Boskone 2024!
Feb. 12th, 2024 10:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jajalalaFair warning: This was a big eventful convention and I have a lot of thoughts so this journal entry is gonna be LONG. I've cut text to show just highlights for skimmers, but if you decide to read everything it may take awhile XD.
My roommate persuaded me to go to another speculative fiction convention, this time Boskone! Last summer I went to ReaderCon which was fun, but my roommate said this one would likely be more energetic, and several more of our friends were going this time.
There was definitely a lot more stuff going on! More panels, more activities, even dancing? The schedule was packed, and it was difficult to choose for each slot where to go to. There was also an art show and a dealer's room which was fun. I ended up buying four books across the con.
Many Drops Make A Stream by Adrian Harley
While going around the convention, I kept picking up books and then looking at the back and being somewhat intrigued, then getting to the part where it implies a love interest of the opposite gender, and a little part of me would die inside and my interest would disappear. I'm at a point in my life where I just love women, and I want to see them completely focused on. Especially after reading The Locked Tomb series I feel spoiled and want stuff that matches that expectation of focus on women and their relationships in a cool and interesting world.
So when I saw Duck Prints Press with their rainbow ducks and books on display that showed two girls or two boys dancing together, I was like "!!!" and immediately approached. I picked up one or two of the books, then went to the back cover to see what they were about...
...and there was nothing??
Like no description whatsoever, and I tried to check the first page or two but it was regular title stuff and no informational page, and I literally asked the dealer like "Uh, there's no description, what's it like... about?"
The dealer explained that they had a big focus on art and so liked to have the back be clear, but they gave me a cheat sheet. The cheat sheet was a series of index cards that mostly just gave a series of tags, like "F/F, masquerades, political intrigue" and then maybe a sentence or two about the content? It was a strange kind of vibe ngl. After looking at the cheat sheet and seeing something marked "pre-F/F", I ended up grabbing a different book and at least THAT one had a description on the back, so I felt a little more comfortable engaging with it. There were also several anthologies (The two with no back info were both anthologies, although I guess I missed it on the cheat sheet or it didn't register until I looked the press up online afterwards), but the one I later picked up was a full novel by itself. I tend to like novels more than short stories, so I decided to buy that one, which was Many Drops Make A Stream.
Still, after buying it I kind of worried. I had read the back and was kind of like "Well, I guess I could get into it!" but felt like I still didn't know much about it. Ultimately I kind of picked it up bc it was the biggest thing I saw thus far in the dealer's room that I was like "I can guarantee this will have F/F!" (or at least pre-F/F, which I like bc it means hopefully they're going to go through some slow-burn and development even if it doesn't "culminate" in getting together I still like that). Sometimes I worry that I specifically will give something more attention "just because it's gay", even if there might be something else similar of higher quality that happens to be straight or whatever. The way the press had things advertised and with all the tags and focus almost gave me the vibe of "who cares what it's about? It's gay! You want gay things! So buy the books here!"
Which isn't fully WRONG (I ended up buying it after all lol), but kind of left me feeling weird and worried about what the quality of the work would be, since I wasn't able to get a strong sense of that to start with.
Intriguingly, I ended up going to the Ducksprints website after the convention to investigate. It's a fairly new press, founded in January 2021, and it's specifically founded and intended for fandom people looking to go into original work! With that piece of the puzzle, a lot more things made sense.
One panel about alternative publishing had an author who worked with Duck Prints who described a kickstarter-type model, where they would set up an anthology/novel/merch and directly fund it through kickstarter efforts. Suddenly I was seeing the typical fandom-zine model I have encountered frequently online, especially for the Duck Prints anthologies, where you gather a bunch of writers and artists and then engage with the community like "Hey! We're going to make this cool thing together, want to support and/or get a copy of the result?"
This also explained their emphasis on art. They said their anthologies usually had art, and there was a big art book at their table I think all about reinterpreting Shakespeare in a queer way. This reminds me of zine culture as well, where they liked to mix art and writing... and merch! They definitely also had merch for some of the anthologies/works at their table (stickers, pins, bookmarks), which is definitely pretty unique and reminds me of zines.
I also noticed when I opened the book I bought and looked closer, there was a series of "tags" in the first few pages that included VERY AO3 tags like "be gay do crimes" and "there is only one bed". I feel a little weird seeing that on a original work, but it makes sense with this press being grown out of fandom origins, and I think if someone didn't want spoilers they could skim/skip that page. If they do it for all their books and a reader knows to expect it, I think it'd be really helpful for them selecting a book (I didn't realize it was there until I started reading it).
After looking more thoroughly through their website, I think I'm a fan. It's a very different structure from traditional publishers, but I think times have changed and it's necessary to try out new and different methods. There are still parts that give me pause and make me hesitate--like the anthology that didn't describe what it was about on the back, and I'm not a fan of books that clearly show faces/characters on the cover (feels kind of like "prescribing" how a character looks to a reader to me) while they seem to love having cover artists pretty much make fanart of the characters--but I am a fan of a press that's very explicitly queer and definitely doing something new in the publishing space. They also give a TON of transparency and info on their website, including their budgets for each project and sample contracts they give to writers/artists.
So I'd like to keep an eye on them. I signed up for a newsletter, so I'll keep abreast of their news hopefully. I don't know if they're exactly my vibe--a lot of their works have a cozy/warm vibe, and I usually like something with more teeth, but they're still pretty fresh as a publisher and I def don't know their whole catalogue. I also discovered they have a specific EXPLICIT imprint (DuXXX press lol) that I may check out at some point.
In the end, I've read a few chapters of Many Drops Make a Stream, and am enjoying it so far! The shapeshifter has a great bit about thumbs (she loves transforming into tigers and stuff, but she also laments that for almost ANY animal with no opposable thumbs then your greatest enemy is a door, so she transforms into a gorilla instead). I like the personality, I've only just met the love interest and so don't know how I feel about her, but the world building seems nice so far. I'm not great with a ton of terms/countries being introduced all at once, and there's a lot going on to start with, but it's still within my level of "I'll keep reading and learning as I go". So I'm happy with my purchase so far, but we'll see how things turn out!
