Category: Conventions

My Readercon 21 Schedule

By:  TempestEvents
My Readercon 21 Schedule

Looks like I will be on four panels/discussions at Readercon this weekend. In addition to that we’re having the eBooks and SF Magazines discussion on Saturday night. Here’s my schedule for those who are interested:

Talk / Discussion: How Electrons have Changed Writing and Reading — Friday 4:00 PM, ME/CT
Cecilia Tan with discussion by Inanna Arthen, Leah Bobet, K. Tempest Bradford, Barbara Krasnoff, K. A. Laity

eBooks, the Internet, social media networks, PayPal — have these really changed the writer/reader relationship forever? Not surprisingly, SF readers are early adopters of new tech and sf publishers are leading the way in new content delivery. Is it really possible with new tech for a writer to cut out the publisher and still make a living? Is the writer who wants to “just write” doomed to obscurity now? Writers, what forays into the new frontier of electronic publishing have you made and what did you find out there in the wild lands? Readers, what have you enjoyed and sought out, what would you welcome?

Panel: The New and Improved Future of Magazines — Friday 8:00 PM, Salon G
K. Tempest Bradford, Neil Clarke, Liz Gorinsky (L), Gavin J. Grant, Matthew Kressel.

After last year’s “The Future of Magazines” panels, participant K. Tempest Bradford wrote: “The magazines and anthologies that I love tend to have editors who have taken the time to examine themselves or their culture, to expend their knowledge of other people and ways of being, to open their minds. These magazines and anthologies contain far more stories I want to read by authors of many varied backgrounds. As I said, it’s not fully about print vs. online, it’s about better magazines and books.” This time, creators and proponents of both print and online magazines collaborate on determining ways that any genre magazine can create a brighter and better-read future for itself, using Bradford’s comment as a launching point1.

eBooks and Magazines Planning Discussion — Saturday 6:00 PM, Meet in the lobby

Those of you interested in discussing the Magazine/eBook open source project, we’re going to meet at Readercon during the dinner break since this is the time that’s none of us are likely to have something else scheduled.

If you can’t make this time, that’s fine. We will also have an online space to discuss things after the con is over.

And yes, we will eat dinner while we discuss if we all decide the dinner time is fine. :) Meet in the lobby of the hotel, then we’ll decide where to get dinner. (Facebook event is here if you want to RSVP.)

Talk / Discussion: Interstitial Arts Foundation Town Meeting — Sunday 10:00 AM, RI
Sarah Smith with discussion by K. Tempest Bradford, Theodora Goss, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Shira Lipkin

The IAF is a group of “Artists Without Borders” who celebrate art that is made in the interstices between genres and categories. It is art that flourishes in the borderlands between different disciplines, mediums, and cultures. The IAF provides border-crossing artists and art scholars a forum and a focus for their efforts. Rather than creating a new genre with new borders, they support the free movement of artists across the borders of their choice. They support the development of a new vocabulary with which to view and critique border-crossing works, and they celebrate the large community of interstitial artists working in North America and around the world. The annual Interstitial Arts Foundation Town Meeting at Readercon is an exciting opportunity to catch up with the IAF and its many supporters to hear about they’re doing to support the interstitial art community in 2010, solicit your ideas for future projects, and to give you a voice in the development of interstitial art.

Talk / Discussion: How to Write for a Living When You Can’t Live Off Your Fiction — Sunday 11:00 AM, RI
Barbara Krasnoff with discussion by Inanna Arthen, K. Tempest Bradford, Jeffrey A. Carver, Rose Fox, Jeff Hecht, Alison Sinclair, Gayle Surrette

You’ve just been laid off from your staff job, you can’t live on the royalties from your fiction writing, and your Significant Other has taken a cut in pay. How do you pay the rent? Well, you can find freelance work writing articles, white papers, reviews, blogs, and other non-sfnal stuff. Despite today’s lean journalistic market, it’s still possible to make a living writing, editing, and/or publishing. Let’s talk about where and how you can sell yourself as a professional writer, whether blogging can be done for a living, and how else you can use your talent to keep the wolf from the door. Bring whatever ideas, sources, and contacts you have.

