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P-Con IX Report!
Somewhere along the line Ted and I developed enough opinions about P-Con that this year we ended up on the committee to help run it. In fact, apparently I ended up the Co-Chair on the committee, which I discovered on Saturday morning when Pádraig introduced me as such. :)
This year’s P-Con was the first run in association with the Irish Writers’ Centre, where the con was held. We had NO IDEA how that was going to be recieved, because normally cons are held at hotels and normally there’s a bar and food readily available on the premises, and normally there’s a lift instead of just several flights of stairs. However, to our delight and relief, there was no more than the most mild of muttering about the stairs and the lack of booze.
It also seemed to me that the not having a bar aspect actually encouraged people to, you know, go to panels. It’s possible we also had a particularly good series of panels that people wanted to attend, but I really was left with the impression that the different arrangement did give people more reason/excuse to go to panels. We *did* have a green room with tea, coffee, and goodies, but it was cleverly located on the 2nd floor, so you had to go all the way up in order to get them, and once you’d done that, heck, one panel room was across the hall and the other was downstairs now. :)
Speaking of goodies, on a personal note I am terribly grateful to all the attendees for honoring the donation jar *for* the goodies. I baked literally hundreds of cookies, muffins and cupcakes, and the donation box brought in over €100 toward the care & feeding of P-Con X and the IWC, so really truly, thank you all for honoring that. And also thank you for the little dances of glee that some of you performed, which certainly stroked my baker’s ego. :)
We ran 50 minute panels in order to give everybody 10 minutes between then to go to the loo, get up and down stairs, and have snacks, a decision which was recieved with *overwhelming* positivity. So too was lunch hour, though it was commented that we do need to talk to the nearest cafes and prepare them for the sudden influx on the con days.
Every panel I went to was interesting and well-attended, and every panel I was on was fun (at least for me! O.O) and well-attended, which was also gratifying. If our Anne McCaffrey tribute panel had been another five minutes I think we’d have all been in tears. Any number of us were pretty bright-eyed as it was. The guests of honor were charming and informative, and the feedback I got from people I talked to after the con was very positive. I think we done good.
We have big plans going forward with P-Con. For one thing, next year is P-Con’s tenth anniversary, so we’re really looking forward to shaking some things up and adding new items to the tried and true that we all know and love. One thing I’m going to be heavily invested in is creating a writer’s track, so that people interested in the craft, business and process of writing will be able to attend panels exclusively about that. I think our association with the Writers’ Centre is the perfect opportunity to do this, and will be mutually beneficial and huge, huge fun.
We’re also planning to dip our toes into other genre waters, and will hopefully be bringing in some new names and faces as guests: after all, there’s a tremendous amount of crossover in romance and mystery, and P-Con bills itself as a written-word convention, so we think there’s a lot of potential there for expanding all of our audiences.
At the same time, we’re looking at paring down the Named Guests on our lists and advertisement, as we’ve found that a dozen writers whose names people aren’t intimately familiar with can cause potential con-goers to be embarrassed for not recognizing all the names, which in turn can cause them to shy away from attending*. So it’s our goal to have our Guests of Honor and five to seven Named Guests, particularly on our physical media for advertisment, and to ask some of our local, familiar con-going faces to participate as panelists and be acknowledged on the website.
Speaking of Guests of Honor! Next year’s Guests of Honor are Cory Doctorow and Sarah Pinborough, both of whom I am tremendously excited about having at P-Con. Sarah was a guest this year and was a positive riot, and Cory is a major league player whose presence at our convention is going to be overwhelmingly awesome. Frankly, I would buy my membership sooner rather than later, because I’m almost certain we’re going to have to put a cap on the number of con attendees due to space restraints. Here’s the link to register.
(Admittedly, that page is for last year’s registration, but I’m *betting* that if you use it to buy your membership now, we’re gonna be able to figure out that it’s for 2013. So, seriously: buy often, buy early, because I think we’re gonna run out of space next year.)
