waking up again
Let me say this straight off: Readercon was delightful.
However, I went from Readercon to a lovely vacation and then smack into a personal clusterfuck when I got home, so I’ve had very little brainspace to think of putting together a con report or even remember that I have a blog in the first place. Things are better now, but I will not be sad to see the last of this July. Ugh.
In the meantime, I have more revisions to take care of — including the Portal paper that was very well received! — and stories to send out. And strangely enough, that sort of work is a balm for many aches.
Readercon schedule
Not much going on for me at Readercon — one reading and one short talk.
Friday July 13, 9:00 PM: Carrying a Gate through the Labyrinth: Portal and Greer Gilman’s “Girl, Implicated”.
Greer Gilman’s essay “Girl, Implicated: The Child in the Labyrinth in the Fantastic” posits an archetypal female journey in which “the solitary girl child in a labyrinth… charts her own way out of it, driven by her curiosity and courage.” A recent interactive take on this motif appears in the video game Portal and its sequel, in which a lone woman must find her way through a deserted testing facility while facing her own “genius or nemesis” in the form of the game’s main antagonist. Margaret Ronald will explore how Portal and Portal 2 propose not only a series of labyrinths-within-labyrinths but a new approach to escape by situating this narrative in a gameplay context. (This idea lodged in my head at Boskone and would not go away. It’s a little off the track for Readercon, but I think I’ve hit on something interesting. Also, oh crap why did I propose anything even pseudoacademic at Readercon I am going to be eaten alive aaaaaaa.)
Sunday July 15, 11:30 AM: Reading. Margaret Ronald. Margaret Ronald reads her short story “The Governess and the Lobster.” (Matron Jenkins on a Sunday morning. What more could you want?)
I’m planning on staying Friday night, leaving Saturday afternoon for some family time, and returning Sunday morning for the reading. I also intend to block out some time specifically for wandering through the dealers’ room and gazing longingly at the many, many books I cannot carry away with me.
Margaret Ronald 