Footnotes

  1. Yes, it is a little weird for me that they chose a quote from something I wrote to base this discussion on… [⇧]

WisCon by the Twitters: Dollhouse – Made of Win or Full of Fail?

By:  TempestConventions

I was recruited to this panel the night before as Charlie Jane wanted to balance the panel out. She was apparently afraid there’d be too many “made of win” people. The discussion got heated several times and no one recorded my meltdown of fury at Anastasia. But overall it was productive and awesome:

@tinytempest #Dollhouse panel starting. This ought to be good.

@cabell Feeling a little trepidatious at the Dollhouse panel.

@MsAnastasia Starting my last panel of #Wiscon – a Dollhouse debate that already is sounding potentially heated. First up: separation of body from self.

@cabell Is Dollhouse biz model realistic? Only if u assume rich ppl are all in a big self-protective club… so yeh, probly.

@swanberg Dollhouse is a big hot mess. Sometimes the mess outweighs the hot, sometimes the hot outweighs the mess. -Kater Cheek

@swanberg Hiring a doll is like saying to Jessica Fletcher “Yes, I’d love to come to your cottage.” -Kater

@swanberg Enver was the best part of the show. He is amazing. – panel & audience

@madmarvelgirl ‘a piece of art does not have to be a female empowerment story to be profoundly feminist

@swanberg I don’t think a story has to be a female empowerment story to be proundly feminist. – member of audience

@cabell How does English prof afford Echo? Tempest: He edited a book all freshmen have to buy that w/new edition every year!

@cabell Tempest & Ana agree: any feminism in Dollhouse happened by accident & had nothing to do with Joss Whedon.

@tinytempest “The less I liked Echo, the more I liked the people who were keeping her down.” Kater Cheek

@madmarvelgirl ‘i will take evil & competent over cute & feckless any day of the week’

@swanberg Black handler with no sexual interst in Echo. If her handler had been white “what, is he gay?” Erases Boyd’s sexuality

@jdawley Audience member: Alpha gave Echo the ability to integrate her personalities. Charlie Jane: Well, she had midichlorians.

@cabell Come on, if ur working w/Eliza Dushku, u need her 2 act confused as much as possible. Play 2 her strengths

@Hamaker88 Oooh. Panel fight!!

@cabell I have no patience with authorial intent. Intentions don’t matter. WHAT YOU DID/PUT ON MY TV matters.

@rhiannonrevolts @cabell That’s my POV. Also, cultural studies all about reading any authorial intent through lens of sociocultural influences, so…

@sigridellis Dollhouse panel was raucous and wild, but ultimately productive, I thought.

WisCon by the Twitters: The Revenge of the Not Another Fucking Race Panel

By:  TempestConventions

Here are the tweets I could find posted during the Revenge of the Not Another Fucking Race Panel at WisCon 34. A good time was definitely had by all:

@tinytempest Narrowly escaped being the Vanna White of this panel.

@wrdnrd This year’s not-another-race-panel features super awesome category “what would johanna do??” (Don’t cry, sis!)

@tinytempest @ceciliatan is DIRTY! hahahaha

@swanberg What small furryanimal would make the best zombie?

@alothian Which animal would make the best zombie? Andrea Hairston: kangaroos have handy pouches for body parts.

@yamainu Marsupial zombies rock the to-go bag

@tinytempest Amal: clearly it is time to breed the veliciraptor and the zombie. The Velocizombie’s time has come.

@tinytempest Sheveta: “Brains are smelly.” Amal: “But also delicious!”

@nivairface Peacock zombies! Oh my! I looove Not Another F%&$*ing Race Panel.

