FOGCon notes
Apr. 2nd, 2012 09:54 amI spent the weekend at FOGCon. The children joined me on Saturday just before lunch. Friday night the ladies stayed home with ![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
black_pearl_10 and watched "Star Wars." Simone's favorite part: "The trash monster. He had one eye." April's: the dead of Obi-Wan Kenobi. "They were fighting and then he fell down."
I had one very good panel -- the Outlaw Bodies roundtable on Friday. I had one meh panel -- the Anthology Pitch-A-Thon, in which we lost two panelists including John Joseph Adams (food poisoning) and ended up answering generic questions about the process of putting together anthos, which isn't exactly an energetic and inspiring topic. I had one dire panel -- Our Monsters Ourselves. Pity, because I think it held a lot of promise. I don't have the space or inclination to go into a detailed breakdown of what went wrong here, but moderation styles, panelist composition, and the late hour all played a part, mostly in that order. And I will note in passing that I made the conscious decision early on to interrupt whenever I needed to b/c I was a woman stranded on the end of the panel row and I could see where things might be heading if I didn't. This strategy has its own problems, which I will happily own. Overall, I would rather have been at karaoke.
I would also like to note that the audience member who called us out for entirely ignoring paranormal romance was completely right and I wish we'd had a chance to expand on that.
I was chastised later for cussing too much at this panel. In classic Concern Troll fashion, I was told that people will think I have a small vocabulary and nothing to say and apparently I should conform to these wack assumptions rather than stick 'em in someone's eye. Onward!
I only attended one panel I wasn't on, mostly due to having to watch the kids. That was Nalo Hopkinson's child culture panel, where my daughters entertained the crowd by dancing in "Brown Girl in the Ring" and getting chased in "Duck Duck Goose." ("Duck Duck Gray Duck" in Minnesota, apparently.)
Simone announced her new gender to me on Saturday as well. I told her she could be a girl, or a boy, or both if she wanted to. And she replied, "I'm a girlboy." So far she's sticking to it.
I stayed up two nights in a row talking to adults. For hours! About adult things! Books and politics and stuff! Even while tossing a balloon around with a kid who wasn't mine. Mine crashed out early at the banquet. I seem to know a lot of people, by the way. And a lot more know me. That's kind of nice to be reminded of.
Sunday I woke up with a sore throat and a stuffed-up nose and the aches. I missed the X-Men panel, alas, and headed home with the ladies to nap. They arrived to a new set of Legos and began a discussion about whether or not boys can wear lipstick.
black_pearl_10 and watched "Star Wars." Simone's favorite part: "The trash monster. He had one eye." April's: the dead of Obi-Wan Kenobi. "They were fighting and then he fell down."I had one very good panel -- the Outlaw Bodies roundtable on Friday. I had one meh panel -- the Anthology Pitch-A-Thon, in which we lost two panelists including John Joseph Adams (food poisoning) and ended up answering generic questions about the process of putting together anthos, which isn't exactly an energetic and inspiring topic. I had one dire panel -- Our Monsters Ourselves. Pity, because I think it held a lot of promise. I don't have the space or inclination to go into a detailed breakdown of what went wrong here, but moderation styles, panelist composition, and the late hour all played a part, mostly in that order. And I will note in passing that I made the conscious decision early on to interrupt whenever I needed to b/c I was a woman stranded on the end of the panel row and I could see where things might be heading if I didn't. This strategy has its own problems, which I will happily own. Overall, I would rather have been at karaoke.
I would also like to note that the audience member who called us out for entirely ignoring paranormal romance was completely right and I wish we'd had a chance to expand on that.
I was chastised later for cussing too much at this panel. In classic Concern Troll fashion, I was told that people will think I have a small vocabulary and nothing to say and apparently I should conform to these wack assumptions rather than stick 'em in someone's eye. Onward!
I only attended one panel I wasn't on, mostly due to having to watch the kids. That was Nalo Hopkinson's child culture panel, where my daughters entertained the crowd by dancing in "Brown Girl in the Ring" and getting chased in "Duck Duck Goose." ("Duck Duck Gray Duck" in Minnesota, apparently.)
Simone announced her new gender to me on Saturday as well. I told her she could be a girl, or a boy, or both if she wanted to. And she replied, "I'm a girlboy." So far she's sticking to it.
I stayed up two nights in a row talking to adults. For hours! About adult things! Books and politics and stuff! Even while tossing a balloon around with a kid who wasn't mine. Mine crashed out early at the banquet. I seem to know a lot of people, by the way. And a lot more know me. That's kind of nice to be reminded of.
Sunday I woke up with a sore throat and a stuffed-up nose and the aches. I missed the X-Men panel, alas, and headed home with the ladies to nap. They arrived to a new set of Legos and began a discussion about whether or not boys can wear lipstick.
