Readercon 22 will be held July 14-17 in Burlington, Massachusetts, and not only is it the 22nd Readercon, it’s MY 22nd Readercon. Yes, that’s right. I’ve attended every one since the first in 1987. It’s long been my favorite convention.

One way I know it that is my review of this year’s supposedly final program reveals there’ll be several dozen panels, readings, and presentations I want to attend, a bounty which never happens at any other con—and which would require me stepping into a chrono-synclastic infundibulum to pull off.

So until I can go through the grid and nail down my first choices for those hours when I wish I could be in two places at once, the only programming I’m 100% sure you’ll be able to find me at is my own.

Which is …

Reading
Thursday, July 14
8:00 p.m. NH
Edelman reads “Things That Never Happened,” a short story to be published in Postscripts magazine. [Since my reading will be one of the first things that occurs when the con starts at 8:00 p.m. on a Thursday night, I expect a low turnaround. So don’t disappoint me by showing up!]

Writing Within Constraints
Friday, July 15
12:00 p.m. RI
with Elaine Isaak, Michael Aondo-verr Kombol, John Langan, David Malki (leader), and Madeleine Robins
Whether it’s writing on a theme for an anthology, writing on assignment or commission, or simply imposing rules to jump-start your creativity, writing within constraints can be an incredible way to defeat “the tyranny of the blank page.” We discuss the rewards and challenges of starting with someone else’s idea.

The Shirley Jackson Awards
Sunday, July 17
11:00 a.m. G
In recognition of the legacy of Shirley Jackson’s writing, and with permission of the author’s estate, the Shirley Jackson Awards have been established for outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror, and the dark fantastic. Jackson (1916-1965) wrote such classic novels as The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle, as well as one of the most famous short stories in the English language, “The Lottery.” Her work continues to be a major influence on writers of every kind of fiction, from the most traditional genre offerings to the most innovative literary work. The awards given in her name have been voted upon by a jury of professional writers, editors, critics, and academics, with input from a Board of Advisors, for the best work published in the calendar year of 2010 in the following categories: Novel, Novella, Novelette, Short Story, Single-Author Collection, and Edited Anthology. [Well, that’s how the con describes the Shirley Jackson Awards. The way I think of it—this is the hour during which I’ll learn which other writer’s collection has beaten What Will Come After in the Single-Author Collection category. Because since I’m up against Laird Barron, Stephen Graham Jones, Jeff VanderMeer, and Karen Joy Fowler … well .. let’s just say I’m won’t be bothering to write an acceptance speech.]

Kaffeeklatsch
Sunday, July 17
12:00 a.m. Vin
with James Morrow

See you in three weeks!

You all remember Edelman’s First Rule of Convention-Going, also known as Edelman’s Schadenfreude Rule of Convention Reporting, don’t you?

It states that all convention reporting must occur while a convention is still ongoing, because it’s insufficient for me to be having a wonderful time. YOU must KNOW I’m having a wonderful time and be miserable because you’re not there also having a wonderful time, and kicking yourself, thinking, “If I jumped in my car, hopped on a plane RIGHT NOW, I could be having a wonderful time, too!”

Which is why I’m sharing the following video taken a scant 12 hours ago here in Columbus, Ohio at the World Fantasy Convention. Alaya Dawn Johnson read from a work in progress, and you could have been there.

Nyah, nyah, nyah!

(more…)

I’ve been so busy I only just realized that though I uploaded my final Readercon clips to YouTube long ago, I never mentioned it here. After my first convention outing with my new Flip camcorder, I posted a total of 13 videos from the weekend. Here are the final five clips.

First, some of the beginning and some of the ending from the panel on “The New and Improved Future of Magazines,” featuring John Joseph Adams, John Benson, Leah Bobet, Robert Killheffer, and Sean Wallace.

(more…)

A week ago today, Kit Reed, Mike Allen, Adam Golaski, Barry Malzberg, Kathryn Cramer, and Peter Straub (who can all be seen in that order in the clips below) took part in the Readercon panel, “Down There in the Gutter: The Fiction of the Unpleasant,” and I was in the front row recording it with my Flip MinoHD.