Sex Bunker Apocalypse by Adam Brink
This was in the "Artist's Alley", which was a couple of tables featuring individual small authors selling their books directly to people (AKA my rooommate was in this alley for a few hours selling her book :D). This guy was selling his book at the same time as my rooommate and had this huge somewhat raunchy poster to help advertise, which immediately caught my eye. The premise of the book is pretty much that three friends end up trapped in a sex shop during an "unusual apocalypse", and when they leave the world's changed. The author assured me that it was not necessarily a "negative" apocalypse or something, like there was hope and whatnot and the change is not necessarily for the worse, so I was intrigued by what seemed like could be really funny and energetic vibes.
Unfortunately, the author also said the story is "not erotica", which damn! I love erotica! So disappointing, but it definitely seems on the raunchier side and the opening chapter describes a gal doing "butt stuff" with some rando guy (not in an erotic way, pretty briefly described), so it's definitely at least raunchy. I have not started the book properly yet tho.
Tune In Tomorrow by Randee Dawn
Several cool panelists mentioned being part of Broad Universe, an org dedicated to championing women and marginalized genders in the sci-fi/fantasy/horror genres, and they had a table in the dealer's room so I got curious and decided I wanted to pick a book up from there. At a glance though, I didn't love most the books I saw... quite a few had some clear horror vibes, which I cannot read bc I get too scared, and others when I looked at the back often mentioned a male love interest or other elements I didn't quite vibe with... tbh tho I was judging a lot by the covers, and the one cover that really popped out and intrigued me was Tune in Tomorrow.
I liked the bright legibility of the cover and the sparkly feeling. It's a story about doing radio for the fey, and although it implies something dark is going on there's sparkles and brightness to the cover that, to me, gives a glittering vibe that I'll get into some interesting sparkling world of entertainment. The author also I think gave a really interesting panel at ReaderCon last year and I remembered liking her vibe, so I have a little trust in her to have written a good book hopefully considering she was a thoughtful/interesting panelist.
I'm saving this book to maybe read last out of my haul, bc I have the highest expectations for it.
Nascent Witch by Melissa Bobe
This was another novel being sold in the Artist's Alley direct by the author. She was sat right next to my roommate, and my roommate liked her vibe a lot. Her tabling game was also super strong, she gave little sticker packs to purchasers, had a raffle, and had some snacks at her table, and my roommate said she learned some tabling tricks from her. So I was interested in reading her work, she had several novellas on the table, but they were all horror! The only thing not horror was Nascent Witch which was a full novel, one about a 27-year old heaped with student debt (ack too relatable) who meets a talking cat that tells her she's a witch.
This feels like it'll be a fun read with a good vibe overall with a relatable protagonist at a similar stage of life as me, so I think I'll have a good time. It'll probably be second/third on my list to read.
Seeing so many small publishers, individuals, and organizations selling books is inspiring. I think right now there are only a few mega publishing houses that dominate the market, but there's surprising variety of choices outside of that if you know where to look! I went to a few panels a little more towards the "business" side of things (about agents, cover art, alternative publishing, etc) and find myself continually intrigued and fascinated by the whole process and the evolving industry around it.
But let me get into the panels! So many cool ones, but I'll focus on just a few here.
One Fave: A Protagonist Walks Into a Bar...
I suck at description. I would like to write characters in a void. I used to write scripts and musicals for fun, and in that kind of writing you often DON'T want too firm of an idea on how things "look", because it'll depend on the actor and other creatives who bring it to life. Even while writing prose though I fall back onto that instinct of being like "A character or setting should not have a super set form so that any actor can embody them and any theater can find a way to put on the show". Fanfic is fortunate for me bc people reading it already know what the characters/setting look like most the time, so I don't need to spend time describing it unless really necessary.
Original fiction though?? Most readers actually like to imagine stuff! I'm not that kind of reader (I'm not super visual) but many are, and I am aware my descriptions are extremely light/lacking and lack commitment. I hate to make a decision on what a character looks like. I hate to pin down the look of a scene. But to give a strong image, it's necessary! So when I saw this panel which is all about description "A protagonist walks into a bar... what do they see? smell? hear? how do we describe this etc" I knew I had to go.
There was a lot of emphasis placed on making the descriptions do more than just "show" the scene. Panelists agreed it was great for descriptions to have SOME sort of emotional weight or relevance. One panelist shared a whole list of things she likes to run through when editing. When going through each sentence of a work, she wants it to fulfill at least TWO of these things on a checklist: Advances the plot, characterizes a character, builds a setting, brings up a theme, clarifies an action, and/or provides an emotional beat. This all still applies to description.
They also mentioned POV and how that plays into it: A foodie walking into a bar is going to start with describing smells, visuals of food on the tables, menus etc. An assassin walking into a bar is going to notice all the dark corners, whether the noise is loud enough to mask nefarious sounds, and whether any of the patrons look like a threat. Reaction could also be used with description, it's not just "I was jostled while walking through the crowd" it's "My shoulder's raised up to my ears as I struggled through the jostling crowd" or "I elbowed my way through the jostling crowd, cursing at people along the way" - AKA characterization and action get added while still painting a picture. Similarly opinions can provide characterization and context, like when a character visits a vampire you could spend paragraphs describe a whole elaborate gothic sitting room or the character can describe it like "It was one of those gaudy-as-hell goth rooms that old-school vampires who hadn't developed any taste in two hundred years adored" is way more efficient and relevant and tells you about the POV character and the world they're in (with a lil comedy too!).
The genre expectations are also important--A thriller can't spend ages describing something as it will lose steam, but a fantasy (like tolkien) may do so to immerse the reader. And for a detective novel, every single description is a potential clue.
