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Boskone report
Drove. Saw Friends. Paneled. Met new people. Drank. Dropped cash in dealers' room. Repeated. Repeated again on Sunday (minus drinking) then drove home.
After a frantic week of work, my half-day Friday was closer to six hours than four, but I'd cleverly anticipated this and gotten an early start. Picked up![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jpsorrow only a few minutes late for the drive to Boston. This was a rare winter con where both the drive there and back were on clear sunny days, with dry roads, which made it a breeze.
Arrived in Boston with only one brief delay at a toll booth, where I eventually convinced impertinent drivers of my utter willingness to sacrifice my paint job in order to maintain queueing integrity. Checked into the hotel, picked up our badges at registration and decamped to M.J. O'Connors pub for drinks and dinner. I was a fan of the M.J. O'Connors next to the Park Plaza hotel, but the one at the Westin isn't as good--still it's much better than the lobby bar which was the sole watering hole last year.
My first panel Friday was on "Guilty Pleasures: What do you read for fun?" with Mary Kay Kare, Juliet E. McKennajemck, Lawrence M. Schoen klingonguy, Paul G. Tremblay pgtremblay, and Ann Tonsor Zeddies. The panel was great fun, as is only to be expected when I'm the moderator (grin). After starting off by describing the kinds of things we read that aren't F&SF or directly related to our writing, we discussed such topics as "What do you read that you wouldn't want your parents/family/Dateline NBC to know about?" and "What do you wish you could read, if you had more time?" There was general agreement that blogs in particular consumed far too much of our reading time, and were often a guilty pleasure, something we did when we ought to be doing something else, which of course makes this report somewhat ironic. Being a broad-minded lot, very little came up as something that we would be embarrassed to be caught reading, though I confessed that my fondness for cookbooks could be seen as bizarre since I know I'll never try any of the things I read.
This was followed by a panel on "Keeping your series fresh" with myself, Michael F. Flynnm_francis, Juliet E. McKenna, Steve Miller kinzel and Joel Shepherd. As writers of various series, and readers ourselves, we talked about what did and didn't work, and the differences between linear series where each book follows the other in strict chronology, versus clustered series, where books may share worlds/universes, but be set in different time periods, or follow different characters.
After the panel, I caught up with Joshua and some friends, but crashed before hitting any of the parties.
Saturday morning, as I was having breakfast I ran into Juliet McKenna again, who joined me in trying Starbucks' oatmeal (porridge). Juliet is a fascinating person to spend time with, and we compared notes on the differing experiences of being an author in the UK versus the US. After meeting her, I'm even more excited to read her new book IRONS IN THE FIRE, which will be released at the end of March.
I didn't have any panels on Saturday, so I sat in on one of Josh's panels, before heading off for lunch withnewguydave in tow. By the way, if anyone comes up to you and introduces themselves as Dave, originally from Winnipeg, now living in the US and working on a fantasy novel, well, it's obviously a bad cover story being issued to alien invaders. But dubious credentials aside, Dave was fun to hang out with, and after lunch we went downstairs where Josh and Juliet McKenna combined their Kaffeklatsch sessions into one big table, and then spent a pleasant hour trading fans, and chatting about the business.
Later I found time to drop $$ at the dealers' room, picking up books from new publishers that I've been meaning to check out.
At 5PM I had my literary beer, attended by Josh, Dave, and Michael Devney (sp?), an accountant who works at Harvard. Michael and I bonded over the realization that we were both fans of Alexander Kent's maritime stories. The one hour literary beer stretched into two and a half hours, as Dave's wife bravely joined us to meet her husband's friends. Turned out Dave and his wife had attendeddavidkeck's reading at KGB, where is doubtless where newguydave got the idea for his Winnipegian cover story.
Afterwards Josh and I headed down to the NoName restaurant for dinner, and returned to the hotel, where despite best intentions I crashed hard rather than making it to any Saturday night parties.
My Sunday panel was on Cool Britannia: Why We Love British Sci-Fi with Yvonne Carts-Powell, Vince Docherty, Jim Mann and Jennifer Pellandjenwrites. This was a perfect topic for a Sunday morning, not requiring deep thought, but still lots of fun as we went beyond the usual suspects of Doctor Who and its spinoffs. I confessed my liking for British crime mysteries (particularly DNA which aired in the UK as DoNovAn), and, of course, Top Gear which I would argue includes enough fantasy to be considered a genre show.
Hung out withscbutler, then went over to bug Josh at his autographing. Left the hotel around 1:30, got on the turnpike and then pulled off at the first rest stop to grab lunch and get fuel. As I pulled up to the gas pump, I looked over and who do I see on the other side? Yup, scbutler along with Ian Tregillis. They refused to accept that we weren't stalking them via GPS tracking implants. Ian declared that this kind of thing was always happening in the Northeast, which is why one ought to live someplace sane, like New Mexico.
Other folks that I caught up with at the con included Walter Hunt, Wen Spencer and Ann Cecil. And I met many new friends, including Ginnilee Berger of Bookplate Corner who thoughtfully gave us cookies to give us strength on the ride home.
I drove back, while Josh graded papers, and we cheerfully dissected the students foibles. Got home, unpacked, and got ready for a week at the day job.
Overall, this Boskone felt smaller than last year's, though I haven't seen any official attendance figures. Still it was a great con for me in that the panels I was either on or in the audience for were all interesting, I got to spend time with old friends and made new ones, and I managed not to get sick. Looking forward to next year!
