Readercon writers act out

I promise this is the last post I’m going to make about Readercon. The Reading Aloud workshop last year left me interested in learning more about acting. This year, there was almost an Actorcon track,  with a repeat of Reading Aloud and two hour workshops about acting and improv.

Readercon and facing the future–not

At the “So, What’s New?” panel at Readercon, Warren Lapine launched a salvo that current science fiction is doing a remarkably poor job of dealing with the future. As Paolo Balcigulpi said, SF set in the future needs to at least tip its hat to global warming. There’s story after story after story in global [...]

Readercon Characters

I supposed I was primed to enjoy this year’s Readercon because I found the very first panel so interesting.  The official title was “The Origin of Character in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind,” and James Patrick Kelly led off with a quick precis of Julian Jaynes’s thesis that ancient people had a divided mind [...]

Readercon and reviewing

Charles Brown always seemed like yet another éminence grise you get used to seeing every year at Readercon. No more. He gave us Locus Magazine and made sure it would keep going. Then he died on the way home from the con. All I can do is offer my respect and admiration.

Readercon: the recovery begins

Readercon was fun, but when all is said and done, it’s good to see the sun. I came home with my head buzzing, full of all sorts of ambitions of establishing my own place in the metaphorical sun, to find a yard full of bees, weeds, and red raspberries dropping off into my hand. The [...]

Readercon 20 coming right up

Readercon 20 starts this Thursday through Sunday. Even it’s my favorite con in the area, it always sneaks up on me. There’s already friends and teachers I expect to see.  And there’s so many interesting things in the schedule, I’m sure I’ll be a blithering wreck by Sunday afternoon.  So, my posting may get a [...]

Unique Visitors

I’ve encountered “Unique Visitors,” by James Patrick Kelly four times now, and each time I’ve had a different reaction.

Podcasts Of Mars

The Readercon panel that had me taking lots of notes was “Podcasts Of Mars.” They threw out a huge list of podcasts worth listening to, and gave pointers for creating your own podcasts.

Weedercon

I love Readercon, but it’s still too many people, too many ideas, too much information in too little space. No wonder it doesn’t take long for me to go into buffer overflow. What? A writer who needs a little alone time? Never heard of such a thing. This year it was even hotter than usual [...]

On-line fiction

Readercon has been over for a couple days, and I’m just starting to recover. One panel that got me stirred up was “The Aesthetics of Online Magazines,” which left me feeling very depressed about the future of the web as a means of delivering fiction as text.