Overall I loved the panel for getting into a lot of nitty gritty and giving some tools for me to use going forward hopefully.
A disappointing panel: Cyborgs Are People Too
I LOVE robot/android/AI stories. And although a Cyborg is technically part-human part-robot, I still enjoy it as being in the same vein of raising questions about humanity and who we give personhood, so I thought this panel would be delicious to chew on.
The moderator though... he clearly had an intended journey/goal/end-point to the discussion that kind of tried to box in the panelists into his own conception of the subject. He belabored what a robot, cyborg, and "augemented/enhanced human" would be defined as for the sake of the panel, which I think is probably good to do at the start to help avoid too much purely arguing about semantics. However, later he started asking questions about humanity and personhood but kept conflating the two and not really defining what he thought of as different about them: AKA he would say "Is [X] still a human?" but maybe intended to say "Is [X] still a person" which ARE two different questions!! And I think all the panelists had a sense of how they were different, but the moderator kept using the two terms somewhat interchangeably without ever stopping to even try to define the two terms.
Also, I've never read Murderbot (tho from everything I've heard I'm certain I'll love it), but I've read enough about it to know it is about a robot that does not subscribe to human norms in many ways, INCLUDING gender. So at some point the moderator mentioned Murderbot and specifically used he/him pronouns for Murderbot, and literally like FIVE people in the audience and a panelist or two kind of shouted back "it!" (because Murderbot uses it/its pronouns and apparently feels strongly about that). And although later in the talk the moderator used "they" when mentioning Murderbot again, it kind of soured me that this person seems to have interpreted a story about being outside of humanity's boxes and defaulted to putting the character into the box of "male" and likely missed the point of the story. Not the kind of guy I want leading a panel on cyborg personhood tbh!
So I think I disliked this panel most because I had high expectations and those expectations were crushed. There were def some cool questions and concepts that came up, but I felt like the moderator kind of was trying to push his own agenda and had a different goal/starting point than the other panelists and the audience.
Another great panel: Writing the Fight Scene
I won't go into crazy detail about this panel, but I loved it! All the panelists were fun and had relevant experience in martial arts or even actual street fighting, so they all had wonderful insights and stories.
What I liked most was a lot of emphasis on building up the emotional/physical stakes and such more than necessarily stressing about the precise mechanics of a fight scene. Ultimately fights are usually pretty short, so when writing them it makes the most sense to build up to it and make it a climax of a scene which then has fall-out, rather than trying to make the fight the entire scene.
One panelist compared it to a musical: People talk until they are so overcome with emotion that they must sing! And in a scene, they should talk until they are so overcome that they must fight! Another panelist compared it to sex scenes, which is a technique I've also used to write a scenes I struggle with. AKA: If this fight were a sex scene, how would I write it? AKA making it personally relevant, evocative descriptions, narrowing in on sensations and finding opportunities to characterize the character through actions.
There were also some more mechanical notes on fight scenes (and a lot of wild anecdotes on fights panelists had been in or heard of!) that were cool as well. Overall just such a fun panel with a great set of panelists and some good thoughts on writing fight scenes.
Aaaaah there were many more panels that were cool, but if I write them all I'll be here all night.
Last summer I went to ReaderCon (and made a little post about it) and had fun, but my roommate kept assuring me that Boskone would be even MORE fun.
This convention was def bigger and had more things going on; ReaderCon is very specifically focused on ONLY writing/reading and not really art or other activities, and there were usually only 3-4 talks/panels going on at the same time I think. Also Boskone alternated hour-long talks and half-hour breaks (tho some breaks had optional activities like dance lessons) that gave more room to like, squeeze in a lunch as needed and time to peruse the dealer's room. Meanwhile Readercon was much tighter with 50-min sessions with 10-min breaks, often less if a talk went overtime.
At ReaderCon, my roommate and I didn't know anybody. Our bookish friend who recommended the con was unable to go, so we were a little unmoored and struggled to socialize at first. It started kind of awkward. Meanwhile at Boskone, my roommate, her girlfriend, and our bookish friend all went, and the bookish friend introduced us to a handful of various people along the way.
However... I honestly kind of liked ReaderCon a little more, at least the social aspect. I feel like I talked to a lot more new people there, and got a bunch of business cards, and recognized people along the way. At Boskone, I feel like because I was often with a friend I didn't feel compelled to meet new people, and because it was SO huge I struggled to recognize or build up rapport with anybody.
The half-hour breaks were DEFINITELY good for eating, but bc I was always with friends I didn't try to interact with anyone new for the most part, and I would only go to the panel room at exact minute or so that the panel started so I could enjoy the full break. Meanwhile with ReaderCon I would go straight from one room into the other, and so usually I would have 5-10 minutes to kill with a bunch of other people who also are just chilling in the panel room, and then I could say hi, compliment someone's outfit, ask them how they got here, are they a reader or writer, oh a writer? What kind of writing? Where can I read their work? etc etc....
I love making random small-talk with strangers. I guess I didn't really follow up with any of the people I met at ReaderCon, but I still found it fun. Meanwhile the only people I really had conversation with and got to know were one or two people that my bookish friend introduced me to. And those are probably higher "quality" engagements, it's likely I'll see them again in the future bc of our mutual friend, but I still feel like it's fun to chat up strangers and kind of missed that.
Maybe it's not purely the structure though. I just had friends I already knew, so that discouraged me from bothering to socialize outside of them I guess? Now that the convention's over, I realize I maybe should have made a stronger goal to get to know new people.
Oh well! I'll probably go to ReaderCon again this summer, so I'll see if I still feel the same and if anything changes with more of my friends coming along.
Moderation and Non-Questions from Audience
Moderators were NOT consistently enforcing rules on questions/comments and when to do them. The really good moderators set expectations clearly from the beginning that questions come at the end and have to be a question. Other moderators would allow people to interrupt mid panel, sometimes without raising their hands, and engage and just share various comments and stuff for ages and kind of created a bit of chaos or drag.
