Tuesday, May 28th 2002 - The Land of Cheese and Feminists
This past weekend was the lovliest of all conventions: Wiscon, the feminist science fiction convention where you can mingle with your favorite hip kids, go to many great panels, hear your favorite writers read their stuff and party with them into the wee hours of the morning. I will attempt to recap the weekend for you, but please keep in mind that I'm home sick today and might fizzle out halfway through, or not do as good a job as I'd like to. Wiscon is kind of a honeymoon con for me and Tim, as last year it marked the first time we could be really open about our relationship. Not that we went out of our room much last year at all; this year we managed to be cozy AND make it to a bunch of great panels/ events. Friday night we got in around 6 and promptly headed out to dinner, where we caught up with Mary Anne, Jed, and Candace Jane Dorsey. A good start, indeed. We came back and got gussied (well, I gussied) up to go to the Ratbastards chapbook release party up on the 6th floor. There were many parties going on on that floor, including a book release party for Carol Emshwiller, and we spent a lot of time following Susan from one to another (and when I say we, I mean anywhere from 4 to 8 people trailing behind a hyper, lovely and excited party girl; who wouldn't want to follow that energy?). Tim and I both got a bit snookered, and at one point I think I gushed at Ms. Emshwiller about how "innovative and cool and creative and inspirational" her writing was; at least she looked charmed and very pleased, even if I did make Tim drift away. When Chris Barzak later mixed us all "orange crushes" (dunno what's in them, probably lots of orange liqueur (update from Tim: "Orange crushes ain't got no liquer; they're too white trash for that. They're orange soda and absolut citron")) and everyone around me shuddered and make faces at how strong they were while I couldn't taste any alcohol at all, I stopped drinking the booze and started drinking nothing but water. Glad I did, as I ended the evening rather sober; Tim did not fare so well. He was overtaken by the yumminess of Vanilla Cossacks (vanilla vodka cokes) and the prettiness of Amy Beth, and was slinging back many drinks to help strengthen his flirting skills. Me, I danced. Susan and I discovered the calve-burning agony of salsa. Barzak danced dirty with almost everyone (so fun!). Man, those ratbastards know how to throw a hoppin' dance party/ book release thingie. Whoo! Despite my best good girlfriend tending the night before, Tim ended up a bit hungover the next day. We missed the morning panels, grabbed a quick lunch and made it to "To Clarion or not to Clarion" panel, which both made me yearn to go and question if I'll ever be able to afford to. After that was the ever-inspiring Endicott Studio/ Fantasy & Fairy Tale living room salon with such luminaries as Terri Windling, Karen Joy Fowler and Midori Snyder. Tim and I both love this panel best of all, I think, as the people there really know their stuff and you go away feeling as if writing fantasy was the best thing in the world you could do. Terri's reaction upon meeting Tim (she selected his story, "Anabelle's Alphabet" for her prestigious The Year's Best Fantasy & Horror that she edits with Ellen Datlow) was a confused look, a glance at his name tag, and a lighted up face as she exclaimed "Oh, Tim!" and hugged him. She told him that if he kept it up, he was going to make it. I know this, but it didn't hurt to hear it from her. Have I mentioned lately how proud I am of my boyfriend? He's so cool. We had dinner at the pretty little Italian restaurant we ate at last year, where we cooed sweet nothings at each other. After dinner, the Tiptree Auction, hosted by the spunky Ellen Klages who is so spontaneous, down to earth, sexy and funny all at once that I immediately developed a crush on her (I read her story, "Flying Over Water" in Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet (LCRW) on the way home, and am even more impressed; so much talent!). We had to leave early to go hear the amazing Ted Chiang read from his new collection. From there, more parties. We hit the Tor party (good food) (and another one I can't remember the name of ('nother update from Tim: "Justine's book release, and Emily Pohl-Weary's")) quite a bit. Good night, much less drinking on our parts (we can learn a lesson, yes). We turned in early, discovering upon entering our hotel room that we were quite tired of standing around talking. Some frolicking and cartoons gave us a nice change before sleep. Whew! Still with me? Sunday morning held my favorite panel of the weekend: the SFPA poetry reading, where both Tim and I and 8 other poets shared 4 poems a piece. I have never been to a poetry reading with such a high percentage of talent before (and I've been to quite a few)! Of note were Laurel Winter, Mark Rudolph (who wrote Words of Love Soft and Tender over at Strange Horizons - one of my favorite stories of all time) and John Calvin Rezmerski. Trey (who was different in person than I expected from his journal, but just as cool) attended this reading (he was also part of our party posse in the evenings) and told me later he especially liked my poem "Beltane Bitch", which pleased me. Laurel also came up to us later and told Tim and I she was