@alothian Discussion of tastiness of human brains. Amal El-Mohtar: the garlic slogan should be: even brains taste good with garlic.

@nivairface “Wow, we’re all women on this panel! … Oh, that’s right, WisCon.” <3333

@nivairface “Read the fanfic; there’s more sex.” GOOD TIP FOR LIFE. Thanks, Cecilia Tan!

@tinytempest “I would try to not have any emotions when people who said stupid things to me.” Andrea Hairston on her Spock impression as a kid.

@nivairface If you haven’t seen Andrea D. Hairston be Mr. Spock, you haven’t lived. ;)

@alothian Andrea Hairston talks about impersonating Spock as an academic persona: “Fascinating, but incorrect.”

@tinytempest “I feel like I have a long history of embarassment involving Mercedes Lackey.” @sparkymonster

@wrdnrd I love everyone on this panel SO HARD.

@tinytempest @ceciliatan: “Ricky Martin was pretending to be asleep in the next bed when I lost my virginity.”

@tinytempest @ceciliatan (continued) “Later, he told a friend of mine that that’s what turned him gay.” @ricky_martin

Several people tweeted the above :)

@yamainu Cecilia Tan admits to turning Ricky Martin gay, thus ensuring a best-selling autobiography.

@wrdnrd Cecilia Tan: “Now THAT’s a fic i could write.”

@tinytempest “If Tolkien can do it, you can do it.”

@wrdnrd WWjD question: Have you ever veganized a recipe or altered one for celiacs & had it go horribly wrong — or right?

@tinytempest Amal: “It’s not like she’s trying to eat vegetables to get back at them.”

@kiyasjoy Bourbon fixes everything!! @sparkymonster

@swanberg “I have learned not to disrespect cornmeal” @yoon li

@alothian What cybernetic enhancement would you choose? @sparkymonster: TWITTER IMPLANT. I concur.

@tinytempest Andrea Hairston “I want to BE a robot overlord. Fucking having an implant.”

@alothian @ceciliatan, not @sparkymonster, wanted the Twitter implant. Clearly I need it to help divide attention… Sorry!

@raanve This panel is the friggin best.

@swanberg “Kahnnnnnnn!” – the entire audience

@raanve Is there anything better than an ENTIRE ROOM yelling “Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!!” ?? I THINK NOT.

@raanve Can we talk about Tasha Yar? Let’s!

@raanve Tasha Yar People: srsly, that tar monster? So much b-s! She & Data need to get their time in the sun.

@nivairface “In every show there are now red shirts, and I feel for them.” – Andrea Hairston

@kiyasjoy Uhura totally has a katana!!

@swanberg That’s your daddy issues – @sparkymonster to @CeliaTan

@wrdnrd WWjD question: What’s interesting in Finland?

@tinytempest Amal “Reindeers, like brains, are delicious.”

@swanberg “Khaaannnnn! yells that aren’t Khan. GO!” Wisconnnnnn! @Sparkymonster

@raanve Khan yells with names other than KHAN: I submit “Simon LeBooooonnnnnnnnn!”

@jdawley Not Another F’-ng Race Panel. “Kirk yells something that isn’t Khaaaaaan!!! Go!” Unanimous answer: “WisCooooooooooonnn!!!”

WisCon by the Twitters: Chicks Dig Time Lords

By:  TempestConventions

These are the tweets I could find associated with Friday’s Chicks Dig Time Lords panel at WisCon 34. It was a lot of fun talking about Doctor Who with such fine people, and Twitter can only capture part of it:

@tinytempest “I was seduced into Doctor Who fandom by a really cute boy” says @lynnemthomas

@rhiannonrevolts Asking me who my Doctor is…hard. Ten IS me, but I love others.

@rhiannonrevolts Really agreeing with @tinytempest about companions. Martha Jones saves the world!

@yamainu “Our fandom is bigger on the inside.” heard at Doctor Who panel.

@rhiannonrevolts RTD is going to get smacked by @tinytempest and I will laugh.

