During Readercon a few weeks back, I was interviewed by Gil Roth for his Virtual Memories Show podcast. Gil brought the episode live last week, but it wasn’t until today that I found the time to give it a listen, make sure the resulting interview didn’t cause me to wince, and share it with you.

And so here I am below, starting at 51:20, after the far more erudite John Crowley.

The one thing I learned from listening to my blather is that I sure do say the phrase “and so forth” a lot.

If you decide to listen, I hope your takeaway will be something more than that.

I’ve attended every Readercon since it began in 1987 (well, except for the one I was regrettably forced to miss, about which the less said the better), and have tended not to wander out on my usual foodie jaunts during that con. That’s because Readercon’s programming has always been so dense and intense that I’ve never been able to make time for much more than con suite food (or durian and jackfruit) between rushing from panel to reading to kaffeeklatsch to panel.

But David Shaw was tired of that excuse, seeing it as an insult to the culinary arts of his beloved city, and insisted we finally pay a visit to his favorite local restaurant, Journeyman. So we snuck away the Saturday night of the convention (along with Diane Martin, Cecilia Tan, and Corwin) to Union Square in Somerville, where I had what ended up being one of the best meals of my life.

Before starting our seven-course meal, I began with a delicious melon thyme mocktail …

… which was a wonderful preview for the six non-alcoholic beverage pairings which would accompany my meal. As impressed as I was by the food, I was even more impressed by the pairings. It’s no exaggeration to say that when considered in their totality, Journeyman’s non-alcoholic beverage pairings exceeded in imagination and execution those I’ve experienced at any other restaurant.

As we sipped those initial beverages, we were given a choice—did we want to look at the descriptions of the tasting menus, or did we want what arrived to be a surprise? (more…)

At noon on Sunday, July 14, 2013, Elizabeth Bear, John Benson, Andrea Hairston, Elizabeth Hand, Robert Killheffer and Scott Lynch came together at Readercon for the panel, “Pining for the Fnords: The New Nostalgia.”

What does that mean exactly? According to the program guide:

Well-received novels like John Scalzi’s Redshirts, Jo Walton’s Among Others, and Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One pointedly allude to the SF of decades past. In a controversial review in the Los Angeles Review of Science Fiction, Paul Kincaid suggested that contemporary SF is suffering from a feeling of exhaustion; “the genre is now afraid to engage with what once made it novel, instead turning back to what was there before” or reverting “to older, more familiar futures.” Others view this type of SF as celebrating its heritage. What’s driving this backward-looking urge, and to what extent is it positive or problematic?

If you’re wondering why it’s taken this long for me to share this video, blame the bandwidth of my home Internet. Most people complain about the Internet speed they get at hotels, but not me—it’s rare that I’ll be at a hotel which has slower speeds than I experience at home. And so this video, which would have taken around two hours to upload at the Readercon hotel, would supposedly take 16 at home, and I couldn’t spare the bandwidth. So I had to wait until the following weekend, when I was once more at a hotel for a convention, to upload.

And now, after an explanation you probably neither wanted nor needed … enjoy!

The star of my Saturday at Readercon was Maureen McHugh. (Actually, the true star of Saturday may have been my amazing dinner with friends at Journeyman, which lasted around four hours and 45 minutes, but let’s leave that for another day.) Maureen, one of the Readercon Guests of Honor, gave a reading at 10:00 a.m., and then was interviewed by Kelly Link at 5:00 p.m.

First up, here’s Maureen reading a story from her collection After the Apocalypse.

But before we get into that GoH interview, here’s a 1:00 p.m. reading by F. Brett Cox. (more…)

My Friday at Readercon was a whirlwind, filled with so many panels and conversations that I didn’t have time to grab lunch, surviving until dinner on a handful of nuts and dried fruit grabbed in the con suite. I did a reading, a kaffeeklatch, and a panel on Life After Clarion, sat in the audience for a couple of panels, and stayed up late with David Shaw strumming our ukuleles.

I’m not sure which song we were struggling through in the above photo. Were we mangling Amanda Palmer’s “Ukulele Anthem”? Or butchering Randy Newman’s “Political Science 101”? I can’t be sure. I only know that you’re all lucky Diane Martin only snapped a still picture, and didn’t bother capturing any video. Because if she had, no one would ever want to attend another Readercon!

