Wiscon 2004 Con Report

This year's Wiscon was our first ever, and I can summarize it in a word : Awesome! I wasn't sure what to expect, although I was reliably informed that there most likely wouldn't be anyone wearing Spock-ears or other strange fannish outfits (fancy dress parties excepted), and the preliminary panel listings looked promising. By the time the con wrapped up, we wished it would've gone on longer! I'd love to go again next year, so hopefully circumstances will allow that :)

I was planning on including everything in one entry, but this one has grown so large that I've decided to split my report into two entries. I took extensive notes on some of the panels and have included the highlights here for those interested. Enjoy :)

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Day One - Friday, May 28
After spending the afternoon at the Circus World museum in Baraboo, WI (which was fascinating), we headed over to Madison for the con and checked into the hotel. We got to The Gathering event about 10 minutes before it ended and used our two freebie tickets to get some tea.

In the area outside, we said "Hi!" to Jason Erik Lundberg and Janet Chui, Jenn Reese, and Sarah P, then headed up to the 6th floor to check out what was on offer at the Con Suite. We also had a look at the Art show and Tiptree Auction items. For dinner we went to "Noodles & Co.", travelling incognito without our name badges ;) We were too late to meet up with the group heading off to dinner there, so we didn't catch too many other con attendees there (we did spot Tim Pratt and Heather Shaw on our way out, though!).

We got back to the hotel just in time for the Opening Ceremony. They did a skit entitled 'Conablanca' which was mildly amusing. I think I groaned more than I laughed, however :)

After that we headed up to the 6th floor and checked out the parties, eventually ending up at the Small Beer Press party (it seemed to be the most interesting). We weren't in much of a partying mood after walking around all day and intending to get up early the next morning, but we did chat briefly with a couple of people, including Wendy Shaffer.

Day Two - Saturday, May 29
On Saturday we woke to pouring rain, which wasn't the best weather for our visit to the Farmer's Market (erected around the sidewalks surrounding the Capitol building). Besides getting completely drenched even with umbrellas, we picked up some breakfast pastries, maple syrup, maple candy, pistachio baklava, and some smoothies. I also took some photos when I felt inspired. We went back to the hotel room to eat, then went back to the 2nd floor for the first panel.

The first panel we went to was entitled "Mentoring and Being Mentored", and was run by Jay Lake, Leah Rose Cutter, and Justine Larbalestier. This panel was probably one of the most interesting we went to.

Jay was even more flamboyant than I could have imagined, attired in a bright-striped outfit, a green beanie, and some strange goggles. He was also equipped with a decent supply of badges bearing his image (we caught one of these during the later 'style' panel when he tossed it out at the audience). The guy is definitely no slouch at self-promotion, as later events at the con would bear out. The witty banter between him and the other panelists made for plenty of laughs.

Jay talked about Jim Van Pelt's idea of the 'invisible mentor', whereby an author learns a lot about craft, markets and so forth by following the career of authors with a similar style or body of work. Leah said her invisible mentor was Sean Stewart, and Justine looked up to Samuel R. Delany (she even managed to interview him at his home, and presumably incorporated some of this discussion in her book, Battle of the Sexes in SF). Justine said her invisible mentor was probably Jane Austen. After an audience question about this, Jay said invisible mentoring is related more to following contemporary authors, since the markets and state of genre fiction at any point vary substantially over time.

The short stories of Bruce Holland Rogers were mentioned as fine examples of flash fiction, and there was also some discussion about authors writing really short stories to be printed on coffee cans!

Each of the panelists then talked about how they landed their agents, and there were some amusing anecdotes. They followed this with a discussion on writing workshops, and Jay had some interesting things to say about his, likening it to a tennis club where mentoring occurs both above and below your own level. There was some discussion about novel advances (5-10K is typical for first novels in genre fiction), as well as how the big-name writers help everyone else further down the ladder by raking in the dough :)

Jay finished up by talking about "author cookies", where writers must earn the right to do clever writing tricks by impressing readers through their previous work. He gave the example of Silent Her by Barry B. Longyear (available here) where the beginning is incomprehensible, but the author had "author cookies," so readers were able to trust that the story would make sense eventually.

Once the panel was over, we went upstairs to the Tiptree Bake Sale on the 6th floor and bought some goodies for lunch. I think we may also have visited the Con Suite around the same time, and at some point I went downstairs again to check my email on the PCs on the 2nd floor. This was a little annoying, because the hotel had wireless Internet access for free, and my laptop only has a wired connection. On that occasion I spotted a free PC, so I didn't have to dash upstairs to grab my laptop and go through the rigmarole of hooking it up to the hub by the computers on the 2nd floor.

I also found time to visit the Dealer's Room on two occasions on the 2nd day, and came away with a nice pile of books (I'll list this stuff later) :) On my second visit to the Dealer's Room, I spotted Jay Lake at the Wheatland Press table and had a long chat with him about writing, his stories, and what he has got coming up in the mags and on the novel-front. It was a fascinating conversation, especially hearing about the origin of some of his stories and his work processes.