After a frantic week of work, my half-day Friday was closer to six hours than four, but I'd cleverly anticipated this and gotten an early start. Picked up
jpsorrow only a few minutes late for the drive to Boston. This was a rare winter con where both the drive there and back were on clear sunny days, with dry roads, which made it a breeze.Arrived in Boston with only one brief delay at a toll booth, where I eventually convinced impertinent drivers of my utter willingness to sacrifice my paint job in order to maintain queueing integrity. Checked into the hotel, picked up our badges at registration and decamped to M.J. O'Connors pub for drinks and dinner. I was a fan of the M.J. O'Connors next to the Park Plaza hotel, but the one at the Westin isn't as good--still it's much better than the lobby bar which was the sole watering hole last year.
My first panel Friday was on "Guilty Pleasures: What do you read for fun?" with Mary Kay Kare, Juliet E. McKenna
jemck, Lawrence M. Schoen klingonguy, Paul G. Tremblay pgtremblay, and Ann Tonsor Zeddies. The panel was great fun, as is only to be expected when I'm the moderator (grin). After starting off by describing the kinds of things we read that aren't F&SF or directly related to our writing, we discussed such topics as "What do you read that you wouldn't want your parents/family/Dateline NBC to know about?" and "What do you wish you could read, if you had more time?" There was general agreement that blogs in particular consumed far too much of our reading time, and were often a guilty pleasure, something we did when we ought to be doing something else, which of course makes this report somewhat ironic. Being a broad-minded lot, very little came up as something that we would be embarrassed to be caught reading, though I confessed that my fondness for cookbooks could be seen as bizarre since I know I'll never try any of the things I read.This was followed by a panel on "Keeping your series fresh" with myself, Michael F. Flynn
m_francis, Juliet E. McKenna, Steve Miller kinzel and Joel Shepherd. As writers of various series, and readers ourselves, we talked about what did and didn't work, and the differences between linear series where each book follows the other in strict chronology, versus clustered series, where books may share worlds/universes, but be set in different time periods, or follow different characters. After the panel, I caught up with Joshua and some friends, but crashed before hitting any of the parties.
Saturday morning, as I was having breakfast I ran into Juliet McKenna again, who joined me in trying Starbucks' oatmeal (porridge). Juliet is a fascinating person to spend time with, and we compared notes on the differing experiences of being an author in the UK versus the US. After meeting her, I'm even more excited to read her new book IRONS IN THE FIRE, which will be released at the end of March.
I didn't have any panels on Saturday, so I sat in on one of Josh's panels, before heading off for lunch with
newguydave in tow. By the way, if anyone comes up to you and introduces themselves as Dave, originally from Winnipeg, now living in the US and working on a fantasy novel, well, it's obviously a bad cover story being issued to alien invaders. But dubious credentials aside, Dave was fun to hang out with, and after lunch we went downstairs where Josh and Juliet McKenna combined their Kaffeklatsch sessions into one big table, and then spent a pleasant hour trading fans, and chatting about the business.Later I found time to drop $$ at the dealers' room, picking up books from new publishers that I've been meaning to check out.
At 5PM I had my literary beer, attended by Josh, Dave, and Michael Devney (sp?), an accountant who works at Harvard. Michael and I bonded over the realization that we were both fans of Alexander Kent's maritime stories. The one hour literary beer stretched into two and a half hours, as Dave's wife bravely joined us to meet her husband's friends. Turned out Dave and his wife had attended
davidkeck's reading at KGB, where is doubtless where newguydave got the idea for his Winnipegian cover story. Afterwards Josh and I headed down to the NoName restaurant for dinner, and returned to the hotel, where despite best intentions I crashed hard rather than making it to any Saturday night parties.
My Sunday panel was on Cool Britannia: Why We Love British Sci-Fi with Yvonne Carts-Powell, Vince Docherty, Jim Mann and Jennifer Pelland
jenwrites. This was a perfect topic for a Sunday morning, not requiring deep thought, but still lots of fun as we went beyond the usual suspects of Doctor Who and its spinoffs. I confessed my liking for British crime mysteries (particularly DNA which aired in the UK as DoNovAn), and, of course, Top Gear which I would argue includes enough fantasy to be considered a genre show.Hung out with
scbutler, then went over to bug Josh at his autographing. Left the hotel around 1:30, got on the turnpike and then pulled off at the first rest stop to grab lunch and get fuel. As I pulled up to the gas pump, I looked over and who do I see on the other side? Yup, scbutler along with Ian Tregillis. They refused to accept that we weren't stalking them via GPS tracking implants. Ian declared that this kind of thing was always happening in the Northeast, which is why one ought to live someplace sane, like New Mexico.Other folks that I caught up with at the con included Walter Hunt, Wen Spencer and Ann Cecil. And I met many new friends, including Ginnilee Berger of Bookplate Corner who thoughtfully gave us cookies to give us strength on the ride home.
I drove back, while Josh graded papers, and we cheerfully dissected the students foibles. Got home, unpacked, and got ready for a week at the day job.
Overall, this Boskone felt smaller than last year's, though I haven't seen any official attendance figures. Still it was a great con for me in that the panels I was either on or in the audience for were all interesting, I got to spend time with old friends and made new ones, and I managed not to get sick. Looking forward to next year!
Meeting Pat and drinking
(Anonymous) 2009-02-18 02:36 am (UTC)(link)Great meeting you and your Canadian cluster over drinks. Do you think his wife will now get a tatoo? Many thanks for actually spelling my last name correctly - sweet of you and rare with so many others :) . I am now intrigued and must see how you behave on panels come Readercon or next Boskone. Finis Michael :)
Re: Meeting Pat and drinking