Since it’s been a couple of days since World Fantasy 2009, I guess I should share some of my thoughts before life starts pulling me in other directions.<\/p>\n
First of all, I was surprised at how similar it was to LTUE, CONduit and other convention\/symposium events I’ve already attended. \u00a0The basic format was the same: dealer’s room open all the time, with panels every hour until the evening. \u00a0The only real differences from that were the hotel bar downstairs, the consuite upstairs, and the parties at night.<\/p>\n
Second, I was extremely surprised to see so many other people from Utah. \u00a0Honestly, there were about thirty or forty of us, about half of whom I knew from LTUE, CONduit, English318–and the others all knew someone I knew from one of those places. \u00a0It’s funny to think that we traveled nearly a thousand miles just to network with each other, but that’s pretty much the case.<\/p>\n
Third, I was surprised at how much drinking was going on. \u00a0Maybe it’s just because I don’t drink, but it doesn’t make sense to me to come to a business meeting and get intoxicated in front of the people you’re trying to impress. \u00a0Not that I was uncomfortable. \u00a0There were enough other non-drinkers there that I didn’t feel out of place, and even the outright drunks were more entertaining than anything else. \u00a0If anything, I guess it was an interesting anthropological experience (kind of like reading Twilight,<\/em> except…different).<\/p>\n Fourth, I was surprised at how down-to-Earth and accessible everyone was. \u00a0Big name authors, editors and agents at the major houses, staff and editors from the small presses–everyone was very friendly and accessible. \u00a0I talked with Ann VanderMeer briefly about my capstone project on Israeli politics. \u00a0I talked with David Drake about the difference between him and Haldeman. \u00a0I talked with Kay Kenyon about Star Control II and Alastair Reynolds. \u00a0I talked with Liz Gorinsky (editor at Tor) about Jake Von Slatt, Jim Frankel (senior editor at Tor) about Guy Gavriel Kay, Guy Gavriel Kay about Brandon Sanderson, Brandon’s Agent Joshua Bilmes about Eddie, his assistant-gone-agent, etc etc.<\/p>\n None of this was planned; it all just happened. \u00a0Everyone was very friendly. \u00a0In fact, I was particularly surprised at how many people became interested in me when I said I was an Arabic \/ Mideast studies major. \u00a0I ran into Brent Weeks’ wife in the bar and talked with her for almost half an hour about Egypt and the Middle East, and she actually seemed interested in what I had to say.<\/p>\n At the same time, I was surprised at some of the tackier things that happened, too. \u00a0Maybe this is just my pet peeve, but at every single panel<\/em> I attended, someone in the audience raised their hand and said “I don’t really have a question, but…” and went on and on for several minutes discussing one of their ideas–TAKING TIME AWAY from the panelists and the people with genuine questions. \u00a0Some people even tried to pitch books that way! \u00a0Laaaaame.<\/p>\n I will say, though, that as far as pitching books, it wasn’t exactly what I was expecting. \u00a0From Brandon’s Class, it seemed that a lot of these people would let you send your full manuscript if you just asked them…and maybe that was the case, but other Utah friends at the convention told me that when they tried to pitch, it didn’t turn out so well. \u00a0I generally felt a lot of question, so I tried to err on the side of being non-aggressive. \u00a0At least I can mention in a cover letter that I saw them.<\/p>\n The last thing that surprised me was a lot more personal, but out of everything else, it probably surprised me the most.\u00a0I saw several aspiring writers who seemed so stressed out about breaking in, and it surprised me, because…I don’t feel that way at all. \u00a0In fact,\u00a0I felt a strong sense of peace as I thought about my future. \u00a0It’s not a question of “if” I’ll be published, but “when,” and getting there is going to be an exciting adventure.<\/p>\n Anyhow, I enjoyed World Fantasy 2009 a ton! \u00a0It was an overwhelmingly positive experience.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Since it’s been a couple of days since World Fantasy 2009, I guess I should share some of my thoughts before life starts pulling me in other directions. First of all, I was surprised at how similar it was to LTUE, CONduit and other convention\/symposium events I’ve already attended. \u00a0The basic format was the same:… Continue reading Thoughts on World Fantasy 2009<\/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":[89,82,122,30,81,599,84],"class_list":["post-1251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-career-decisions","tag-conventions","tag-friends","tag-life-decisions","tag-networking","tag-thoughts-reflections","tag-world-fantasy-2009","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7iXK-kb","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1251","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=1251"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1251\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1260,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1251\/revisions\/1260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}