*How, you say, do I know this, if these con-goers have been scared away? Because I have talked to a lot of people about this outside the context of the convention. It’s the same thing that happens at public book-signings: people will hurry the other direction, trying desperately not to make eye contact, if yours is not a name they know, because they’re embarrassed to not know who you are, and are afraid of embarrassing themselves and you by admitting it. In Fairbanks last fall, when we set up a book signing at my university, I warned the guy who was organizing it that this would happen. He didn’t believe me, until people who came into the alumni office all the time got as far as the door, saw a book signing going on with a writer they didn’t know, and started backing the hell away. The fella running it was flabbergasted and amused, and started hauling these people in to introduce them and prove I wasn’t scary. :) Same thing happens with gigantic guest lists for conventions!
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aghlghbbl.
It is five hours to the book launch/signing. I have baked lemon cupcakes, brownie cupcakes, and about fourteen dozen cookies, with more to go. Next time I get the bright idea to make up 4 batches of cookie dough to refrigerate & bake the next day, I need to remember to roll the dough into tubes before I put it in the fridge. That would’ve saved me a whoooooooole lot of aggravation.
I posted on Twitter to say I was down to the last 3 eggs, which I assumed meant I was done with baking except for what could be made with a final 3 eggs. But then some friends who are in town for P-Con dropped by with another dozen. That was nice of them! I think. :)
I have not showered. I have not dyed my hair. I have not bleached my hair. I do not think those things are going to happen, either. I mean, the shower might, but not so much the hair arrangements.
I better go put the wine in the fridge, because I don’t think I’m getting to the IWC much before 6 tonight. Oi.
There. I have managed to shower, the last 5 dozen cookies are (taking turns) baking, and … I’m thinking about the muffins.
– write the PRSI letter, argh
–make a thousand cookies
»chocolate chip cookie dough
»oatmeal raisin cookie dough
»chocolate migraine cookie dough
»peanut butter cookie dough
» and also
»»lemon curd muffins
»» apple cinnamon muffins
»» raisin bran muffins
»»raspberry jam muffins
» and also
»»brownie cupcakes
»»lemon cupcakes
– clean the kitchenforty383527 more times
–clean the upstairs bathroom
– clean the computer room
–get the spell check finished
– send books to the other small cousin
– finish the tree house
– blog about gwen -
a day of a thousand cookies
Okay, probably not a thousand, but I’m doing an awful lot of baking over the next couple days, in preparation for P-Con! It’s being held at the Irish Writers’ Centre this year, which is awesome in all ways except it does lack a bar/food court, so I’m making around a zillion treats and will put them up with a donate
buttonsign.I can’t decide if I should make more smaller cookies, or fewer larger ones (more larger ones is not an option), and I can’t figure out what price to suggest as a donation price either way. Maybe €1 for a single large/2 small cookies, €2 for a cupcake, and €3 for the big muffins I’m going to make? All proceeds will go to the care and feeding of P-Con 10 and the Writers’ Centre, so it’s a Noble Cause.
And there is also So Much Housecleaning to do. The upstairs bathroom and the computer *must* be done. Aghglghl.
– write the PRSI letter, argh
– make a thousand cookies
»chocolate chip cookie dough
»oatmeal raisin cookie dough
»chocolate migraine cookie dough
»peanut butter cookie dough
» and also
»» lemon curd muffins
»» apple cinnamon muffins
»» raisin bran muffins
»» raspberry jam muffins
» and also
»»brownie cupcakes
»» *maybe* other cupcakes, depending on how much will I have left…
– clean the kitchenforty3835 more times
–clean the upstairs bathroom
– clean the computer room
–get the spell check finished
– send books to the other small cousin
– finish the tree house
– blog about gwen -
home again!
