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madrobinsNote to self: a week in the Mile High City while still recovering from bronchitis is perhaps not smart. The last day I kept finding myself panting.
It was a fine con, rather spread-out (and not just because the hotels were all over the place--someone told me that from the convention center doors to the dealer's room was 1/4 mile), but enjoyable. I got to Denver around 3pm, checked in at the hotel and changed clothes, and as![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
klages, my roommate, arrived at about the same time, we went over to get registered. The first person I encountered was Terry Boren, a wonderful writer who was at Clarion with me um...**mumble** 27 years ago. As a matter of fact, my very first convention was Denvention 2, right after Clarion. Anyway: Thursday was spent mostly in the bar (there's a shock), although Ellen and I wound up having a nifty dinner with Nancy Kress and divers others (shoot me: I wasn't taking notes). More bar, then back to my hotel, where I found tnh and a cloud of her Viable Paradise students, and wound up sitting up talking with them for a while.
Friday morning I had promised to open the SFWA suite--which mostly meant waiting for the HVAC techs to show up and work on the AC, which was not up to the task of cooling 150 SF writers. Far more of Friday than I wanted was spent making phone calls to that debit card company on Sarcasm Girl's behalf--after more than a week someone finally told me 1) that the faxes sent (the Thursday before and the Monday before) were illegible, and that anyway they needed something with SG's SSN on it. So I re-faxed what I had, had the Spouse fax the first page of the girl's tax return (since no one know's where the girl's social security card is these days) and at 3:45 mountain time the wretched card was proclaimed Good. There was much rejoicing, which will not replace all the enamel worn from gnashing my teeth.
That evening I went off for a fabulous sushi dinner withelisem, papersky, and klages. One of those dinners which combined a little gossip, a little conversation about writing, great gales of laughter, and at the end, chocolate. Elise bought a huge candy apple at a candy store, one covered in tiny sugar stars, which she brandished at the Making Light party. It is an excellent thing to meet so many people whose words alone you have known, and find them just as congenial in person. pnh and tnh arrived, looking much gratified to have the party thrown in their honor (and the honor of their fellow MLers). And in the middle of all this party my lovely husband, who was also in Denver for the weekend (but not at the con) showed up with his friend Gannon to say hi, and came up to say hello to Patrick and Teresa. I think this was his first appearance at a con since, um, 1992. maybe? From the ML party, to the Tor party, which was crowded as Tor parties always are. Then the Weird Tales party with my fellow workshopper Jax Schumann, where we found Blake Charlton (another Wordspinner alum) and hung out for a while. Then, in the consciousness that I had a 10am panel and an 8am breakfast the next day, I did something clever and went to bed.
Breakfast Saturday am was with Patrick, Teresa, and Ellen--and we were joined by Robert Silverberg, who stopped by to say hello and stayed to chat for almost an hour. I could cheerily have stayed to drink coffee and natter for another hour, but at 9:45 I had to bolt to get to my first panel, on (of all things) social control. My fellow panelists includedpapersky, Pat Cadigan, Richard Dutcher, and Jeff DeLuzio. I was not sure why I was on the panel (nor were the other panelists, which seems to have been the refrain of the weekend) but it wound up being lively and fun. Jeff was an excellent moderator. After the panel I went and cruised the dealer's room, looking for con-favors to bring home to the family. And suddenly I was hit by The Big Fatigue, and went back to the hotel and dozed for a while. Did make it to an interesting panel, "The Bad Guy in the White Hat," which wandered afield from the topic in interesting ways, as the panel and audience started coming up with interesting heros and villains. As sometimes happens, I wound up sitting next to a couple of lovely people with whom I agreed in every particular--we kept nodding and approving each other's suggestions. Which was good because there was one weirdly homophobic woman sitting up front who wanted everyone to agree with her. Jim Morrow, who was moderating, handled her deftly, and life moved on. Then to my other panel, on "Popularity vs. Critical Acclaim," which I was moderating. We had a great panel: Jim Morrow, Farah Mendlesohn, Karen Burnham, and LE Modesitt; I had been afraid that the topic might sputter into awkward silences, but instead it got lively and engaging, wandering into questions of whether snobbery about popularity is really caused by fear of success, and whether one can eat good reviews.