Here’s how the panel was described in the program book:

In a recent online essay, Peter Straub argues that the only difference between the best horror and “literary” fiction is that the former acknowledges that life is dominated by unpleasantness, by “crappy, low-rent feeling states.” But in making this argument he mentions neither fear nor disgust (the staples of genre horror) but shame, loss, envy, panic, greed, insecurity, and loneliness. There’s no question that we are oddly hardwired to enjoy fear when we intellectually recognize that there is no actual threat. There is, however, much less of a case to be made for the vicarious enjoyment of the other emotional states that Straub lists, so it is harder to see them functioning in a story the same way fear does in genre horror. Is Straub here in fact defining a new literary subgenre entirely, one that just happens to include (but is hardly limited to) the best of horror? If so, can we trace the history of this secret genre and its influence on and interaction with more conventional literary fiction?

Here are the three best chunks from that 55-minute hour. (more…)

I was too busy tweeting and shooting video at Readercon to take my usual number of photos. What few I managed to snap can be seen over at flicker.

And now I find I’m far too busy and tired to write up an account of the weekend. So for now, let this picture of me with Junot Díaz stand in for all the fun I had.

And for those of you who wish you could have been there, you can be. Sort of. Here are four more excerpts from Readercon panels I attended. (more…)

While at my favorite convention in 2010, I read my short story “Tell Me Like You Done Before,” which can be found in my collection of zombie stories, What Will Come After.

If you’re up to finding out what happened to George and Lenny after John Steinbeck got through with them, check out my reading below, which is embedded in three parts!

(more…)

And another thing you missed by not attending Readercon was me reading my short story “Tell Me Like You Done Before,” which can be found in my collection of zombie stories, What Will Come After.

If you’re up to finding out what happened to George and Lenny after John Steinbeck got through with them, check it out below!

(more…)

I’ve told you about something I call Edelman’s Schadenfreude Theory of Convention-Going, haven’t? If not, it goes like so—

It is insufficient for one to have fun at a convention. One’s friends must know about it and feel miserable for not being there with you! Therefore, all convention reporting must occur while the convention is still going on, so they can think, “Why aren’t I there?” So they can wonder, “Should I catch a plane right now to be there tomorrow and join in the fun?”

In that spirit, since words and picture aren’t enough to let you see what you’re missing, here’s VIDEO from a panel held at Readercon Thursday night. “I Know These People. Personally.” featured (from left to right in the clip below) John Langan, John Kessel, Elizabeth Hand (who moderated), Kit Reed, and Barry N. Malzberg.

And here’s how the panel was described in the program book:

“Writers,” Harlan Ellison famously claimed, “take tours in other people’s lives.” In his recipe for a two-month novel, Jeff VanderMeer advised, “Base at least some of your main characters on people you know and really like, BUT make sure they are not people you have spent a lot of time with.” The roman à clef aspects of Virginia Woolf’s Orlando or Philip K. Dick’s A Scanner Darkly may be clear enough, but what about that girl on the T with the really interesting face or that actor with the striking name? Using examples from their own work, our panelists explore the continuum between consciously employed technique and unavoidable side effect—the wages of the writer’s magpie mind.

Enjoy!

And remember—it’s only Saturday morning! There STILL time for you to get here yourself!

That Readercon schedule I shared with you a few days ago? You can ignore it. Because the committee put its finishing touches on the program today, and I can now share with you the full list of what I’ll be doing the weekend of July 8-11.

Though I’ll be arriving at the con Thursday, my official participation doesn’t begin until the next day, with a very busy Friday:

Theodore Sturgeon Short Story Readings
Friday, 11:00 a.m., Room 730
Twenty-five years after Sturgeon’s death, Readercon is organizing a set of readings of some of his best stories by authors who love his work. The readings also celebrate the upcoming publication of the thirteenth and final volume of The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon by North Atlantic Books, edited by Paul Williams. The stories being read demonstrate Sturgeon’s unusual range, comprising fantasy, sf, horror and comic pieces. They will be moderated by his daughter, Noël Sturgeon, who is the Trustee of the Theodore Sturgeon Literary Trust. (I’ll be reading “It Was Nothing—Really!”)

