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SFContario redux

Two weekends ago was SFContario, and as part of my whole goal to, you know, meet actual writers in the genre and be a pro writer, I attended. Due to its being on a weekend and my being extremely overscheduled like all the time, I went down Sunday for 11am.

I went to three panels:
  • Family Trees of Fantasy: Teresa Nielsen Hayden, Ed Greeenwood, Jo Walton, Michael Swanwick, and James Alan Gardner riffed for an hour about books I should read.
  • Review and Criticism in the SF Field: Leah Bobet and someone I'd never heard of didn't show, but TNH, Tony Pi, and Brett Savory seemed to think accurate reviews were good. I sat behind Jo Walton. I always hope some awesomeness rubs off; you never know. I was too shy to say hello.
  • Will No One Free me from this Troublesome Book?: Violette Malan and Stephanie Bledwell-Grimes (who I saw at Ad Astra) carried the day, as David Nickle didn't show. Maybe this is some Sunday con thing? I'd never noticed Violette Malan's books before, but she was entertaining so I might look one up. This was a good panel to help me get through NaNoWriMo (the con being on the penultimate NaNo weekend). I especially liked what they said about how some days it's hard to get your 2K (words), and some days it's easy, but when you go back later to read the manuscript, usually you can't tell which were which.

I abandoned my jacket by accident after the first panel, and the thought of having to take the TTC home without it was grim, because the sky was making feeble attempts to snow. When I found it at the registration desk, and hadn't even realized I had left my wallet in the pocket. It still had all the money in it!

Next time I go to a convention, maybe I will talk to someone, or, horror of horrors, what a consuite is.

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