Then got dressed for the Hugos and parties thereafter, and returned to the Hyatt bar for bar-food and drinks (apple martinis!) before the ceremony itself. Ellen,kateyule and davidelevine and I sat together in the back of the auditorium like the bad kids at the high school assembly, making comments almost sotto voceand weeping during the "people who died this year" segment--which alway gets me. When matociquala won for "Tideline" David and Ellen went out to call her and whoop! and found she'd been watching (ah, the miracle of the internet) and whooped right back. Mary Robinette Kowal, elegant beyond saying in a yellow satin ball dress (really) accepted the Campbell award with grace and a few tears. And Michael Chabon, who couldn't be there to accept his hugo, sent along a gorgeously appreciative and graceful acceptance note, happily acknowledging that he is a science fiction writer, which is nice to hear from someone whose Hugo will be rubbing shoulders with a Nebula and a Pulitzer... David, Kate, Ellen and I squeezed into a pedicab to go to the Sheraton, which was the party hotel, singing about Bear's Hugo to the tune of "Teddy Bear's Picnic," to the amusement of our pedicabist (what does one call a pedicab driver?)
More parties. Parties world without end. When the bar at the Hyatt closed, a bunch of us went looking for food and drink, only to find that the bars all closed by 2. Finally went back to the hotel, ordered the world's most expensive sliders ($14 for four teeny hamburgers, which was all this 4-diamond hotel had to offer at that hour) and sometime around 3am, fell into bed. (Not even going to talk about walking the streets of downtown Denver singing with a crowd of similarly elevated souls.)
Sunday...I was tired on Sunday. The con rolled up its carpets pretty early, and while some time was spent (inevitably) in the bar, I didn't drink anything much more aggressive than iced tea. Did go out and dine with the contingent of SFWA Musketeers--Elizabeth Moon, Lee Martindale, John Hemry, Melanie Fletcher, Bill Seney, and a handful of others, which was great fun. Particularly the gleam of martial joy in Elizabeth's eye as she described working with her new hand-and-a-half sword. Exercising unwonted good sense, I wound up having a final drink in the bar at my hotel with Jonathan Strahan and Ellen, and then went off to bed. Tired, tired.
And Monday? Packed. Checked out. Had good cheap Vietnamese lunch, then sat in Barnes and Noble for a few hours and wrote, before heading to the airport to come home. Read Ha'Penny on the trip to the airport and while waiting for my flight--very good, possibly better than Farthing, but I'll have to re-read Farthing to be sure. And at last, home. The dog and the Spouse were happy to see me. I have many things to do. It was a swell convention.
It was a fine con, rather spread-out (and not just because the hotels were all over the place--someone told me that from the convention center doors to the dealer's room was 1/4 mile), but enjoyable. I got to Denver around 3pm, checked in at the hotel and changed clothes, and as
klages, my roommate, arrived at about the same time, we went over to get registered. The first person I encountered was Terry Boren, a wonderful writer who was at Clarion with me um...**mumble** 27 years ago. As a matter of fact, my very first convention was Denvention 2, right after Clarion. Anyway: Thursday was spent mostly in the bar (there's a shock), although Ellen and I wound up having a nifty dinner with Nancy Kress and divers others (shoot me: I wasn't taking notes). More bar, then back to my hotel, where I found tnh and a cloud of her Viable Paradise students, and wound up sitting up talking with them for a while.Friday morning I had promised to open the SFWA suite--which mostly meant waiting for the HVAC techs to show up and work on the AC, which was not up to the task of cooling 150 SF writers. Far more of Friday than I wanted was spent making phone calls to that debit card company on Sarcasm Girl's behalf--after more than a week someone finally told me 1) that the faxes sent (the Thursday before and the Monday before) were illegible, and that anyway they needed something with SG's SSN on it. So I re-faxed what I had, had the Spouse fax the first page of the girl's tax return (since no one know's where the girl's social security card is these days) and at 3:45 mountain time the wretched card was proclaimed Good. There was much rejoicing, which will not replace all the enamel worn from gnashing my teeth.
