I hit part of the Occupy SF/F panel, Nalo Hopkinson's very fun & interactive presentation on children's games with Ellen Klages, an informative and supportive panel titled "You are Not Your Rejection Slips" and a panel on body image.
I have to say the "You are Not Your Rejection Slips" panel gave me warm fuzzies. It was nice to be in a room with other people who were writing which doesn't happen as often as I wish (I'm on hiatus from my writing group this semester). Hearing other writers talk about writing is like suddenly finding yourself in group therapy with other crazy people who don't think you are completely irredeemable while every non-writer acts as if you are, even if they love you. Non-writers do not want to hear about your plots, characterization, story arcs, your whinging, complaining and confusion because the words are acting differently on the page than the vision that is in your head and all of the myriad other writing blah-blah-blah's that our friends, loved ones, coworkers and therapists get deluged with. I'm guessing that it can be boring.
*My wife is now kindly and very firmly confirming that it can be boring.*
I don't blame her. I find it boring to listen to people obsess when I have no interest in their obsession. Seemingly,
Being in a roomful of writers was empowering. We were united in trying to get published, all of us were frustrated, disheartened and confused - strength in masses. The panel moderator was Cassie Alexander. The editors were John Joseph Adams (Lightspeed), Gabrielle Harbowy (Dragon Moon Press, http://www.gabrielle-edits.com/), and Christie Yant (Lightspeed). Cassie asked the editors one question that I have wondered about many times. Do editors actually read stories submitted by an author who has submitted previously and been rejected? The answer from JJA (John Joseph Adams) was yes, Lightspeed will read stories from people that have submitted hundreds of times even if they have rejected them previously. He said he always hopes that this story is the one that he gets to publish (it's happened several times before) and that as far as he was aware all editors of publications did. By the way JJA seemed like a genuinely nice guy. He went out of his way to say kind and supportive things. I'm sure he wouldn't accept a story if he didn't like it but I think that he tries to be fair and as considerate as possible about our babies that we throw to the wolves of possible rejection, which is really all I ask. Also, all of the editors on the panel said that they have had to reject well known authors - it really is about the piece, not the authors name. I imagine that that could sting for a published author. Rejection sucks for everyone regardless of experience.
Anyway, I've never submitted to Lightspeed but now I will as well as other markets. It was a great pleasure to meet Rachel Swirsky (seriously, a very nice person who was wonderfully informative and kind to this newbie) who told me about Ralan for spec fic markets (http://www.ralan.com/) and of course Duotrope (http://duotrope.com/) which is an amazing resource for finding markets for all kinds of writing. Duotrope is where I've found places to send poetry and literary fiction as well as spec fic. If you use Ralan or Duotrope to find markets please consider sending them a few bucks so that they can continue to help other writers. They spend a lot of time helping us, so give back please.
I had the great pleasure of getting to hangout with Charlie Jane Anders who did the best karaoke version of What is Hip? by Tower of Power that I have ever and probably will, ever see. It was epic.
It was also wonderful to get to meet Lisa Eckstein (http://www.lisaeckstein.com/), Juliette Wade (http://talktoyouniverse.blogspot.com/), Naamen Tilahun (http://naamenblog.wordpress.com/), Laurie Toby Edison (Body Impolitic: http://laurietobyedison.com/discuss/), Debbie Notkin, and Keffy Kehrli (http://kehrli.livejournal.com/) and the many, many other folks who I didn't get cards or info from but all of whom were full of the curiosity, kindness, imagination and intellectual force that make sci fi and fantasy conventions ridiculously fun.