Obviously it can depend on the panel or the vibe, but a lot of the time the comment "questions" were not exactly insightful. Like there's a REASON panelists are chosen to sit up there and answer the questions--because in theory they've reached a level where we can anticipate they will say something insightful and thoughtful most the time (not always and not every panelist, but most). Meanwhile if we make a free-for-all for the audience, things get chaotic very quickly and the quality of what they share is HIGHLY variable. In the end, most the people who have the audacity to ignore the general rules set out are going to be people that think really highly of themselves and are often insufferable to listen to. And then there's less time for the people who are properly raising their hands with actual questions!
IDK I guess it can depend. One panel had people often shouting out things, but it was a fun energetic hypotheticals panel and the shout-outs were usually pretty short (like one sentence at most) that triggered discussion with the panelists, so I kind of didn't mind that much for the vibe... but there was one particular panel where this dude kept interrupting to talk about HIS thoughts on various questions and was basically treating himself as an extra panelist?? And sometimes he would start to raise his hand, but then get impatient and start shouting out. And the moderator would just watch and listen and fully engage and I'm like "bruh what are you teaching this dude? that ignoring the rules and acting like his opinion is more important than any other audience members is a behavior that will be rewarded with attention?"
There were some moderators who were very clear and set expectations and shut down long irrelevant tangent "not a question, more of a comment, really..." but definitely not all of them. I would have loved a more consistent experience in that department.
Dancing
This convention included dancing as a potential activity! There were a variety of different dances offered, several of them would have a "lesson" during a half-hour slot between panels, and then during the hour of a panel there would be a social dance. There were so many (and so many that interfered with panels) that I only went to two lessons and no social dances: Waltz and East Coast Swing.
Waltz was nice, I think I should have done lead instead of follow though. I've never waltzed but I have some dance experience, and I discovered that a group of people all coming to a reading convention often are not the most physically apt XD. I'm used to being a beginner/bad dancer in a group when I'm at big dance events, but I should have been a bit more confident at a dance sidenote in a fiction convention. I think dancing is easier when the leads have a sense of what they're doing, and as a follow I found myself getting a lil disappointed with some of the leads and thinking "I should have been a lead myself I would have done better" XD.
Still, the basic step of the waltz is easy to learn, and we only learned a handful of moves, but it felt like a decent basic education that fit into the half-hour slot and equipped most people to dance. I didn't do the social dance because I had other stuff in the timeslot, but I would've considered it.
East Coast Swing though....... the instructor was very... loose? We did not learn the kind of east coast I'm used to, but to be fair I think my usual is Lindy-hop and involves triple steps, which I think is a lot to teach a crew, so the simpler slow steps taught here made sense, but I think the biggest issue was the lack of spin instruction.
Like the people teaching it did not describe the spin or give any tips on how to do them. They were just like "feel it, do what feels right" and would like, show the spin themselves. But then all these people who would rather sit at home and read than ever go out to a dance attempted to "feel" these various spins and would like... all kind of stumble and flail and struggle.
Like the instructors didn't even tell people how to hold hands!!! It's typical to have a pretty loose handhold so that when spinning it's super easy to let go if needed and not twist your arm, but according to my roommate there was a lot of people interlocking fingers for their handhold at first and getting twisted in the spins (I avoided this by insisting away from that in my dances lol).
And so the instructors "taught" at least three different spins, and everyone was struggling with all of them. I feel like it would have been nice if they had just focused on maybe two types of spins and had actually described like, what directions to move the hands and arms to make it a smooth spin.
Ultimately I think I concluded that half an hour is NOT enough time to really learn swing dancing decently, and I wish the instructor had actually instructed in some detail.
After the lesson, my roommate and her girlfriend (both of whom I begged to go to this lesson bc I want to take them to my usual swing-dancing place someday) kind of looked at me like "😬 So uh... is that what it's usually like?" and I had to be like "NO I SWEAR THAT WAS SO BAD IT WASN'T EVEN THE SAME STEPS AS WHAT I USUALLY DO I'M SO SORRY, AT THE OTHER PLACE THEY ACTUALLY TEACH YOU!! PLEASE DON'T LET THIS STOP YOU SWINGDANCING FOREVER!!"
Overall though a super fun (albeit tiring) weekend! Would definitely go again. I'm planning to go to ReaderCon this summer as well. I think I'd like to make a goal to forge some stronger connections at my next convention, now that I have a sense of what the cons are like and I feel like I'll be more grounded about it. I was overwhelmed at first, but now I have my feet under me, and hopefully I can go to my next con with confidence!
My roommate persuaded me to go to another speculative fiction convention, this time Boskone! Last summer I went to ReaderCon which was fun, but my roommate said this one would likely be more energetic, and several more of our friends were going this time.
There was definitely a lot more stuff going on! More panels, more activities, even dancing? The schedule was packed, and it was difficult to choose for each slot where to go to. There was also an art show and a dealer's room which was fun. I ended up buying four books across the con.
Many Drops Make A Stream by Adrian Harley
While going around the convention, I kept picking up books and then looking at the back and being somewhat intrigued, then getting to the part where it implies a love interest of the opposite gender, and a little part of me would die inside and my interest would disappear. I'm at a point in my life where I just love women, and I want to see them completely focused on. Especially after reading The Locked Tomb series I feel spoiled and want stuff that matches that expectation of focus on women and their relationships in a cool and interesting world.
So when I saw Duck Prints Press with their rainbow ducks and books on display that showed two girls or two boys dancing together, I was like "!!!" and immediately approached. I picked up one or two of the books, then went to the back cover to see what they were about...
...and there was nothing??
Like no description whatsoever, and I tried to check the first page or two but it was regular title stuff and no informational page, and I literally asked the dealer like "Uh, there's no description, what's it like... about?"