That evening I went off for a fabulous sushi dinner with
elisem, papersky, and klages. One of those dinners which combined a little gossip, a little conversation about writing, great gales of laughter, and at the end, chocolate. Elise bought a huge candy apple at a candy store, one covered in tiny sugar stars, which she brandished at the Making Light party. It is an excellent thing to meet so many people whose words alone you have known, and find them just as congenial in person. pnh and tnh arrived, looking much gratified to have the party thrown in their honor (and the honor of their fellow MLers). And in the middle of all this party my lovely husband, who was also in Denver for the weekend (but not at the con) showed up with his friend Gannon to say hi, and came up to say hello to Patrick and Teresa. I think this was his first appearance at a con since, um, 1992. maybe? From the ML party, to the Tor party, which was crowded as Tor parties always are. Then the Weird Tales party with my fellow workshopper Jax Schumann, where we found Blake Charlton (another Wordspinner alum) and hung out for a while. Then, in the consciousness that I had a 10am panel and an 8am breakfast the next day, I did something clever and went to bed.Breakfast Saturday am was with Patrick, Teresa, and Ellen--and we were joined by Robert Silverberg, who stopped by to say hello and stayed to chat for almost an hour. I could cheerily have stayed to drink coffee and natter for another hour, but at 9:45 I had to bolt to get to my first panel, on (of all things) social control. My fellow panelists included
papersky, Pat Cadigan, Richard Dutcher, and Jeff DeLuzio. I was not sure why I was on the panel (nor were the other panelists, which seems to have been the refrain of the weekend) but it wound up being lively and fun. Jeff was an excellent moderator. After the panel I went and cruised the dealer's room, looking for con-favors to bring home to the family. And suddenly I was hit by The Big Fatigue, and went back to the hotel and dozed for a while. Did make it to an interesting panel, "The Bad Guy in the White Hat," which wandered afield from the topic in interesting ways, as the panel and audience started coming up with interesting heros and villains. As sometimes happens, I wound up sitting next to a couple of lovely people with whom I agreed in every particular--we kept nodding and approving each other's suggestions. Which was good because there was one weirdly homophobic woman sitting up front who wanted everyone to agree with her. Jim Morrow, who was moderating, handled her deftly, and life moved on. Then to my other panel, on "Popularity vs. Critical Acclaim," which I was moderating. We had a great panel: Jim Morrow, Farah Mendlesohn, Karen Burnham, and LE Modesitt; I had been afraid that the topic might sputter into awkward silences, but instead it got lively and engaging, wandering into questions of whether snobbery about popularity is really caused by fear of success, and whether one can eat good reviews.Then got dressed for the Hugos and parties thereafter, and returned to the Hyatt bar for bar-food and drinks (apple martinis!) before the ceremony itself. Ellen,
kateyule and davidelevine and I sat together in the back of the auditorium like the bad kids at the high school assembly, making comments almost sotto voceand weeping during the "people who died this year" segment--which alway gets me. When matociquala won for "Tideline" David and Ellen went out to call her and whoop! and found she'd been watching (ah, the miracle of the internet) and whooped right back. Mary Robinette Kowal, elegant beyond saying in a yellow satin ball dress (really) accepted the Campbell award with grace and a few tears. And Michael Chabon, who couldn't be there to accept his hugo, sent along a gorgeously appreciative and graceful acceptance note, happily acknowledging that he is a science fiction writer, which is nice to hear from someone whose Hugo will be rubbing shoulders with a Nebula and a Pulitzer... David, Kate, Ellen and I squeezed into a pedicab to go to the Sheraton, which was the party hotel, singing about Bear's Hugo to the tune of "Teddy Bear's Picnic," to the amusement of our pedicabist (what does one call a pedicab driver?)More parties. Parties world without end. When the bar at the Hyatt closed, a bunch of us went looking for food and drink, only to find that the bars all closed by 2. Finally went back to the hotel, ordered the world's most expensive sliders ($14 for four teeny hamburgers, which was all this 4-diamond hotel had to offer at that hour) and sometime around 3am, fell into bed. (Not even going to talk about walking the streets of downtown Denver singing with a crowd of similarly elevated souls.)
Sunday...I was tired on Sunday. The con rolled up its carpets pretty early, and while some time was spent (inevitably) in the bar, I didn't drink anything much more aggressive than iced tea. Did go out and dine with the contingent of SFWA Musketeers--Elizabeth Moon, Lee Martindale, John Hemry, Melanie Fletcher, Bill Seney, and a handful of others, which was great fun. Particularly the gleam of martial joy in Elizabeth's eye as she described working with her new hand-and-a-half sword. Exercising unwonted good sense, I wound up having a final drink in the bar at my hotel with Jonathan Strahan and Ellen, and then went off to bed. Tired, tired.
And Monday? Packed. Checked out. Had good cheap Vietnamese lunch, then sat in Barnes and Noble for a few hours and wrote, before heading to the airport to come home. Read Ha'Penny on the trip to the airport and while waiting for my flight--very good, possibly better than Farthing, but I'll have to re-read Farthing to be sure. And at last, home. The dog and the Spouse were happy to see me. I have many things to do. It was a swell convention.