@charliejane i wanna watch! RT @rhiannonrevolts: RTD is going to get smacked by @tinytempest and I will laugh.

@rhiannonrevolts Martha Jones’ feelings for the Doctor were handled wrong, says @lynnemthomas and I agree.

@tinytempest “What’s the Tom Baker episode where he fellates an alien?”

@rhiannonrevolts RTD and teh Moff really have issues with women.

Yay WisCon! Yay New Connections!

By:  TempestConventions

As always happens after a con of awesomeness, the follows and friend requests on various social networks went way up from normal as I met and connected with a ton of new, awesome, wonderful people. However, because I am always running around like a crazy person at cons I don’t always remember everyone by LJ name or Twitter handle. So! If you friended me recently on LJ, please go here and let me know. This way I can be sure to put a note by your name saying “met at WisCon, is bound to be awesome.” If you followed me on Twitter, send an @ message and remind me that you’re a WisCon person. On Facebook, please include a note with your friend request. All of these things will help me filter you to the correct lists (I have some specifically for people I meet at cons and wish to know better) and help ensure that I get to continue talking with you about stuff. …

Have I mentioned that it was a long weekend?

WisCon Netbook Gathering?

By:  TempestConventions
WisCon Netbook Gathering?

Would anyone be interested in having a little netbook gathering since there won’t be a netbook panel again this year? People who are interested in netbooks could come and ask questions and paw at netbooks, people who own them can talk about the awesome stuff they’re doing with netbooks, and some other netbook-related activity.

Thoughts?

WisCon POC Meetups

By:  TempestConventions
WisCon POC Meetups

Last year’s POC dinner was a big hit and folks have been asking if we’re going to do it again. I say: YES. Because I loved it and want more. This year we’ll have several gatherings just in case someone can’t make one or the other, though only one will be POC-only. If you identify as a person of color, you are welcome at these events.

Friday POC Dinner — 5:30 – 7:30

This is WisCon’s dinner block, so there isn’t any official programming to miss. I made a reservation in the Concourse’s restaurant (the Dayton Street Grille) for the private back room. To join us, just say you’re looking for the POC Group.

They won’t do individual checks for a group our size (I predict at least 15 people, last year we had 30) so bring cash. The menu for the restaurant is here.

There are also two Carl Brandon events happening on Friday and Saturday which are good places to hang with POC and allies. The Carl Brandon party on Friday night at 8:45 in room 607 and the Carl Brandon luncheon at 11:45 on Saturday (meet in the lobby).

I had wanted to do a second big POC-only meetup event, but perhaps this would be better coordinated at the con itself. We can do it in the POC safe space (the Solitaire room) if we want. Plus, last year we had several informal group meals of awesome POC-ness.

WisCon POC Meetup?

By:  TempestConventions

Because I have been disconnected from most of the blogosphere due to my intense (yet awesome) job, I have no idea if anyone is coordinating a mass POC meetup thing similar to what we had last year. I would be very happy to organize such a thing if no one else is doing so, but given that people liked it so much last year it would not surprise me one ounce if there was already something in the works. (And, if there is, someone let me know. I shall be there!)

My WisCon 34 Schedule

By:  TempestReadings
My WisCon 34 Schedule

I have less than a week to go before WisCon, hooray! Thinking of that made me realize that I haven’t posted my panel schedule here. It’s light this year and thus I will likely be a lot saner. But I am contemplating doing a panel in the overflow room. We’ll see. Meantime, here you go:

Chicks Dig Time Lords

Fri 4:00 – 5:15PM – Conference 4

Lynne M. Thomas, K. Tempest Bradford, Evelyn Browne, Kathryn Sullivan

There is a perception that there weren’t many women in Doctor Who fandom before the New Series was launched. This is patently false. Women have had a major role in Doctor Who fandom since the inception of the show. Do women approach and experience their Doctor Who fandom (or other media fandoms) differently than men? This panel explores different approaches to media fandom by the women involved in it, functioning within an assumed male–dominated fandom. Approaches to fandom discussed will range from feminist critique to costuming to fan fiction.