The dealer explained that they had a big focus on art and so liked to have the back be clear, but they gave me a cheat sheet. The cheat sheet was a series of index cards that mostly just gave a series of tags, like "F/F, masquerades, political intrigue" and then maybe a sentence or two about the content? It was a strange kind of vibe ngl. After looking at the cheat sheet and seeing something marked "pre-F/F", I ended up grabbing a different book and at least THAT one had a description on the back, so I felt a little more comfortable engaging with it. There were also several anthologies (The two with no back info were both anthologies, although I guess I missed it on the cheat sheet or it didn't register until I looked the press up online afterwards), but the one I later picked up was a full novel by itself. I tend to like novels more than short stories, so I decided to buy that one, which was Many Drops Make A Stream.
Still, after buying it I kind of worried. I had read the back and was kind of like "Well, I guess I could get into it!" but felt like I still didn't know much about it. Ultimately I kind of picked it up bc it was the biggest thing I saw thus far in the dealer's room that I was like "I can guarantee this will have F/F!" (or at least pre-F/F, which I like bc it means hopefully they're going to go through some slow-burn and development even if it doesn't "culminate" in getting together I still like that). Sometimes I worry that I specifically will give something more attention "just because it's gay", even if there might be something else similar of higher quality that happens to be straight or whatever. The way the press had things advertised and with all the tags and focus almost gave me the vibe of "who cares what it's about? It's gay! You want gay things! So buy the books here!"
Which isn't fully WRONG (I ended up buying it after all lol), but kind of left me feeling weird and worried about what the quality of the work would be, since I wasn't able to get a strong sense of that to start with.
Intriguingly, I ended up going to the Ducksprints website after the convention to investigate. It's a fairly new press, founded in January 2021, and it's specifically founded and intended for fandom people looking to go into original work! With that piece of the puzzle, a lot more things made sense.
One panel about alternative publishing had an author who worked with Duck Prints who described a kickstarter-type model, where they would set up an anthology/novel/merch and directly fund it through kickstarter efforts. Suddenly I was seeing the typical fandom-zine model I have encountered frequently online, especially for the Duck Prints anthologies, where you gather a bunch of writers and artists and then engage with the community like "Hey! We're going to make this cool thing together, want to support and/or get a copy of the result?"
This also explained their emphasis on art. They said their anthologies usually had art, and there was a big art book at their table I think all about reinterpreting Shakespeare in a queer way. This reminds me of zine culture as well, where they liked to mix art and writing... and merch! They definitely also had merch for some of the anthologies/works at their table (stickers, pins, bookmarks), which is definitely pretty unique and reminds me of zines.
I also noticed when I opened the book I bought and looked closer, there was a series of "tags" in the first few pages that included VERY AO3 tags like "be gay do crimes" and "there is only one bed". I feel a little weird seeing that on a original work, but it makes sense with this press being grown out of fandom origins, and I think if someone didn't want spoilers they could skim/skip that page. If they do it for all their books and a reader knows to expect it, I think it'd be really helpful for them selecting a book (I didn't realize it was there until I started reading it).
After looking more thoroughly through their website, I think I'm a fan. It's a very different structure from traditional publishers, but I think times have changed and it's necessary to try out new and different methods. There are still parts that give me pause and make me hesitate--like the anthology that didn't describe what it was about on the back, and I'm not a fan of books that clearly show faces/characters on the cover (feels kind of like "prescribing" how a character looks to a reader to me) while they seem to love having cover artists pretty much make fanart of the characters--but I am a fan of a press that's very explicitly queer and definitely doing something new in the publishing space. They also give a TON of transparency and info on their website, including their budgets for each project and sample contracts they give to writers/artists.
So I'd like to keep an eye on them. I signed up for a newsletter, so I'll keep abreast of their news hopefully. I don't know if they're exactly my vibe--a lot of their works have a cozy/warm vibe, and I usually like something with more teeth, but they're still pretty fresh as a publisher and I def don't know their whole catalogue. I also discovered they have a specific EXPLICIT imprint (DuXXX press lol) that I may check out at some point.
In the end, I've read a few chapters of Many Drops Make a Stream, and am enjoying it so far! The shapeshifter has a great bit about thumbs (she loves transforming into tigers and stuff, but she also laments that for almost ANY animal with no opposable thumbs then your greatest enemy is a door, so she transforms into a gorilla instead). I like the personality, I've only just met the love interest and so don't know how I feel about her, but the world building seems nice so far. I'm not great with a ton of terms/countries being introduced all at once, and there's a lot going on to start with, but it's still within my level of "I'll keep reading and learning as I go". So I'm happy with my purchase so far, but we'll see how things turn out!
Sex Bunker Apocalypse by Adam Brink
This was in the "Artist's Alley", which was a couple of tables featuring individual small authors selling their books directly to people (AKA my rooommate was in this alley for a few hours selling her book :D). This guy was selling his book at the same time as my rooommate and had this huge somewhat raunchy poster to help advertise, which immediately caught my eye. The premise of the book is pretty much that three friends end up trapped in a sex shop during an "unusual apocalypse", and when they leave the world's changed. The author assured me that it was not necessarily a "negative" apocalypse or something, like there was hope and whatnot and the change is not necessarily for the worse, so I was intrigued by what seemed like could be really funny and energetic vibes.
Unfortunately, the author also said the story is "not erotica", which damn! I love erotica! So disappointing, but it definitely seems on the raunchier side and the opening chapter describes a gal doing "butt stuff" with some rando guy (not in an erotic way, pretty briefly described), so it's definitely at least raunchy. I have not started the book properly yet tho.
Tune In Tomorrow by Randee Dawn
Several cool panelists mentioned being part of Broad Universe, an org dedicated to championing women and marginalized genders in the sci-fi/fantasy/horror genres, and they had a table in the dealer's room so I got curious and decided I wanted to pick a book up from there. At a glance though, I didn't love most the books I saw... quite a few had some clear horror vibes, which I cannot read bc I get too scared, and others when I looked at the back often mentioned a male love interest or other elements I didn't quite vibe with... tbh tho I was judging a lot by the covers, and the one cover that really popped out and intrigued me was Tune in Tomorrow.
