Wiscon 04 Con report | Wiscon '04 Pictures

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Thursday
I arrived on Thursday afternoon, after my friend Fer and I had an uneventful drive from Minneapolis. We wandered State Street for a few hours, finding dinner and a few essential items we'd forgotten to pack.
Friday
Friday morning I went to the respite. Susan Marie Groppie led our discussion as the Pro. She's currently the Managing editor at Strange Horizons. Even if the respite had been awful I would have counted meeting her as worth the price of admission. Having said that, the respite went pretty well. I had workshopped my story "Cold (working title)" both on the OWW and with the Plovers, so I had a pretty good feel for the flaws in the story going in. Most of the crits I got were in a similar vein, but I have not yet read the written comments.

Critting and watching the others critique did teach me a lot. Usually we were in a fair amount of consensus with the flaws in a story, but there was some dissention. My only complaint, and it's hardly that, is that most of the critters were too nice and were pulling their punches. There was good constructive criticism, but I think there could definitely have been more.

Each person had five minutes to crit a story, then Susan went, and then the author had 5 minutes to ask questions. I had gone first, so I explained that I wanted "Cold" to explore the idea of losing courage but continuing anyway, and asked how I could punch up that theme. I got a few comments on that, but I'm very afraid that my "explaining what I wanted to accomplish" became the role for the rest, for they did the same thing, but *didn't* ask how to fix that. I thought that was an unfortunate opportunity missed for all of us. Ah, well, live and learn, as always.

In previous Wiscons, the programming has contained "living rooms," small informal groups which met to talk about the issues of being a writer. Respite participants got first sign-up rights for those. I was greatly looking forward to them this year, but the programmers decided not to include that track this year. Many authors were very disappointed.

Friday afternoon, Broad Universe and the Carl Brandon society again sponsored The Gathering. I met many wonderful broads, and stayed for most of it. I got a few compromising pictures, but not nearly enough. People were on surprisingly good behavior. During this time I snuck into the dealers' room and bought a sari - $65.

After that, Fer, Rowan, Jenizie, Jeff and I, plus a few others, went out to dinner at the Angelic brewpub. Good burgers, good beer.
That night was the opening ceremonies. They were short and sweet. Afterwards, the Broad Universe RapidFire Reading took place, with, I believe, 11 of us. Lyda read the "Satan gets married" scene, which is just brilliant, from Apocalypse Array. Jennifer Pelland brought down the house with her story "The Burning Bush," which appears in a brit mag later this year. Modern Miracles, indeed.

I didn't party too much Fri. night, the parties were a bit subdued. I did have a good talk with Nancy Jane Moore, and volunteered to help put up flyers for the Broad Universe Party on Sunday night. I had previously volunteered to help set it up as well.

Saturday
Saturday I got up relatively early to go to panels. Most of my roommates went to the wonderful Farmers Market and got soaked in the rain. I listened to Bear and Hannah read, and caught the tail end of the panel on Mentoring, by Jay Lake, Leah Rose Cutter and Justine Larbalestier. The word on this panel is "Comic Genius." Not that the panelists were, but that we should rate them such on our "rate this panel" polls.

The afternoon was spent mostly wandering the dealers room, the art show, putting up flyers and manning the Broad Universe Table as a Broad-at-Large, since I wasn't scheduled. I just sat there when I needed to sit.
I also attended the "A question of Style" panel, with Jay Lake, Ellen Kushner and a few others. A good, solid basic writing panel.

Dinner at Wasabi, a sushi bar, with Fer, Anne, Beth, Keith and David, plus a few others I don't know as well. Much fun was had while watching Beth and David have Wa-gasms. Fer, David, Keith and Anne went out for a scotch tasting, and had Scotch-gasms.

The Tiptree auction was, as always, extremely entertaining. Ellen came out in a chicken (or rather rooster, so was she a cross-dressing chicken, or transgender?) suit -- the result of losing a poker bet with Eleanor Arnason (GoH). A Space Babe™ purse sold for hundreds, as did an action figure of Bender from Futurama -- cross-dressed. Gender-bending Bender. Tim Pratt, Jay Lake and David Levine, all finalists for the John Campbell award, swore to have a smack-down match of Rock Paper Scissors. Times ToBeAnnounced. After I left, the crowd -- not too surprisingly -- bid on having Ellen take off her shirt. $175. Jane Yolen then started to pass the hat for $$ to get her to put her clothes back on. (so says my spy).

I went to Bear and Lyda's "Living in a Disaster Novel" panel, where I had my three years as a Geology grad student experience and knowledge nicely dismissed (not by Bear or Lyda, mind you!) with "well, Google will tell us." I could easily have been wrong about the point in contention; I'm a bit miffed at myself for being so annoyed by the whole thing. Science progresses, old "facts" become old, dead, debunked theories. That's how the process works.

A headache (gee, salty food and a beer for dinner!) drove me to bed, where I currently write this report. Tomorrow - The Broad Universe Party, I wear my sari, and Smackdown!

Sunday
I spent most of Sunday sitting at the Broad Universe table, most of the time between 10am and 5pm. My friends brought me a chipotle burrito for lunch, and at 1:00 Jay, Tim and David had their Smackdown! I got some good pictures, but there are better run-downs of what happened in various blogs. I took a break around 2:30 and went up to the Strange Horizons Tea Party. I helped set up a bit before it opened, but then left and waited for the official opening. =) I didn't stay long, as I really didn't know anyone, and I wasn't feeling too extroverted. After we tore down the Broad Universe table around 5, I found my friends again and we went down State Street for dinner. I got a reprive from setting up the BU party because I'd been at the table for most of the day. Back for the GoH speeches, which I enjoyed. Better run-downs of them can be found at some of the other wiscon blogs around. After the GoH speeches, the parties started. With a little help from my friends, I got my sari into wearable shape, and we went off to find fun.

The BU party was doing well when I got there, and I grabbed a beer and hung around for awhile. I met Margaret Magle, and Lou, another Minnesota Broad Universe member. I spent most of the night at the Pirate party, drinking rum and juice (didn't know I liked rum!) and singing sea chantys, let by Ellen Kushner, I think. I got a lot of complements on my sari. The most comment sentiment was that I looked like a Buddhist monk with a strange fashion sense.

We closed down the parties. When the pirates kicked us (very politely) out, we invaded the wyrdsmyth's party, and got in one or two more songs. Then they (very politely) kicked us out, and I headed to bed.

Monday I dragged myself out of bed for the 8:30am Broad Universe General Meeting (I got there at 8:45). Good things were discussed on how to improve BU events. I also volunteered to be the Bell Ringer on the BU mailing list for when we have submission parties.

Drive home was uneventful, except for some road construction. It's now Thursday, and I'm still completely wiped out by Wiscon, and am in a bit of a Post-wiscon depression (I have to come back to the real world?) I'm sure I'll kick out of it soon.