Chicks Dig Time Lords Reading

Sun 10:00 – 11:15AM – Michelangelos

K. Tempest Bradford, Mary Robinette Kowal, Kathryn Sullivan, Lynne M. Thomas

Writing the Other: Shout–Outs

Sun 2:30 – 3:45PM – Assembly

Nisi Shawl, K. Tempest Bradford, Moondancer Drake, Nabil/nadyalec, Michelle Kendall

Fail is not the topic of this panel; instead, we want to hear about where you feel like your group was well represented in fiction by someone from outside it. This panel is the carrot, not the stick!

Take Back the Sci–Fi: Redux

Sun 4:00 – 5:15PM – Caucus

Shira Lipkin, K. Tempest Bradford, Michelle Kendall, Rachel Swirsky

Sexual assault and rape frequently get used as symbolic plot devices, with no consideration of how sexual violence actually affects survivors and the people around them. Let’s discuss books that accurately portray the repercussions of and recovery from sexual assault, as well as those that merely use it as a shortcut to character development and those that end up glorifying it in the process—and how we can write about sexual assault and rape in a way that is true to the character and respectful to survivors. Note: this is a discussion of rape and sexual assault in fiction, and is not the place to discuss our personal experience with sexual assault.

Yes, the majority of my panels are on Sunday :) Which makes it likely that Saturday something fun will happen. Stay tuned.

Last Drink Bird Head Awards — I Am A Gentle Advocate

By:  TempestConventions
Last Drink Bird Head Awards -- I Am A Gentle Advocate

I haven’t posted to this blog in a long while, sorry. My job is pretty intense (but awesome) and I have a million other projects and jobs going on, which means my fun time is limited. Or I’m just tired. But some fairly significant things are going on and I’ve been extremely remiss in mentioning them.

A big one is that a few weeks ago Jeff Vandermeer emailed to tell me that I was one of the first nominees for the Last Drink Bird Head Award. This is a new award he and Ann Vandermeer came up with that focuses on service in the genre community. “The purpose of the awards is to celebrate those in the genre community who enrich us with their time, energy, and words, often for causes greater than themselves.” The categories are:

  • Gentle Advocacy
  • Tireless Energy
  • Promotion of Reading
  • Expanding Our Vocabulary
  • International Activism
  • Special Achievement

I was nominated in the Gentle Advocacy category: In recognition of individuals willing to enter into blunt discourse about controversial issues…. The awards were given out at World Fantasy and, despite being up against John Scalzi and Nick Mamatas, I won! Yay!

I actually hadn’t expected to, so I didn’t prepare an acceptance speech, though I did give one. But if I had prepared one, I would have said a lot more stuff. First that my fellow nominees are completely worthy of this award as well. Nick in particular since he’s one of the people who taught me the benefits of being fearless and saying what needs to be said when shit is really wrong in the world.

Second, that the award and the awardees acknowledge that it’s not always easy being a Gentle Advocate, an activist, or someone who repeatedly engages in discussions and debates of heated topics. It does help when people have your back, even if they’re just the lurkers in email. I’m fortunate in that I have many people at my back who aren’t shy about being vocal about it, including the Vandermeers and Scalzi and Mamatas. Having people around you who you’re confident will tell you when you’re wrong and aren’t afraid to back you up when you’re right is the key to sanity. I have tons of people like that, and I appreciate the hell out of all of them.

Last, I’m really proud to be the first recipient of this award and glad that it exists, because there are so many others deserving of it, and I’ll be really happy to see them nominated in the future. And thanks again to Ann and Jeff for the honor and for creating the Last Drink Bird Head Awards.

You can see the list of all the nominees here and the winners here (along with pictures of the award). Everyone listed is well-deserving and awesome.