I liked the bright legibility of the cover and the sparkly feeling. It's a story about doing radio for the fey, and although it implies something dark is going on there's sparkles and brightness to the cover that, to me, gives a glittering vibe that I'll get into some interesting sparkling world of entertainment. The author also I think gave a really interesting panel at ReaderCon last year and I remembered liking her vibe, so I have a little trust in her to have written a good book hopefully considering she was a thoughtful/interesting panelist.
I'm saving this book to maybe read last out of my haul, bc I have the highest expectations for it.
Nascent Witch by Melissa Bobe
This was another novel being sold in the Artist's Alley direct by the author. She was sat right next to my roommate, and my roommate liked her vibe a lot. Her tabling game was also super strong, she gave little sticker packs to purchasers, had a raffle, and had some snacks at her table, and my roommate said she learned some tabling tricks from her. So I was interested in reading her work, she had several novellas on the table, but they were all horror! The only thing not horror was Nascent Witch which was a full novel, one about a 27-year old heaped with student debt (ack too relatable) who meets a talking cat that tells her she's a witch.
This feels like it'll be a fun read with a good vibe overall with a relatable protagonist at a similar stage of life as me, so I think I'll have a good time. It'll probably be second/third on my list to read.
Seeing so many small publishers, individuals, and organizations selling books is inspiring. I think right now there are only a few mega publishing houses that dominate the market, but there's surprising variety of choices outside of that if you know where to look! I went to a few panels a little more towards the "business" side of things (about agents, cover art, alternative publishing, etc) and find myself continually intrigued and fascinated by the whole process and the evolving industry around it.
But let me get into the panels! So many cool ones, but I'll focus on just a few here.
One Fave: A Protagonist Walks Into a Bar...
I suck at description. I would like to write characters in a void. I used to write scripts and musicals for fun, and in that kind of writing you often DON'T want too firm of an idea on how things "look", because it'll depend on the actor and other creatives who bring it to life. Even while writing prose though I fall back onto that instinct of being like "A character or setting should not have a super set form so that any actor can embody them and any theater can find a way to put on the show". Fanfic is fortunate for me bc people reading it already know what the characters/setting look like most the time, so I don't need to spend time describing it unless really necessary.
Original fiction though?? Most readers actually like to imagine stuff! I'm not that kind of reader (I'm not super visual) but many are, and I am aware my descriptions are extremely light/lacking and lack commitment. I hate to make a decision on what a character looks like. I hate to pin down the look of a scene. But to give a strong image, it's necessary! So when I saw this panel which is all about description "A protagonist walks into a bar... what do they see? smell? hear? how do we describe this etc" I knew I had to go.
There was a lot of emphasis placed on making the descriptions do more than just "show" the scene. Panelists agreed it was great for descriptions to have SOME sort of emotional weight or relevance. One panelist shared a whole list of things she likes to run through when editing. When going through each sentence of a work, she wants it to fulfill at least TWO of these things on a checklist: Advances the plot, characterizes a character, builds a setting, brings up a theme, clarifies an action, and/or provides an emotional beat. This all still applies to description.
They also mentioned POV and how that plays into it: A foodie walking into a bar is going to start with describing smells, visuals of food on the tables, menus etc. An assassin walking into a bar is going to notice all the dark corners, whether the noise is loud enough to mask nefarious sounds, and whether any of the patrons look like a threat. Reaction could also be used with description, it's not just "I was jostled while walking through the crowd" it's "My shoulder's raised up to my ears as I struggled through the jostling crowd" or "I elbowed my way through the jostling crowd, cursing at people along the way" - AKA characterization and action get added while still painting a picture. Similarly opinions can provide characterization and context, like when a character visits a vampire you could spend paragraphs describe a whole elaborate gothic sitting room or the character can describe it like "It was one of those gaudy-as-hell goth rooms that old-school vampires who hadn't developed any taste in two hundred years adored" is way more efficient and relevant and tells you about the POV character and the world they're in (with a lil comedy too!).
The genre expectations are also important--A thriller can't spend ages describing something as it will lose steam, but a fantasy (like tolkien) may do so to immerse the reader. And for a detective novel, every single description is a potential clue.
Overall I loved the panel for getting into a lot of nitty gritty and giving some tools for me to use going forward hopefully.
A disappointing panel: Cyborgs Are People Too
I LOVE robot/android/AI stories. And although a Cyborg is technically part-human part-robot, I still enjoy it as being in the same vein of raising questions about humanity and who we give personhood, so I thought this panel would be delicious to chew on.
The moderator though... he clearly had an intended journey/goal/end-point to the discussion that kind of tried to box in the panelists into his own conception of the subject. He belabored what a robot, cyborg, and "augemented/enhanced human" would be defined as for the sake of the panel, which I think is probably good to do at the start to help avoid too much purely arguing about semantics. However, later he started asking questions about humanity and personhood but kept conflating the two and not really defining what he thought of as different about them: AKA he would say "Is [X] still a human?" but maybe intended to say "Is [X] still a person" which ARE two different questions!! And I think all the panelists had a sense of how they were different, but the moderator kept using the two terms somewhat interchangeably without ever stopping to even try to define the two terms.
Also, I've never read Murderbot (tho from everything I've heard I'm certain I'll love it), but I've read enough about it to know it is about a robot that does not subscribe to human norms in many ways, INCLUDING gender. So at some point the moderator mentioned Murderbot and specifically used he/him pronouns for Murderbot, and literally like FIVE people in the audience and a panelist or two kind of shouted back "it!" (because Murderbot uses it/its pronouns and apparently feels strongly about that). And although later in the talk the moderator used "they" when mentioning Murderbot again, it kind of soured me that this person seems to have interpreted a story about being outside of humanity's boxes and defaulted to putting the character into the box of "male" and likely missed the point of the story. Not the kind of guy I want leading a panel on cyborg personhood tbh!
