readercon, at last

[jazzfish]

Readercon began with a redeye to Boston through O'Hare, followed by several hours of wandering through Camberville in the delightful company of sorcyress. There were crepes and random stores (book and otherwise) and ice cream and conversation, and life was good, except for the Warm. A year out west has broken me of any tolerance for the heat that I may have once had. But even that was palliated with ice cream.

Then we took the bus out to Readercon in Burlington, which is a ways north and west of Boston proper. On the short hike from bus to hotel we ran into a guy who looked familiar from Wiscon. Turns out he was ckd. Yay for putting faces to usernames.

Readercon itself is much like Wiscon but smaller, which is a good thing, and in a worse hotel/location, which is not. (Seriously, the hotel charged $13/day for wireless that I'm told was pretty flaky.) There were several good panels, especially the ones on various aspects of writing ("Why I Stopped Writing" in particular). Maggie Ronald presented a delightful academic paper on how Chell from the Portal games reenacts the heroine's journey as described in an earlier paper by nineweaving. Etc.

One thing they do there that I'd like to see done at Wiscon is the kaffeklatsch. These are events consisting of an author and up to about ten audience members, where you can just hang out and talk. I seem to have spent an awful lot of time at those.

Not to mention catching up with other people, of course, thanate and Fran and Kelly and Chris M-- and Maggie (who once more gave me a helpful and insightful tarot reading, in addition to being friendly at unexpected times) and plenty of others who I'm forgetting. Ran into cthulhia on Satyrday night, which shouldn't have been a surprise but was anyway. Saw Bear and Lynch and Jo Walton, and met Leah Bobet and britmandelo. I have now successfully introduced myself to people who I only know of from reading their stuff. Now to learn to do that and have more to say so I don't come off sounding like a babbling idiot.

(My badge as printed had my given name on it. This was a mild irritation until about the second time someone called me "John," at which point it bugged me enough that I went looking for a Sharpie. The registration desk was kind enough to just print me up a new badge with my right name.)

Then home, via a very delayed flight into and then out of Toronto. We got in at around 2:30 AM to the decided apathy of the cats. And after a week I think I'm mostly caught up on sleep again.

I don't know that I'll be back next year. Partly this is because summer con season is crowded and I'd like to make it out to Fourth Street Fantasy in Minneapolis next year (I have been saying this for three years now), and they're close enough together that it's awkward to do both. Partly it's because I've been spoiled by Wiscon and by Madison, and if I'm going to spend a long weekend someplace I'd rather it were someplace with lots of excellent food options within easy walking distance, and with reasonable internet. And partly... well, it's not Wiscon. (PHOEBE: "How was the Colonialism panel?" ME: "I got there a little late, but... it was Vandana Singh and three white guys talking about colonialism. You tell me.") I didn't run into very many of those moments, but they kept on surprising me, and I'd rather not be surprised like that.

But that was all minor stuff. On the whole I'm very glad we went, and I enjoyed myself thoroughly.