In the afternoon we went to another panel entitled "Journals and Blogs--Threat or Menace?". Panelists were Cheryl Myfanwy Morgan, Gwenda Bond, Tim Pratt, Susan Harris, Victoria D. McManus, and Susan Marie Groppi.

This panel was quite interesting and a lot of issues were discussed, like how some people tend to include too much information in blogs that later comes back to haunt them; the dubious nature of some information obtained via blogs that the media later prints as news; the networking opportunities brought about by journals and blogs (although none of the panelists really used their journals as promotional tools); and the upkeep of journals and blogs, which most of the panelists said was minimal (some used to keep paper journals), but at least one audience member disagreed!

Immediately following the blog panel, we went to another one: "A Question of Style". Panelists were Andrea D. Hairston, Liz Gorinsky, Alan John DeNiro, Jay Lake, and Ellen Kushner. Jay talked about his TEL : Stories 'zine which is focused around stylistic excess and includes a reprint of Greer Gilman's Jack Daw's Pack, known to be difficult to read due to its lyrical style. He also mentioned Ray Vukcevich several times as an example of an author with a distinct style. He said that Ray took 15-20 years to 'teach' editors to 'get' his work, and now Ray sells stuff as fast as he can write it!

Ellen said that style was all about choices, and the choices an author consistently makes defines their style and can tell us something about them. Liz talked about marketability and style, and how one may affect the other. Alan used the example of Cyberpunk using Noir conventions and tone, and how people like William Gibson built upon the works of Dashiell Hammett and other Noir writers.

Jay said that for him, he can't 'inject' style. The story itself dictates the style he will use. He talked about the Polyphony and Leviathan anthologies and how they came about as a result of a lack of stylistically interesting material (for him and others) in the existing markets. He also mentioned Lady Churchill's, Flytrap, and Rabid Transit as 'zines having a strong focus on style.

Alan used a 'glass analogy,' comparing transparent prose (e.g. Asimov) versus stylistic prose, with the latter being like stained glass. Ellen said that with a lot of SF, people have to be 'taught' how to read it, and often this is achieved through embedding the 'code' in your work.

Jay disagreed with the other panelists about something, and said that he writes whatever the story wants to be. He gave the example of seeing orange butterflies on the snow while hiking, and the image was so striking that he went home and banged out a 7,000 word story called Jack's House. He also talked about style and voice, and how he thought there was a difference between the two. Alan said tone was a third thing.

Ellen talked about creating effects through style, and how flipping the expectations of genre readers by using style was an interesting effect. Alan talked about Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun, and how stylistic choice is not only about deciding what to write, but also knowing when to stop and what to leave out. This can cause just as much resonance with readers.

Jay suggested the audience try reading Samuel R. Delany's The Einstein Intersection and Gene Wolfe's The Fifth Head of Cerberus back-to-back for a truly mind-bending experience. He believes that these two writers have 'channeled' the same novel! I might have to give that a try :)

After the panel, Carrie and I headed out for dinner to Pizzeria Uno for some delicious deep-dish Chicago-style pizza. We even ended up with leftovers for the next day.

Later in the evening, the Tiptree auction was held. Auctioneer/Comedian Ellen Klages had the audience in stitches, beginning with her appearance on stage dressed in a yellow chicken costume. She was accompanied by Space Babe, who strolled the aisles with auction items to give the audience a closer look. There were lots of Space Babe items up for auction, several original manuscripts, a "Gender-Bender" robot from Futurama, and a wide variety of other things.

After auctioning five items, Ellen removed the chicken head to much applause. Apparently she wore the chicken costume after losing a bet... Partway through the auction, the three Campbell nominees for Best New Writer burst upon the stage: David D. Levine, Tim Pratt, and Jay Lake. They promised a paper-rock-scissors smackdown the next day, and asked the audience to encourage them by contributing to the Tiptree fund. No audience contributions were forthcoming, so Jay fronted $50 himself!

We stayed until the auction intermission and beyond, but wished we hadn't! It was beginning to drag on, and at some point before the intermission, the audience wanted Ellen to take off her top! The chicken head was passed around and over $100 was raised to convince Ellen to do this. She did (still wearing bra, thankfully) and the chicken head was passed around again to get her to put her shirt back on. Needless to say I contributed to the second passing of the chicken head rather than the first ;)

After the auction, we headed up to the 6th floor to check out the parties. Tim Pratt was selling chapbooks at the Ratbastards party, so I picked up a new issue of Electric Velocipede. Before I left, I saw Ben Rosenbaum singing his heart out at karaoke! It looked like the most happening party of the con (and by all accounts, it was), but sadly we were feeling like zombies and retired around midnight to catch a few hours of sleep before another panel early the next morning.

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Whew! That took me much longer than I expected. A lot of this stuff is just me recording memories and it won't be of much interest to anyone, but hopefully at least someone reading this will find the odd interesting scrap or two :) Now if you'll excuse me, I think I'll rest for 10 hours or so! More tomorrow, with days three and four...