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FogCon Report
Mar. 8th, 2015 07:00 pmConsidering that I headed into FogCon with the beginnings of a cold, it could have gone badly, but instead was delightfully pleasant. (I dosed myself regularly with DayQuil, avoided hugs even more than usual, and promised not to push myself too heard.)
Friday I met up with Sharon & Rob for lunch, then was on the panel "Tenses for Time Travelers and Other Abmoninations of Language" which covered both general issues around the use of non-narrative language in stories and eventually the titular topic of how verb structures might need to adapt if time-travel were a regular thing. This was followed by a reading slot that I shared with Nancy Jane Moore and Inejiro Koizumi -- and it might be difficult to have put together three people with more divergent reading selections than we brought. Juliette Wade, the moderator from the language panel, had said something about being interested in talking further, so I scraped up some gumption and tracked her down to see if she had dinner plans. This process ended up also accumulating![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
shweta_narayan and husband, and another person known to Shweta and Juliette, so with Sharon and Rob we ended up with a delightful dinner party full of language geekiness and unexpected UK connections. In fact, this set the theme for my weekend: unexpected success at random socializing especially around meals.
After dinner I popped back up home to pick up a UPS package with additional copies of Daughter of Mystery, which I'd ordered a bit belatedly since I was down to four copies. This, of course, guaranteed that I sold less than four of the weekend, but I did sell two. When I got back to the con, I hung out in the bar for a while with assorted changing sets of friends then decided large quantities of sleep were called for.
Saturday I hit the panel "On the Road" (the general theme of the programing was "journeys" and this about the "road trip story" as a theme). Then more lobby-hanging-out with Shweta at which point I got introduced to Emily Jiang and got to thrill her by not only knowing who she was but being familiar with her children's book Summoning the Phoenix. This led to lunch -- yay, more successful socializing! After which I attended the panel The Setting is Another Character whichklwilliams was on. I skipped the next sessions to browse the dealers' room (small but a good balance of content) and then veg for a bit to rest up for my second panel: Hardcore Historical Journeys. I'd drawn up some notes in advance, which got me past the "Ack! What am I going to talk about?" stage until the panel was barreling along on momentum. Great set of co-panelists and very involved audience.
Wandering up toward the cafe, I fell into conversation with one of the panelists from an earlier session and we ended up having dinner together (though failing to drag anyone else into our party). One of these years, I may try taking in the FogCon banquet, but I have such an aversion to large organized conference banquets that it'll take some sort of extra boost. After dinner I took in a set of readings and then a little hanging out in the bar, but at that point I could feel my larynx on the edge of complete rebellion, so trying to converse over bar noise seemed counter-indicated. I figured at that point that I had a 50-50 chance of waking up with no voice at all. I won the coin-flip but croaked my way all through Sunday.
Sunday started off with a volunteer session in the con suite, then attending the panel "The SFF of Suburbia" (why should urban fantasy get all the glory?), followed by a panel on the trope "white male protagonist goes native and becomes savior" (under the somewhat opaque panel name "Eat Pray Love Barsoom-style"), which succeeded in going some interesting places after starting out with "This is an annoying an pernicious trope that should die in a fire." Back before I knew I'd be dealing with a cold, I'd volunteered to stick around and help clean up the con suite at the end of the day. I did stick around and help, but fortunately there wasn't much for me to do because my brain was fuzzy and my voice was practically non-existent. Oh, and at some point, after one of the panels I was on, I was chatting with a co-panelist who happened to be on the ConCom and I allowed as how I might be interested in helping out next year. Urk. Well, I guess it's a sign of how much I enjoyed the convention!
Friday I met up with Sharon & Rob for lunch, then was on the panel "Tenses for Time Travelers and Other Abmoninations of Language" which covered both general issues around the use of non-narrative language in stories and eventually the titular topic of how verb structures might need to adapt if time-travel were a regular thing. This was followed by a reading slot that I shared with Nancy Jane Moore and Inejiro Koizumi -- and it might be difficult to have put together three people with more divergent reading selections than we brought. Juliette Wade, the moderator from the language panel, had said something about being interested in talking further, so I scraped up some gumption and tracked her down to see if she had dinner plans. This process ended up also accumulating
shweta_narayan and husband, and another person known to Shweta and Juliette, so with Sharon and Rob we ended up with a delightful dinner party full of language geekiness and unexpected UK connections. In fact, this set the theme for my weekend: unexpected success at random socializing especially around meals.After dinner I popped back up home to pick up a UPS package with additional copies of Daughter of Mystery, which I'd ordered a bit belatedly since I was down to four copies. This, of course, guaranteed that I sold less than four of the weekend, but I did sell two. When I got back to the con, I hung out in the bar for a while with assorted changing sets of friends then decided large quantities of sleep were called for.
Saturday I hit the panel "On the Road" (the general theme of the programing was "journeys" and this about the "road trip story" as a theme). Then more lobby-hanging-out with Shweta at which point I got introduced to Emily Jiang and got to thrill her by not only knowing who she was but being familiar with her children's book Summoning the Phoenix. This led to lunch -- yay, more successful socializing! After which I attended the panel The Setting is Another Character which
klwilliams was on. I skipped the next sessions to browse the dealers' room (small but a good balance of content) and then veg for a bit to rest up for my second panel: Hardcore Historical Journeys. I'd drawn up some notes in advance, which got me past the "Ack! What am I going to talk about?" stage until the panel was barreling along on momentum. Great set of co-panelists and very involved audience.Wandering up toward the cafe, I fell into conversation with one of the panelists from an earlier session and we ended up having dinner together (though failing to drag anyone else into our party). One of these years, I may try taking in the FogCon banquet, but I have such an aversion to large organized conference banquets that it'll take some sort of extra boost. After dinner I took in a set of readings and then a little hanging out in the bar, but at that point I could feel my larynx on the edge of complete rebellion, so trying to converse over bar noise seemed counter-indicated. I figured at that point that I had a 50-50 chance of waking up with no voice at all. I won the coin-flip but croaked my way all through Sunday.
Sunday started off with a volunteer session in the con suite, then attending the panel "The SFF of Suburbia" (why should urban fantasy get all the glory?), followed by a panel on the trope "white male protagonist goes native and becomes savior" (under the somewhat opaque panel name "Eat Pray Love Barsoom-style"), which succeeded in going some interesting places after starting out with "This is an annoying an pernicious trope that should die in a fire." Back before I knew I'd be dealing with a cold, I'd volunteered to stick around and help clean up the con suite at the end of the day. I did stick around and help, but fortunately there wasn't much for me to do because my brain was fuzzy and my voice was practically non-existent. Oh, and at some point, after one of the panels I was on, I was chatting with a co-panelist who happened to be on the ConCom and I allowed as how I might be interested in helping out next year. Urk. Well, I guess it's a sign of how much I enjoyed the convention!