Reading
Friday, 5:00 p.m., Room New Hampshire/Massachusetts
This is when I’ll be reading one of my own stories. What will I read? I haven’t figured that out yet. But it will be something I’ve never read at a Readercon before.

Why Aren’t I Repeating Myself? Why?
Friday, 8:00 p.m., Salon F
with David Anthony Durham, Patrick O’Leary, Paul Park, Jennifer Pelland, and Michael Swanwick
Some writers hone a single approach for their entire careers, while others are much likelier to produce work that is, by their own track record, sui generis. Why are these writers driven to explore new genres, styles, themes, and structures, when most of their peers need less variety? Is it simply a product of having wide-ranging interests? Or something deeper? Since we suspect that many such writers may find the phenomenon mysterious to themselves, we encourage them to trade notes about their specific motivations for writing works that took them to new stylistic, structural and thematic territory.

The Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award: The History So Far
Friday, 9:00 p.m., Maine/Connecticut
with John Clute, Alan Elms, Barry Malzberg, and Gordon Van Gelder
One of the founders of the award [Alan Elms] is joined by past and present judges and all is revealed. How did Smith’s daughter and Elms and Benko come to found the Cordwainer Smith Foundation? Where did the idea for the Award come from? How have the judges been chosen, and how have they gone about choosing the winners? How did the Award come to Readercon? To be followed immediately by the presentation of this year’s award (across the corridor).

The Double-Driven Story
Sunday 2:00 p.m. Salon G
with Felix Gilman, John Kessel, Marilyn Mattie, and Graham Sleight
We divide stories into “character-driven” and “plot-driven,” but in fact many stories aspire to a perfect confluence of protagonist and plot. In these “double-driven” stories, there exists a mutual need and intimate fit between the two elements: the one adolescent whose precognitive powers could enable a planetary revolution, the one ruler whose extraordinary past qualifies him to outlaw torture. This notion is a useful critical tool: imagine how much better the Foundation series would have been if we’d had a genuine sense of Hari Seldon and the forces in his life that led him to invent psychohistory. We’ll look at double-driven stories and examine how understanding this structure can yield insight into why certain stories work as well as they do.

See you there!

Readercon is my favorite convention of the year, and has been for decades. This year’s installment, coming up July 8-11, will be the 21st, and I’ve been to them all. Here are the two panels on which you’ll be able to find me pontificating.

(In addition to these appearances, I’ll also be reading Ted Sturgeon’s “It Was Nothing—Really!” as well as a story of my own during the weekend at times yet to be determined.)

Why Aren’t I Repeating Myself? Why?
Friday, 8:00 p.m., Salon F
with David Anthony Durham, Patrick O’Leary, Paul Park, Jennifer Pelland, and Michael Swanwick
Some writers hone a single approach for their entire careers, while others are much likelier to produce work that is, by their own track record, sui generis. Why are these writers driven to explore new genres, styles, themes, and structures, when most of their peers need less variety? Is it simply a product of having wide-ranging interests? Or something deeper? Since we suspect that many such writers may find the phenomenon mysterious to themselves, we encourage them to trade notes about their specific motivations for writing works that took them to new stylistic, structural and thematic territory.

The Double-Driven Story
Sunday 2:00 p.m. Salon G
with Felix Gilman, John Kessel, Marilyn Mattie, and Graham Sleight
We divide stories into “character-driven” and “plot-driven,” but in fact many stories aspire to a perfect confluence of protagonist and plot. In these “double-driven” stories, there exists a mutual need and intimate fit between the two elements: the one adolescent whose precognitive powers could enable a planetary revolution, the one ruler whose extraordinary past qualifies him to outlaw torture. This notion is a useful critical tool: imagine how much better the Foundation series would have been if we’d had a genuine sense of Hari Seldon and the forces in his life that led him to invent psychohistory. We’ll look at double-driven stories and examine how understanding this structure can yield insight into why certain stories work as well as they do.

I hope to see you there!