We're back in Madison - hurray! (Well, I'm back - Patrick and my brother Ben have never been here before.) I am happy. :) We got here a day or so early to participate in the writing workshops tomorrow, and now we're figuring out lovely ways to spend the time until Wiscon properly begins. Coffee shops...walking down to the lake...coffee shops...buying lipstick (me)...more coffeeshops...

It should be a nice couple of days.

Of course, I feel right now like I always feel when I've just arrived for a con (or an academic conference, or even a party) - suddenly insecure and shy and worrying about whether I should have come, etc... Luckily, I felt exactly the same last year and ended up loving it.

My program schedule is:

Feminist Romance
Saturday, 4:00-5:15 p.m. in Capitol B

First off, is there such a thing and how would it be accurately portrayed? Very often romances in sf/f short stories and novels follow very traditional patriarchal patterns, even when fairly feminist individuals are writing. What does a feminist romantic storyline look like? Why don’t we see these more often? How can writers who like to think of themselves as feminist avoid falling back on the old standbys without looking either unrealistic or like they are pushing a "message"?

M: Jennifer Stevenson, Lyda A. Morehouse, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Cynthia Gonsalves, Stephanie Burgis, Emma Bull

(There's been a pretty intense email discussion going on about this one - if we haven't all talked ourselves out by Saturday, this should be fun!)

Welcome to Our Worlds (Reading Group)
Saturday, 9:00-10:15 p.m. in Conference Room 2

Jenn Reese, Stephanie Burgis, Patrick Samphire and Sarah Prineas read from their work. Woot!

American Victorian "Gentlewomen of the Macabre" Ghost Story Writers
Sunday, 10:00-11:15 a.m. in 629

A general discussion of the ghost stories of Sarah Orne Jewett, Gertrude Atherton, Emma Frances Dawson, Edith Wharton, Harriet Prescott Spofford, Alice Brown, & suchlike.

Marsha J. Valance, Anne Lane Sheldon, M: Jessica Amanda Salmonson, Stephanie Burgis

I am really, really enjoying the ghost stories I've been reading to prepare for that last one...

Wiscon! Woot!