So I think I disliked this panel most because I had high expectations and those expectations were crushed. There were def some cool questions and concepts that came up, but I felt like the moderator kind of was trying to push his own agenda and had a different goal/starting point than the other panelists and the audience.
Another great panel: Writing the Fight Scene
I won't go into crazy detail about this panel, but I loved it! All the panelists were fun and had relevant experience in martial arts or even actual street fighting, so they all had wonderful insights and stories.
What I liked most was a lot of emphasis on building up the emotional/physical stakes and such more than necessarily stressing about the precise mechanics of a fight scene. Ultimately fights are usually pretty short, so when writing them it makes the most sense to build up to it and make it a climax of a scene which then has fall-out, rather than trying to make the fight the entire scene.
One panelist compared it to a musical: People talk until they are so overcome with emotion that they must sing! And in a scene, they should talk until they are so overcome that they must fight! Another panelist compared it to sex scenes, which is a technique I've also used to write a scenes I struggle with. AKA: If this fight were a sex scene, how would I write it? AKA making it personally relevant, evocative descriptions, narrowing in on sensations and finding opportunities to characterize the character through actions.
There were also some more mechanical notes on fight scenes (and a lot of wild anecdotes on fights panelists had been in or heard of!) that were cool as well. Overall just such a fun panel with a great set of panelists and some good thoughts on writing fight scenes.
Aaaaah there were many more panels that were cool, but if I write them all I'll be here all night.
Last summer I went to ReaderCon (and made a little post about it) and had fun, but my roommate kept assuring me that Boskone would be even MORE fun.
This convention was def bigger and had more things going on; ReaderCon is very specifically focused on ONLY writing/reading and not really art or other activities, and there were usually only 3-4 talks/panels going on at the same time I think. Also Boskone alternated hour-long talks and half-hour breaks (tho some breaks had optional activities like dance lessons) that gave more room to like, squeeze in a lunch as needed and time to peruse the dealer's room. Meanwhile Readercon was much tighter with 50-min sessions with 10-min breaks, often less if a talk went overtime.
At ReaderCon, my roommate and I didn't know anybody. Our bookish friend who recommended the con was unable to go, so we were a little unmoored and struggled to socialize at first. It started kind of awkward. Meanwhile at Boskone, my roommate, her girlfriend, and our bookish friend all went, and the bookish friend introduced us to a handful of various people along the way.
However... I honestly kind of liked ReaderCon a little more, at least the social aspect. I feel like I talked to a lot more new people there, and got a bunch of business cards, and recognized people along the way. At Boskone, I feel like because I was often with a friend I didn't feel compelled to meet new people, and because it was SO huge I struggled to recognize or build up rapport with anybody.
The half-hour breaks were DEFINITELY good for eating, but bc I was always with friends I didn't try to interact with anyone new for the most part, and I would only go to the panel room at exact minute or so that the panel started so I could enjoy the full break. Meanwhile with ReaderCon I would go straight from one room into the other, and so usually I would have 5-10 minutes to kill with a bunch of other people who also are just chilling in the panel room, and then I could say hi, compliment someone's outfit, ask them how they got here, are they a reader or writer, oh a writer? What kind of writing? Where can I read their work? etc etc....
I love making random small-talk with strangers. I guess I didn't really follow up with any of the people I met at ReaderCon, but I still found it fun. Meanwhile the only people I really had conversation with and got to know were one or two people that my bookish friend introduced me to. And those are probably higher "quality" engagements, it's likely I'll see them again in the future bc of our mutual friend, but I still feel like it's fun to chat up strangers and kind of missed that.
Maybe it's not purely the structure though. I just had friends I already knew, so that discouraged me from bothering to socialize outside of them I guess? Now that the convention's over, I realize I maybe should have made a stronger goal to get to know new people.
Oh well! I'll probably go to ReaderCon again this summer, so I'll see if I still feel the same and if anything changes with more of my friends coming along.
Moderation and Non-Questions from Audience
Moderators were NOT consistently enforcing rules on questions/comments and when to do them. The really good moderators set expectations clearly from the beginning that questions come at the end and have to be a question. Other moderators would allow people to interrupt mid panel, sometimes without raising their hands, and engage and just share various comments and stuff for ages and kind of created a bit of chaos or drag.
Obviously it can depend on the panel or the vibe, but a lot of the time the comment "questions" were not exactly insightful. Like there's a REASON panelists are chosen to sit up there and answer the questions--because in theory they've reached a level where we can anticipate they will say something insightful and thoughtful most the time (not always and not every panelist, but most). Meanwhile if we make a free-for-all for the audience, things get chaotic very quickly and the quality of what they share is HIGHLY variable. In the end, most the people who have the audacity to ignore the general rules set out are going to be people that think really highly of themselves and are often insufferable to listen to. And then there's less time for the people who are properly raising their hands with actual questions!
IDK I guess it can depend. One panel had people often shouting out things, but it was a fun energetic hypotheticals panel and the shout-outs were usually pretty short (like one sentence at most) that triggered discussion with the panelists, so I kind of didn't mind that much for the vibe... but there was one particular panel where this dude kept interrupting to talk about HIS thoughts on various questions and was basically treating himself as an extra panelist?? And sometimes he would start to raise his hand, but then get impatient and start shouting out. And the moderator would just watch and listen and fully engage and I'm like "bruh what are you teaching this dude? that ignoring the rules and acting like his opinion is more important than any other audience members is a behavior that will be rewarded with attention?"
There were some moderators who were very clear and set expectations and shut down long irrelevant tangent "not a question, more of a comment, really..." but definitely not all of them. I would have loved a more consistent experience in that department.
Dancing
This convention included dancing as a potential activity! There were a variety of different dances offered, several of them would have a "lesson" during a half-hour slot between panels, and then during the hour of a panel there would be a social dance. There were so many (and so many that interfered with panels) that I only went to two lessons and no social dances: Waltz and East Coast Swing.