very impressed with our poetry. Man, oh, man, do I love performing! I get such a charge off reading to an audience, and when they're as talented AND appreciative as this one was, it's just icing on the cake (to shatter your illusions and use a cliche). In the afternoon Tim and I attended the "Sex and the Slayer" panel, which was kind of cool, even if I wanted to throttle the one guy in the audience that claimed that since Spike tried to rape Buffy that meant S&M was evil and wrong. Jerk. ANYway, after that was the Strange Horizons tea party, which was very cool. Tim and I got to meet Jim Munroe, who wrote "Fly boy Action Figure Comes with a Gas Mask", an obscure literary sci-fi book we both admire. We had a good chat with Jim about 'zines, making Tim and I both drool over the thought of putting one together (or at least another chapbook). I got to meet Nalo Hopkinson's doux-doux, David Findley. They are an incredibly beautiful couple, full of talent and self-confidence that makes me wish I could be a little older and a lot wiser too. Nalo wasn't actually at the tea, as she was up in her room writing her Guest of Honor speech that she was to deliver in a few hours. Tim and I went to our room and got room service in order to rest before the dessert and Guest of Honor speeches that night. Cons are exhausting, and you tend to push yourself so you won't miss anything. Both Nina Kiriki Hoffman and Nalo's speeches were fabulous. Nina made me laugh and cry and Nalo made me proud to be a "chunky woman" ("I realized some men must like chunky women, because we keep having babies and making more of us.") Actually, Nalo's speech was good, surprisingly so since she'd written it hours before. She claimed to be nervous, but man, did she ever use that energy and laugh it off up at the podium. She's just so cool. Certainly one of my favorite writers. More parties that night, though Tim had what I have now and missed them. I managed to chat a bit with Gavin Grant about Kelly Link's (his wife and another favorite writer of mine) desire to move to California (Davis, but Susan was pushing for them to go a bit further west into Oakland). Gavin turns out to be a gardener, so I bent his ear a bit with tales of my garden, especially the copious tomatoes and ridiculously long growing season. Gavin and Kelly (who happen to be the genius behind LCRW, btw) are another extremely cool couple in the writing biz, and I can't help but hope they manage to move out here. How cool would that be? Very, that's how cool. I played a very tired round of Mafia preceeded by a almost-as-tired game of Thing (sort of like Mafia, but less killing and more sci-fi). I don't know how Susan and Karen kept staying up so late and getting up so early every night of the con; they were party girls; me, I was sensible and I *still* got sick. Go figure. Monday I had post-con depression. I said goodbye to everyone I could find, teased Nalo that we should make her make a speech every year, and then Tim and I headed out into Madison to kill the 8 hours or so before our flight (we left at 7pm and got home around midnight our time last night). We strolled State Street, laughed at the kids trying to freak us out, the old man with the huge spotted great dane who was talking to the pretty girls in tank tops, the spare-changers that are better dressed than we were. We sat on campus near the lake and read and watched sail boats. I jotted down a new story idea from the con. When we collapsed in the lobby of the hotel, Tim finally got a chance to chat with Jim Frenkel, who was also still lingering around. This means I got to listen to the shop talk and get introduced and talk a bit about the fact that I'm a writer too. Actually, this whole weekend I felt more validated about being a real writer than ever before. I am a writer; I work at it and I'm getting better and, most importantly, I'm serious about it. It's a very wondeful thing to be. I'll spare you details of the trip back except for this one: as we left Minneapolis (which we connected through) Tim and I looked out the airplane window at a fireworks display shown over one of its many lakes. It's an amazing, magical sight, to look down on these twinkling, glittering colors and fire; to realize that they don't even fill a portion of the sky, and yet they're still breathtaking and beautiful. It's just like how I felt about this weekend: beautiful, sparkly, shining and magical. From any angle.	Exercise Log: Dancing. Walking. Gym (last week). Whoo! Writing log: Started another new story. Had an epiphany as to why I keep having to do so many rewrites on my stories while reading Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet. Am incredibly inspired by this past weekend. Oh, and Asimov's rejected "Goat Girl" and I'm ecstatic: I got the "nice" form this time! Current Publications: In the Shade of You nominated in the long poem category for the Rhysling and will be reprinted in the 2002 Rhysling Anthology! "How to Suck" reprinted in From Porn to Poetry: Clean Sheets Celebrates the Erotic Mind I've been reading: Requiem by Graham Joyce Back issues of Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet Chapbooks: Rabid Transit by the Ratbastards Is this a Cat? Catskin by Kelly Link Currently Reading: Voice of Our Shadow by Jonathan Carroll
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