Conferences
Angel’s Bits – Stalking Authors in the Wild
Authors are much more accessible these days – at least online. We can friend our favorite authors, follow blogs and Twitter feeds, see photos of them with friends and so on. But now you’ve decided to attend an event. Real life, three-dimensional authors will be there. (Gasp!) The time spent face to face with your author quarry can be limited at larger events. You might see them on a panel or at a signing. Other events are geared toward allowing readers to interact with authors. Though the setting doesn’t matter too much – you’ve spotted the author on your personal … Read more
Jeff Baker—Boogieman In Lavender
The View From Worldcon, or Down On The Swanwick River by Jeff Baker A stack of autographed books and a head full of memories. Those are the souvenirs from a few days at MidAmeriCon II, the World Science Fiction Convention, held in Kansas City, MO August 17 through 21, 2016. We got there Thursday the 18th in time for me to drive over to the Crown Center (the vast convention facility where the convention was being held) and see it all for myself. I had been to Bouchercon (the Mystery Writers of America Convention) in Cleveland in 2012 so I … Read more
Angel’s Bits: Off to Flame Con And About That…
This’ll be a short one this morning – I’m off to Brooklyn in a couple of hours for Flame Con. (Woohoo!) This will be the second year for this particular convention, which they project to have perhaps double the attendance of their first year. New conventions can be tricky. If organizers haven’t had a lot of prior convention wrangling experience, the learning curve can be huge. Some cons learn and grow, some, unfortunately, run into trouble and vanish for a few years or for good. Flame Con must be doing things right so far. They projected 1500 attendees last year … Read more
Angel’s Bits: So your con’s in another country…
When I was younger – and really, it’s not that long ago – we could blithely skip across the border between Canada and the US with nothing more than a passport. Where ya headed, ma’am? Oh, sure, nice there this time of year. Have a nice stay, welcome to Canada! Fast forward a bit, and lots of things about travel between countries has changed. We do need a passport now to travel to Canada, and obtaining one/renewing one isn’t a completely awful process if you leave yourself enough time. US citizens have somewhere over 120 countries where passports are sufficient … Read more
QSF Gathering at DSP
We’re planning our third official QSF gathering – this one at the Dreamspinner retreat this weekend. We’ll be meeting in St. George 114. We ran through a number of possibilities for dinner, and this one makes the most sense. If you plan to come, start by checking the menu for Wreckers: Wreckers Menu Then stop by in the late afternoon or at 6 PM – you can place your order to go at the restaurant. Once you have it, hop on over to St. George 114 – we have the room from 6-8:30 PM (the reception starts at 9). We’ll … Read more
For Readers & Writers: Rainbow Con Panels for 2017
Hi all, Something really cool has happened. The organizers of Rainbow Con have asked for our input for the 2017 conference. The theme is Step Into Tomorrow: it’s a Sci Fi/Fantasy theme (which we may or may not have had something to do with, as RC 2015 was kinda stacked with QSF authors). This is our chance to shape the topics we want to talk about next year. From Kris Piet: The more ideas the merrier, but there are no guarantees. We’re looking for topics and take everyone’s suggestions seriously, but not every topic will be chosen just because it’s … Read more
Angel’s Bits – You Asked for Queer Cons…
Not too terribly long ago, QSF’ers on the Facebook page were asking for a list of queer friendly conventions. We thought that was a fabulous idea. This first stab at a list is by no means complete. It’s far too US-centric, for one thing, and is most likely missing some great local cons that don’t make the national press. Criteria for inclusion on the list were: A) queer focused or queer friendly B) some flavor of spec fic focused or friendly C) event where authors have opportunity (large or small) to promote Now we need you guys. Using the criteria … Read more
Angel’s Bits – From Famine to Feast
A few years ago, when I was starting out in this genre, finding safe convention space for LGBTQ+ fiction was difficult. Sure, there were cons who said we could play, there were even some who welcomed us, but it still had that feeling of being the odd man out, the oh, and also those part of the weekend. Now we’re trying to decide which conventions to attend next year, and we’re finding we have to choose, that we can no longer attend all the LGBTQ specific events out there. The last convention I’ll be attending this year was one we … Read more