Armadillocon Recap

An apology to all you boys and babes out there in blog land–I’ve been sorely lacking in blog posts of late. Just needed a break away from online things for a while–you know how it goes–you get saturated a bit with all the tweets and updates and just need to spend time in the physical world. Gardening. Working out. All that good jazz.

But school is starting again, and hopefully, my writing sprees will be seen once more as well. I’ve felt a tad dried up in the creativity department. Armadillocon was a pretty good jumpstart, though. For those of you  not in the know, Armadillocon is an Austin based sci-fi literary conference where writers gather to talk shop, share ideas and tips to new writers, and give each other encouragement by way of buying each others’ books. Good times.

I met an array of wonderful folk, some of whom I’m going to see again in October at the World Fantasy Convention in San Jose. First, it was great to reconnect with old writer pals Stina Leicht, who is on the verge of signing with a big lit agent, Patrice Sarath, whose second book Red Gold Bridge just came out, and veteran writer extraordinaire Martha wells.

Then I got to meet artist and Tweetie friend Jon Picacio, who had just won a Chesley award for Best Professional artist at WorldCon. I hung out in the bar and cruised the con parties till all hours of the morning with editors Chris Roberson and Rani Graff, as well as Sanford Allen, Mark London Williams, J. Kathleen Cheney, Sharon Shinn, Joe McKinney, Melissa Mead, and so on. Had a relaxing coffee break with short story writer Chris Nakashima-Brown before moderating a panel on Academic Writing on Sci-fi/Fantasy. As the panel was at 1 p.m. on a Sunday, I wasn’t expecting many people, and so was pleasantly surprised to see the room fill up. Not only that, but we didn’t put them to sleep talking academics (which is rather astounding). Other panel members were the charismatic Mark Finn, Anne-Marie Thomas, who co-wrote The Science Fiction Handbook, Jessica Reisman, and Kim Kofmel.

Mr. Cool himself, Tor editor James Frenkel was as the con, as well as his lovely wife Joan D. Vinge, author of The Snow Queen. Super fun talking to both of them. One big highlight was being an instructor for the Writer’s Workshop. I was paired with the Guest of Honor Scott Lynch to give feedback to a small gang of inspiring writers. The stories, of course, needed a lot of work, but I really enjoyed reading them and hope to see them polished and published in the near future.

Okay, this is a rather longish blog, so I’ll end it with pictures (there’s even better ones here). And I promise to start blogging like a good girl again. Really.

Babs, the con-suite sheep. Really funky and creepy when you walked into the room for the first time and saw her there.

There was also lots of snackies in the suite, as well as this giant jar of--you guessed it--cheese puffs. Remember them from your 70's childhood, and the nuclear orange powder they left on everything? Hmmm..tasty goodness (not!)

Messrs Sanford Allen, Chris Nakashima-Brown, Jon Picacio, and Mark London Williams at one of the con parties. Sanford is obviously receiving some kind of alien signal through his name tag that it's time to move on to another room.

Because I Am the Nerd Girl

That’s it–there’s undeniable proof that I am, alas, a true geek: How to Woo a Nerdy Girl.

I’m guilty of 10 out of the 11 traits (and I narrowly miss #4 only because I don’t own an X Box).

And here’s an extra biscuit of delight (yet another sign of my ultimate dorkdom): Buffy vs. Edward

Have Cellphone, Will Travel into Borg-dom

Not much time to blog just right now. Busy writing, landscaping, and grading (the three activities that seem to rule my days of late). But I came across Voltaire’s great blog post about technology. He makes some excellent points about, alas, the growing laziness in our reliance on technology.

Do tell me what you think. As a writer and teacher, I have a very uneasy relationship with technology–paradoxically a luddite (Wikipedia is stealing out souls! Facebook only creates more isolation! Melt your cellphone!) and enthusiastic supporter (viva la revolucion–via Twitter! Microsoft Word and a USB flash drive saved my drafts, and my life). Sigh.

Julian Cope Rules My World

Well, it’s been a week. I’m teaching an intensive summer class, which of course is both exciting and wearying for both students and teacher. It means I’ve had reading and research to do every day, and of course, a short story deadline was looming. And therein is my excuse for such a lack of bloggerly activity. 

Even this is going to be a sadly short post (or ecstatically efficient, depending on how you see it). I sent story off to artist–am waiting to see if she likes it. In the meantime, I’ll leave you with the song I listened to for the last 48 hours while writing it. It’s a song that I’ve searched months and months for, since I didn’t know the artist that sang it, nor the title, nor could I even remember many of the words. It was the beat and the voice that I fell in love with. Finally found it on Saturday. Here it is (thus cementing my geekhood forever).