Waltz was nice, I think I should have done lead instead of follow though. I've never waltzed but I have some dance experience, and I discovered that a group of people all coming to a reading convention often are not the most physically apt XD. I'm used to being a beginner/bad dancer in a group when I'm at big dance events, but I should have been a bit more confident at a dance sidenote in a fiction convention. I think dancing is easier when the leads have a sense of what they're doing, and as a follow I found myself getting a lil disappointed with some of the leads and thinking "I should have been a lead myself I would have done better" XD.
Still, the basic step of the waltz is easy to learn, and we only learned a handful of moves, but it felt like a decent basic education that fit into the half-hour slot and equipped most people to dance. I didn't do the social dance because I had other stuff in the timeslot, but I would've considered it.
East Coast Swing though....... the instructor was very... loose? We did not learn the kind of east coast I'm used to, but to be fair I think my usual is Lindy-hop and involves triple steps, which I think is a lot to teach a crew, so the simpler slow steps taught here made sense, but I think the biggest issue was the lack of spin instruction.
Like the people teaching it did not describe the spin or give any tips on how to do them. They were just like "feel it, do what feels right" and would like, show the spin themselves. But then all these people who would rather sit at home and read than ever go out to a dance attempted to "feel" these various spins and would like... all kind of stumble and flail and struggle.
Like the instructors didn't even tell people how to hold hands!!! It's typical to have a pretty loose handhold so that when spinning it's super easy to let go if needed and not twist your arm, but according to my roommate there was a lot of people interlocking fingers for their handhold at first and getting twisted in the spins (I avoided this by insisting away from that in my dances lol).
And so the instructors "taught" at least three different spins, and everyone was struggling with all of them. I feel like it would have been nice if they had just focused on maybe two types of spins and had actually described like, what directions to move the hands and arms to make it a smooth spin.
Ultimately I think I concluded that half an hour is NOT enough time to really learn swing dancing decently, and I wish the instructor had actually instructed in some detail.
After the lesson, my roommate and her girlfriend (both of whom I begged to go to this lesson bc I want to take them to my usual swing-dancing place someday) kind of looked at me like "😬 So uh... is that what it's usually like?" and I had to be like "NO I SWEAR THAT WAS SO BAD IT WASN'T EVEN THE SAME STEPS AS WHAT I USUALLY DO I'M SO SORRY, AT THE OTHER PLACE THEY ACTUALLY TEACH YOU!! PLEASE DON'T LET THIS STOP YOU SWINGDANCING FOREVER!!"
Overall though a super fun (albeit tiring) weekend! Would definitely go again. I'm planning to go to ReaderCon this summer as well. I think I'd like to make a goal to forge some stronger connections at my next convention, now that I have a sense of what the cons are like and I feel like I'll be more grounded about it. I was overwhelmed at first, but now I have my feet under me, and hopefully I can go to my next con with confidence!
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Date: 2024-02-12 09:24 pm (UTC)I know what you mean about getting to meet/talk to new people. I have colleagues who only like to go to conferences if they're able to go with someone they know already. Meanwhile, I love it when I get to go to a conference where I don't no anyone or at the most a handful of people. I learn so much from those random encounters over lunch, coffee, etc.
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Date: 2024-02-13 02:01 pm (UTC)Exactlyyy you never know who you're gonna meet! I tend to get anxious about going to new places/events alone, but once I'm actually there at the location I usually have a great time meeting strangers. It's a fun change of pace!
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Date: 2024-02-13 12:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-02-13 02:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-02-14 06:57 am (UTC)Shame on that one moderator for not using Murderbot's preferred pronouns. I need to get around to reading Murderbot one of these days because it's one of my dad's fav series
Anyways I think it's cool how more elements on fan culture and zines are weaving their way into original fiction publishing. I might give some of the books in your haul a read 👀
Also it's neat that the convention offered dancing as an activity! I hope that your roommate and her gf will try out swing dancing again at some point and have a less chaotic experience ðŸ˜
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Date: 2024-02-14 03:43 pm (UTC)I think there are pros and cons to fan culture methods but I definitely think it's worth a try and am keeping a close eye on Duck Prints. I'll try to update on DreamWidth once I finish any of the books in my haul so I can give proper recommendations XD.
The dancing was a great idea to help spice things up, especially with so many talks where you're just sitting down and listening to people talk it's refreshing to get a lil physical, but hmm.... not every dance is equally easy to learn.
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Date: 2024-02-17 02:13 pm (UTC)I would've zoomed right into the audience for the fight scene panel. It sounds really interesting!
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Date: 2024-02-17 09:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-02-17 05:01 pm (UTC)I really struggle with dealers' room/artist alleys/etc, especially at smaller cons or smaller tables when it's like, the actual author at the table and I don't know what to do with myself or talk about and I feel bad for not giving them money. Ducksprint sounds like such an intriguing concept!! Good for them :D Although it sounds like they may need to up their marketing to appeal to different audiences, haha. I also like to have a feeling for what kind of story I'm getting into...
Reading about all of these panels was so informative! Thank you for sharing :D This sounds like so much fun. I hope I get to attend more of these, too.
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Date: 2024-02-17 09:12 pm (UTC)I tried to stop by most the artist's alleys that I had time for, for this convention the direct author tables were pretty small, like only four people per 2-hour timeslots, but some of the authors I think needed to work on pitch XD. There were two that gave LONG rambling explanations of their work that just kept going on and on.... despite me realizing within the first five or six sentences "oh this is not the book for me", I would end up just kind of awkwardly standing there like a hostage XD. Still, I want to be supportive, ESPECIALLY since my roommate was one of the people in that alley, but it's hard to not be awkward.
Most the other tables in the dealer's room were not direct, thankfully. Most were publishers, which I feel like is still sometimes awkward to be perusing the table in front of the seller, but feels less personal when you leave without buying anything.
I hope you're able to attend some more conventions in the future!!
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Date: 2024-02-18 06:14 am (UTC)