Just got back from WisCon...it was, predictably, a blast.

Where to start?

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The Writers' Workshop

Good way to get psyched up for CLarion, since it follows the same format (every one goes around in the circle and presents their critique, the pro goes last and then the object of critique has a chance to present any thoughts they have finally at the end) and I thought it worked really well...Both incredibly helpful in terms of making me see different directions I could go with the story I submitted, "Crying Wolf," and on an ego boost level. Every one agreed that the mechanics and story-telling/suspense basics were all really solid and polished, but that there were hints of a more interesting interpretation of the werewolf mythos included in the beginning that, if developed later on, would make it a much more interesting story.

Barth Anderson, the professional writer attached to our litt le workshop group, when it was his turn, said at one point, "don't get me wrong, I could definitely see an editor buying this as is, but since we're workshopping it, it could be made better..."

Also good writer-bonding with Anderson, who did just about a perfect job facilitating it.

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Moving on.

Oh, yeah, the morning before the writers workshop, I saw Hal Duncan on the steps of the hotel. I thought I recognized his picture from the jacket of the book I was reading, so I'm sure I seemed quite creepy staring and trying to make out whether that was him, but when I walked up to him and asked if he could sign my copy of "Vellum," he perked right up: I think this is still a new enough experience for him, he's pretty tickled by the whole thing.

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The Panels

Over the course of the weekend, I went to about four panels, of varying levels of interest (you might guess that two of the four I went to because people I knew were on them, but I won't tell you which ones): Publishing YA Fantasy, Conveying the Post-Human in Humanist Terms, Feminist Romance, and "Sex and the Believable Alien."

This last, of course, was the most fun. What can I say? Its spring time. The sun is shining. Flowers are blooming, birds are chirping and a young man's thoughts turn to believable aliens. Actually, of course, the panel had to do with subjects like using fictional aliens to comment on human sexuality by the twisted reflection of "changing one thing," thinking about radically different ways that non-human societies could deal with sex, and yes thinking about suspension of disbelief issues with fictional sex between humans and aliens (this one seems like less of a problem to me, given the long and inconceivably varied human tradition of being sexually attracted to unlikely things.)

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The Readings

I went to four readings over the course of the weekend:

*A reading at the hotel on Friday night by alumni of last year's Clarion West,
*A reading at Michalangelos (a really cool Madison cafe) on Saturday afternoon, entitled "Scarabs and Sandstorms: Science Fiction and Fantasy Set in the Middle East and East Africa,"
*A reading at the hotel on Saturday night entitled "Welcome to Our Worlds" (Patrick Samphire, Jenn Reese, Stephanie Burgis and Sarah Pinheas),
*A reading at Michelangelos on Sunday morning that included some cool writers I'd met on a party on Thursday night, entitled "Lust, Empathy, Destruction."

More than obvious ties of nepotism compel me to say that "Welcome to Our Worlds" really was the best pulled off in terms of the nexus of quality of writing and professionalism of execution. There were excellent stories in some of the other readings marred by clumsy readings, not because the writers in question were instrinsically bad at it, but just because they clearly hadn't practiced reading these particular stories beforehand. It really makes an obvious difference: stumbling over words, tone changes, etc. Definitely a cautionary thing: if I ever participate in one of these things, say at next year's WisCon, I'm going to practice ten or fifteen times in advance. Practice! Also, the "Welcome to Our Worlds" thing was best thought out in terms of which stories should go before or after which other ones in terms of a natural rythm to the thing.

Don't get me wrong, every reading I went to had at least one top-notch story, and at least one so-so story that *seemed* top-notch because it was read in such an entertaining way. I'm really glad I went to all of them.

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The Parties

What can you say? Whiskey is whiskey, music is music, coversation is conversation. But it was all really fun. I also got to hang out for a few minutes on Friday night with Tim Pratt, which was cool, since I read his novel, "The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl", with tremendous enjoyment a month or two back.

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The Books

While at WisCon, I bought, got a very cool personalised signing for and read cover to cover Ben Rosenbaum's little chapbook of short short stories, all told in a dreamy, edgy and often subversively funny way, "Other Cities." My favorite was the second, "Cities of Peace," but they were all very very cool.

I also went to the launch party for Barth Anderson's novel, "The Patron Saint of Plagues," a futuristic interstitital sort of thing involving a post-revolution Mexico, visions of the Virgin Mary, and other interesting things. (I haven't read it yet, I'm gathering this from the reviews.) I picked up a copy and got it signed--with a nice ego-boosting personal note in the autograph saying that he was looking forward to reading more of my stories in the future.

I also picked up, at the used mega-bookstore Avol's, a copy of Maureen McHugh's "China Mountain Zhang," that one on the argument that I should try to get through at least one novel by every one who's teaching at Clarion West this summer.

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We had to leave a day before it was over, but I think that's about perfect: taking off while it's still very much on an upswing. My brother and I went to the Strange Horizons Tea Party for about ten minutes before we left, which was a nice note to leave on.

All in all, I ended the weekend feeling happy, caffinated, validated and creatively stimulated. I'm definitely going back.