Friday was a long, awesome day \u00a0at World Fantasy. \u00a0I feel like I’m floating around on a sea full of big names and interesting people, and it’s surprisingly less intimidating than I thought it would be.<\/p>\n
The day started with a number of panels. \u00a0I attended “Writing human characters, whether or not they’re human” and “VaanderMeer on VanderMeer.”<\/p>\n
The VanderMeer panel was very enjoyable–Ann and Jeff are down-to-Earth good people, and it was interesting hearing their stories, especially Ann on her experiences as an editor. \u00a0At one point, she could have shared any number of slushpile horror stories, but she didn’t.<\/p>\n
Took lunch at Lee’s Sandwiches, for no other reasons than price and nostalgia. I used to eat at Lee’s all the time when I lived in San Jose, because it was so cheap. \u00a0It’s been so long, but it was exactly as I remembered it. \u00a0Good times.<\/p>\n
Met up with Daniel Alonso, another writer friend from LTUE\/CONduit. \u00a0It was good to see him. \u00a0We wandered around the dealer’s room for a while and struck up conversations with various people, including David Drake. \u00a0Talked with Drake about the difference between him and Haldeman–apparently, in Haldeman’s novels, nobody trusts anybody, whereas in David Drake’s novels, people mistrust everyone but the comrades in their unit. \u00a0Interesting.<\/p>\n
Let me just say, once again, that I am surprised how many people from the Utah scene are here at World Fantasy. \u00a0On the “Writing non-conciliatory fantasy” panel, I recognized at least a dozen other Utah writers, and there were probably at least as many there that I didn’t recognize! \u00a0Surprising, when you consider the panel was about anti-heroes.<\/p>\n
Besides the “Writing non-conciliatory fantasy” panel, I attended “Invention vs. tradition” and “The last resort” in the afternoon. \u00a0Both were very interesting, but unfortunately I was very tired after the last one, so didn’t catch as much from it. \u00a0That’s what happens for late afternoon \/ early evening panels, generally.<\/p>\n
Went to a book release party for Edge publishing<\/a>. \u00a0It was an interesting event. \u00a0Barbara Galler-Smith and Josh Langston wrote Druids<\/em> together long-distance, having only met over the internet. \u00a0They both seem like pretty cool people, just from running into them. \u00a0From the readings, the book reminded me a bit of David Gemmell.<\/p>\n Had dinner with some other writers from the Utah scene–Josh, Isaac, and Jancy. \u00a0Talked with Jancy for quite a while–turns out she’s from Santa Clara, got a master’s degree from BYU with John Bennion as her advisor. \u00a0It also turns out that she recently switched agents; she’s represented by Eddie now, Joshua Bilmes’s old assistant. \u00a0We talked about my book and whether it’s YA or not, \u00a0which went on to a very interesting discussion of YA themes. \u00a0Jancy’s a way cool person.<\/p>\n The evening event was a giant mass autographing party in the ballroom. \u00a0Everyone was there doing a signing. \u00a0I hung out at Dan Wells’s booth and met Mary Robinette Kowal<\/a>. \u00a0She was way cool, easy to talk with, interesting and humble. \u00a0Yet another down-to-Earth good person at this convention.<\/p>\n Met a lot more people from the Utah scene in the evening, such as J. Aleta Clegg<\/a>, who was around when LTUE<\/a>,\u00a0The Leading Edge<\/a><\/em>, and Quark <\/a>were founded. \u00a0Also talked with Julie Wright, found out that she’s an editor as well as a writer, talked about the blog she co-authors<\/a> and Leading Edge<\/em>. \u00a0Yet more down-to-Earth good people.<\/p>\n After that, drifted from party to party, until everyone was so drunk that my attempts to make useful contacts started to become counterproductive. \u00a0Had fun at the same time, though. \u00a0Good people, good times.<\/p>\n I’m looking forward to tomorrow!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Friday was a long, awesome day \u00a0at World Fantasy. \u00a0I feel like I’m floating around on a sea full of big names and interesting people, and it’s surprisingly less intimidating than I thought it would be. The day started with a number of panels. \u00a0I attended “Writing human characters, whether or not they’re human” and… Continue reading World Fantasy 2009 — second day<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[],"tags":[338,82,122,219,339,81,20,210,599,189,84],"class_list":["post-1229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-ann-vandermeer","tag-conventions","tag-friends","tag-julie-wright","tag-mary-robinette-kowal","tag-networking","tag-quark-writing-group","tag-the-leading-edge","tag-thoughts-reflections","tag-utah","tag-world-fantasy-2009","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7iXK-jP","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1229"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1229\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1232,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1229\/revisions\/1232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}