We’re home again from P-Con VI, which was one of the nicest cons I’ve been to. With the glaring exception of
, whom I barely saw all weekend, I for once actually felt like I got to talk almost enough with everybody I wanted to. Almost. I keep thinking of more people I’d have liked to talk with as I type this, but, well, it was a damned fine try. The panels all went really well, I thought. The whole con ran *extremely* smoothly, and panels were well-attended and there was a lot of lively discussion, which is always best. Off-the-top-of-my-head highlights (not necessarily at panels) included a discussion of jacuzzi-bathing snow monkeys reducing Paul Cornell to tears of laughter, an excellent revisitation of the Visualization Discussion, meeting Melissa from New Zealand, and Ted walking in to the room just as I finished discussing the fact that I had no real guilty pleasures (he got applause and cheers and laughter for his excellent timing, and I take no guilt in my pleasures, see. Juliet McKenna, however, had a genuine guilty pleasure which we all went ‘ooooh’ at. :)) The charity auction went well–the WALKING DEAD manuscript went for €50 and the FANTASY MEDLEY advanced reader copy went for €25, so I was glad we’d brought them–and I nearly reduced *myself* to tears by putting the Simpsons Movie, which I had promised
, into the auction in hopes of forcing him to bid on it. He refused, and was given it anyway when nobody else wanted it. :) The toast to life memorial for Frank Darcy was utterly lovely, if such a thing can be said about a service of that sort. The whole Darcy family was around all weekend (Ted defeated the youngest Darcy girl, who is ten and whose name escapes me, in a lightsaber Wii battle, and she used her Devastating Defeat to sell raffle tickets. Of course, she also said, “I let him win.” :)), and it was very, very good to see all of them. I could see a lot of Frank /in/ the kids, and we got to hear some wonderful stories about him as a father as well as the fan side that we all knew, so yeah. It was fantastic, in a heartbreaking way.
Peter, who ran the convention this year, is working to create a Friends of the Phoenix society of sorts, a community beyond the convention itself (“I was going to call it the Order of the Phoenix,” said he, “but then I thought no, wait, somebody had used that recently…”), and gave those of us who had been guests of honor honorary memberships to it, by way of presenting numbered certificates to us. Pádraig, who began P-Con six years ago, was given the number one certificate, and Frank Darcy’s family was presented with the #2 certificate. Both of these things were hugely, and rightfully, applauded.
I am, not for the first and certainly not for the last time, reminded of how much I like the people Ted and I have come to know through the Irish science fiction and fantasy convention scene. We’ve had some rough times in this whole moving across the world thing, but I would have been so terribly sad to have missed knowing all of them. They’re just such utterly wonderful people, and I’m really, really happy to get to spend a weekend or two a year with them and their generosity and welcoming spirits and big hearts.
miles to Minas Tirith: 145.5
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transplanting
We stopped and got a little (although larger than I expected) greenhouse today, and now the chives and coriander have been transplanted into peat pots and put into the greenhouse. Coriander seedlings smell just like coriander. That would be nicer if I liked it. :) But we sure have a lot of it, and I suspect that more rather than less will survive the transplanting. I’m a little less certain of the chives, but we’ll see. I left the basil and parsley alone because they don’t look anywhere near studly enough to survive a transplant.
We’re off to Dublin for P-Con, come the morning. My schedule is as follows:
10:00 Sat – Room 2 – Fantasy Quests: Why bother?
What makes characters in a fantasy novel want to go on an adventure? Why not just stay at home?16:00 Sat – Room 2 – High Priests and Priestesses of Love
A panel of self-appointed experts on romantic matters will give advice to the needy (nerdy); during the con, people can anonymously submit their questions on matters of love and romance which the panel can then deal with from an sf viewpoint. Humourous solutions and advice will be the most fertile!11:00 Sun – Room 1 – Illustrating illustration
A panel/workshop/discussion on illustration, comic book and otherwise. Flip charts available for taking flights of sketchiness.15:00 Sun – Room 1 – Pictionary
Two teams of guests strive to out-draw their opponents in what has become something of a traditional battle for P-Con.16:00 Sun – Room 1 – Mutiny on the Phoenix
An open forum panel for guests to recount interesting/amusing incidents experienced in their life as a writer. (Modelled on the pirate hijacking of a panel at Mecon in 2007.)I’m also going to be doing a “meet the author” session sometime during the weekend, during which time I expect to have copies of my books (but not, sadly, the comics) for people to buy. Er, it’s rather short notice, but if there’s anything anybody’s specifically after leave me a note here and I’ll make sure to keep a copy on hand for you. Oh, and I have the final WALKING DEAD manuscript sitting here. Think I should bring it to auction it off for the con’s fundraiser?
It’s going to be a lovely weekend. I’m looking forward to seeing people.
miles to Minas Tirith: 140.5