WisCON (fish) Addendum

I forgot to finish the sad tale of the tetra.  Though our house sitter dutifully looked for floaters and corpses stuck to the bio filter, she never could have anticipated the horror of the mass tetra suicide pact.  When I went upstairs to check on them, I found what looked like an empty tank.  I thought, “Uh-oh, they’re all dead and stuck under the pagoda feature.”

 

Close.

 

Except what I found was a moldy fusion of all six tetra stuck to one of the plants in the backside of the tank (where they liked sleeping, actually).  I couldn’t even separate them to flush.  They got a mass burial in the garbage can.

 

Eeeeeeeeeeew.

 

My only comfort is that they went out as a team, a pod, a troop.  Also, if our house sitter dosed them as instructed (which I have no doubt she did,) they felt little pain – PemaFix has a tiny amount of clove oil in it to provide pain relief.  Plus, goddess knows, if I’d been around they would have been subjected to any number of chemical baths in my attempts to fix them.

 

Piranha did not survive.  God rest his soul.