But to show you why you should get to one, here’s more video, on top of Thursday’s, which will show what fun was had. (more…)

It was great to return to Readercon after missing 2012’s edition, because I became quite jealous of flat me, who due to an unfortunately coincidence, got to have all the fun last year.

I’m going to keep this short, because I want to throw myself quickly into Friday’s maelstrom.

For those friends who couldn’t make it this year, and wanted to see what it meant that there’d be no lobby during the con because of Marriott’s grand renovation plans, here’s a view toward the entrance from the hallway where registration to the con takes place. That’s the revolving door to the left, and to the right, that wall’s blocking off where the lobby usually is.

I hope that by the time they’re done, they won’t be too high class for the likes of us.

And here are two panels from last night, so those of you who couldn’t make it this year—or who did make it but were in one of the other rooms enjoying some other panel or reading—won’t miss out. (more…)

Two weeks from tomorrow, I’ll be heading to Burlington, Massachusetts for Readercon—the real me, not the flat life-sized cardboard me I sent in my stead last year after I was forced to miss my first Readercon ever due to a conflict with the San Diego Comic-Con.

If you’ll be there, too, here’s where you’ll be able to find me … when I’m not in the bar or sitting in the audience during other readings and panels, or, who knows, eating a durian in the parking lot while strumming a ukulele.

Friday July 12

Reading
12:30 PM VT
I’ll be reading “Things That Never Happened,” forthcoming in PostScripts.

Kaffeeklatsch
3:00 PM CL
with Michael Blumlein

Life After Clarion
8:00 PM RI
The Clarion SF Workshop is one of the best in the world for budding science fiction, fantasy, and horror writers. Many of today’s award-winning authors are Clarion graduates. For six weeks, Clarion students have the luxury of learning from top-notch authors and editors while living the life of a full-time writer. But once Clarion ends, what do you do next? How do you take what you learn at Clarion and apply it to your writing life and your real life? And how do you adjust from having the support of other writers to possibly having very little or none at all? Professional writers who graduated from Clarion in the ’80s, ’90s, and ’00s share their life-after-Clarion experiences.
with Ron Drummond, E.C. Myers, Resa Nelson (leader), Ken Schneyer

Saturday July 13

Which Ideas Are Worth Keeping?
2:00 PM G
Many writers have file folders of unfinished stories or novels that never jelled or never seemed quite publishable. How do you decide which ideas to reject, which to pitch, and which simply to follow through on based on your own convictions?
with Daryl Gregory, Margo Lanagan, Yoon Ha Lee and Allen Steele

Hope to see you there!

I just ran across a yellowing four-page flyer, “A Field Guide to the Readercon 2 Program Participants,” and it gives an interesting snapshot of who we were back in 1988. Both in that some of the attendees are sadly no longer with us—such as Algis Budrys, Stan Leventhal and John Morressy—but also for the ways in which those of us still around have progressed—such as Patrick Nielsen Hayden and Teresa Nielsen Hayden, who back then had just been named (respectively) Tor Books’ administrative and managing editors.

Wonder how that worked out for them?

Take a look below to see what (almost) a quarter of a century has done to us.

Let’s hope that those of us still around have every day in every way continued getting better and better. We can dream, can’t we?

I know that more photos from my strange Readercon journey were taken than I’ve seen and shared with you here and here, because there are a few people who told me they posed with me last month and had others take their (as yet unseen by me) pictures. But since those are not turning up in my inbox, it appears the flood is over, so I’ll share this one last pic I received.

David Lubkin and Filthy Pierre

If you’re in possession of any additional images, and you’ve yet to send me a copy, you know what to do.

Meanwhile, I’m sure you’ve heard the less frivolous Readercon news. I’m sad the events that led to such a statement being necessary occurred, but glad for the statement itself at the same time, because I do want to return to future Readercons for photos which will be of a more three-dimensional me.

I arrived home safely from Readercon this afternoon. Or perhaps I should say … I was delivered home safely.

If that distinction (and the photo above) confuses you, this should clear things up. And this will reveal the story so far.

But here are some further photos to let you see how much fun I had at Readercon. (more…)