And here is my report from day two:

Day two began with breakfast with the Clarion West 2003 students and instructors, with a bunch of CW 2002 students and assorted other folks there as well. We talked about writing and cheerleader movies and stuff.

The first panel I went to was "Black/Caribbean Folklore in SF". This one fell victim to the ongoing scheduling screwups: we only had one panelists, Lisa DuMond, and she hadn't been told in advance that she was going to be on the panel. After a bit of initial awkwardness, though, we had a pretty good freewheeling discussion.

I went to the panel mainly to gather some names of authors to read, some pointers on exploring Caribbean-themed fiction beyond Nalo Hopkinson and Patrick Chamoiseau. So, I was mildly chagrined that the initial answer to my question, "What authors should I be reading?" was "Nalo Hopkinson and Patrick Chamoiseau." I did pick up a few more names, and will certainly seek out Lisa DuMond's reviews on-line, since she's put a lot of effort into seeking out and reviewing stuff of this kind. [Post-con note: and here's a link to Lisa DuMond's site with lots of tasty-looking book reviews.]

We took a semi-digression to talk about the work of Steven Barnes, and spent a lot of time on the question of why there isn't more SF published using African or Caribbean folklore. Two popular answers were:

1. (White) mainstream publishers don't "get" this stuff, or are afraid that their readers won't.


2. There aren't very many black science fiction writers. (Which may merely be an effect of #1, or reflective of more subtle things about science fiction culture.)

One question that I would have liked to talk about was why many more literary "Afro-Caribbean" writers have not been able to do what the Latin American magical realists have done in crossing over to American literary readers. The two literatures are not that different in sensibility (in fact, some of the Latin American writers are also technically Caribbean writers). I suspect that the answer has to do with marketing, and the nature of the literary establishment (or possibly lack thereof) in various writers' home countries, and plain old historical accident. And, like, stuff. But it might be nice to know what someone better informed than I am would say.

Anyway, I got the chance to pontificate a bit from the audience, which I'd normally be shy about doing, but which helps keep a panel with only one panelist moving.

Then I attended a panel entitled "Beyond Sex: Writing Realistic Relationships in Novels and Short Fiction" with Guy Gavriel Kay, Glenn Sixbury, and Chris Moriarty. As a panel qua panel, it was the best panel I've attended so far. The participants had clearly thought about the question (Though they interpreted it as "How do you do good characterization?" I think that good characterization is probably necessary for depicting realistic relationships, but I'm not sure if it's sufficient.) Kay was also an excellent moderator: he kept the discussions on track, asked the other participants interesting questions, and did a good job of summing up other panelists' points and using them as a springboard for futher questions. (Somebody really ought to do a panel on how to moderate a panel.)

After lunch, I went over the volunteers room and asked if I could volunteer. I've always wanted to volunteer at a con, because I've always found it kind of amazing that all these conventions run entirely on volunteer labor, and I like to do my part. They gave me my choice of running the DVD player/VCR over in the movie room or working programming operations. I went down to programming operations, and did some typing, and spent a couple of hours being the person who waves the "5 minute warning" sign at panels to tell them to finish up. It was fun, though rather exhausting: I admire people who really put in the serious volunteering hours.

In the evening, we went to the Tor party. It was hot, and crowded, and rather overwhelming. I found myself suddenly a bit paralytically shy (I knew it was worse than usual, because I found myself freezing at the thought of talking to people whom I'd happily chatted up at the Tor party at ConJose. ) After a while, we fled to the bar and had drinks with Frank Wu and some other folks whose names I really wish I could remember. Frank talked about a story he was writing, and challenged me to come up with a title. I think my favorite was "Voyage of the Space Nematode." I got to blather about my upcoming story in Realms, and ended up delivering an extended soliloquy on why early 17th century Italy is really cool. And another writer there, whose name I really wish I could remember, told me about one of her favorite historical places/eras: the Storeyville (sp?) section of New Orleans around the turn of the century. It was basically the red light district, and the birthplace of jazz, and it indeed sounds like an amazing place to set a story.

After a while, some people decided to go make another run on the parties. I decided to go to bed. And that was day two.