{"id":710,"date":"2012-01-18T11:10:26","date_gmt":"2012-01-18T11:10:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress65\/?p=710"},"modified":"2012-01-18T11:10:26","modified_gmt":"2012-01-18T11:10:26","slug":"outbrief-illogicon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/outbrief-illogicon\/","title":{"rendered":"Outbrief on illogiCon"},"content":{"rendered":"

This past weekend I had the honor of being one of the guests at the first-ever illogiCon<\/a>, a local fan-run science fiction & fantasy convention.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\n(At the panel on Ethics in Science Fiction. L-R: Gray, Kij Johnson, Samuel Montgomery-Blinn, Guest of Honor Joe Haldeman, and John Kessel.)<\/em><\/p>\n

\nI had a terrific time at the con, and it seemed that everyone else did, too. At times I was a little over-awed by some of the other writers on my panels — I felt as if anything I had to say would be trivial, and would have preferred to just sit and listen — but had fun and sometimes lively discussions on topics ranging from “Do We Need a New Definition of Literacy?” to “Interstellar Transportation.”<\/p>\n

Friday evening I had my first official reading, which was an interesting experience. I was paired with Tony Daniel, the newest full-time editor at Baen Books<\/a>, who read from his novel Guardian of Night<\/a><\/em> — he described it conceptually as The Hunt for Red October<\/em> in space, and it features an alien species that communicates in a very unique way. <\/p>\n

I started my part of the reading with a song: the debut of “A Ship With No Name,” which I think is a fun little number to the tune of “A Horse With No Name.” I was gratified that folks actually laughed in the right spots, and sang along with the “la-la” parts.<\/p>\n

Then I read the opening of my story “Sensitive, Compartmented,” which is scheduled to appear in the April\/May issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine<\/em><\/a> — my first publication in Asimov’s<\/em>. The best feedback I got was when two different people asked me to remind them of when and where the story was going to appear, because they wanted to see how it ends.<\/p>\n

The rest of the con was a mix of panels and socializing, which is always a good mix. I met some new folks, and even got to hang out with the Guest of Honor, Joe Haldeman, and his charming wife, Gay. The only disappointment was when I went upstairs late Saturday night to what I thought was going to be “open filk” and found the room empty except for hotel staff who were cleaning up.<\/p>\n

But, all in all, a good time was had by me. I hope the illogiCon staff is pleased with how well the con went. Great work, folks!<\/p>\n

Next up for me: MystiCon<\/a> in Roanoke, Virginia. Hope to see you there!<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Image Credit: Calvin Powers, from http:\/\/www.cspowers.com\/illogicon-2012-con-report\/<\/a>. Permission requested.<\/em><\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"pinterest\"<\/a>\"linkedin\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>by <\/span>\"feather\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This past weekend I had the honor of being one of the guests at the first-ever illogiCon, a local fan-run science fiction & fantasy convention. (At the panel on Ethics in Science Fiction. L-R: Gray, Kij Johnson, Samuel Montgomery-Blinn, Guest of Honor Joe Haldeman, and John Kessel.) I had a \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[57,164],"class_list":["post-710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing","tag-convention","tag-fantasy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/710\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}