MidAmericon II

I’m still recovering from the jet lag and the introvert hangover but I’m also still sort of riding high on my con experience so I figure I’ll write up a confused sort of post-mortem and move on to getting ready for my October trip.

I may have said it before and I’ll definitely say it again but MidAmericon II aka MAC2 was the first con where I felt like I was an actual writer instead of just a wanna-be. I think there were two huge deciding factors; one was going to Viable Paradise and, by extension, my friendship with master networker K.M. Szpara and the second was the winning of the Helsinki bid for Worldcon aka Worldcon 75. A third factor was definitely having finally published something, even if it was in Finnish and thus unreadable for the majority of the con goers.

At first, this was a con defined by absences and lateness. It seemed that everyone had their own horror story about getting there. Soon enough, though, everyone was focused on the business of having fun. International literary cons are often weird places. My first example of this came back in World Fantasy Convention in Brighton; everywhere you look, there seems to be another brilliant writer just around the corner. I’m starting to be at the point in my fledgling career that I know quite a few brilliant writers and they know me, at least enough to say hello, but I still get star struck. This year, my biggest fangirl moment came in the form of getting to meet Kate Baker, the voice and brain behind the Clarkesworld Podcast. After listening to the ever-elegant Mary Robinette Kowal recount her moment of fangirl squee at getting to meet a real life astronaut, I realized that it never really goes away. And I’m not sure I’d like it to.

As I mentioned ahead of time, I was on several panels which all turned out fairly swimmingly. No one came to yell at me, I was live-tweeted during one and after another people came to talk to me as if I knew what I was saying. It was all overwhelmingly cool and made me feel ever so professional. It’s funny just how little it takes for that to happen. All the panels were great, but two of them stand out as shining beacons; Extreme But Workable Societies and We Deserve Better: Lesbian and Bi Women for Change. They were both absolute favorites in different ways. The discussion on the first was interesting, and the second was entertaining if a bit filled with black humor. Both were very successful in their ways. I also got so many ideas for next year in terms of things to propose for next year’s Worldcon. Which I am already planning furiously, both as a Social Media minion as well as a writer planning to participate.

Hanging out with writers at cons is fucking amazing. I mean, my experience is that hanging out with writers in general, is great so it’s no huge leap to expect that they would be great to spend time with at cons. Last year, at Sasquan, I spent almost all my time with conrunners. The year before that, at LonCon 3, almost solely as a fan among fans. But this year I spent it among my people. I adore my conrunner friends but sometimes I have trouble understanding them fully. Although, it’s not like spending nights arguing the subtext and structural choices of Dune is everybody’s cup of tea. But the thing is, it is definitely my cup of tea. And coffee. Hot chocolate too.

Worldcons in general are strange places. There are very few places where you see a George R.R. Martin cosplayer walk down a hall and then a few minutes later, the very gentleman himself walking down another hall. Mary Robinette Kowal and David D. Levine getting up to costumed hijinks. Howard Tayler off in a table, drawing Schlock Mercernary. A bar filled to the brim with writers and fans having a good time, meeting both old and new friends.

This time, I even got my Cinderella evening. My dear friend Crystal Huff was invited to the Hugos, including the pre-ceremony and the after party. Frankly, it was everything I hoped it would be. There were all these glamorous people who were there to celebrate literature. After the pre-ceremony, I all but ran back to get the ever-fabulous Kelly Szpara at which point we went to a concert. The performers were Ryan Cabrera, Dream, O-Town and 98 Degrees. I got a GIANT cup of Angry Orchard to share with Kelly who was utterly adorable with excitement and we had a good time. I’ll be the first to admit that it’s not my scene but it was still a good time. And later still, we both went to the so-called Hugo Losers Party, although not the one held by George R.R. Martin. The evening was every bit as magical as the fairy tale reference would suggest and it is definitely a memory I’ll treasure for a long time to come.

Now it’s just a matter of getting to Worldcon 75. Finally, an international con without jet lag!