It’s been a while since I went to Wiscon, and there’s been another trip in between, so it seems like I’m looking through the mists of time. It was also an atypical Wiscon, because I didn’t do many of the usual Wiscon things.
I didn’t go to the Gathering. I know that’s something like sacrilege, but I hooked up with fellow Taos Toolboxer Chris East, whom it was excellent to see. We talked about…writing! It was during this time that I was introduced to my theme tea for the weekend, Evening in Missoula, which I bought a bag of to take home. I’d like to be drinking it right now!
Chris was hail and hearty and doing great, so it was good to see him. After Chris, I headed back to the hotel to hook up with Yolanda, Dan, and Lisa, the good friends that I travel to the convention with. We had dinner at Ian’s Pizza, which isn’t all that, but is the place to go if you feel the need to have, say macaroni pizza. Then Lisa and I went to opening ceremonies.
Karaoke returned this year, but unlike usually, I only sang one song. I discovered on my first song that while the audience might not have noticed, my voice cracked a couple of times, and we weren’t quite ready for that kind of vocal box activity. Thank you again, bronchitis. Still, a good time was had, and after that, I checked out some parties, went to a reading, and hit the hay.
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I’ve been staying in the Governor’s Club for the last couple of years, and I do like the free breakfast, the complimentary drinks (which are mostly non-alcoholic in my case now), and some of the lovely snacks. There is a view in the lounge of the capitol that is very pretty at night. Julia Rios and I hooked up for breakfast and chatted about this and that, and then I was off to a day of panels and readings. I’ll tell you more about them as we move through the posts.
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Hooking up with more friends is always wonderful. I had a chance to praise Chris Barzak for his new book, and chat with Will Alexander. Caroline Stevermer, Yo, Lisa, and I went out for both dinner and coffee. There were some more fly by conversations with folks. It was just nice to be free and easy, relaxed and see people. I had a chance to say hello to Kimberly Long- Ewing and volunteer at the Broad Universe table. I said hello to Eddie Schneider. Lisa Cohen, who was mistress of ceremonies at the Tiptree, was kind enough to save us dessert salon chairs by the main stage.
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I did hit a lot of parties, but I must tell you, this year Jennifer Pelland is to blame for any anti-social tendencies. Why? I made the mistake of starting Machine just before beginning the trip, and oh my. I couldn’t put that thing down. I stayed up late Sunday to finish it. This was after my reading and checking out the genderfloomp and the parties for a brief moment. It’s an excellent book, but very disturbing. Check it out, but that said, Jennifer’s autograph says not to allow children withing 300 feet of it. That’s right.
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Leaving Wiscon this year made me very pensive. One year, I’d like to go to Wiscon as an agented writer. That year will come, but two “young” writers I knew had agents this year, so to see transformation like that actually makes you believe it will happen to you in good time. Hunh. New writing problems, yes?
And I realized that this was the first part of about a month where I will be in and out of my own life. I feel a bit like a stranger in Iowa, standing in front of this computer, working in drips and drabs while I’m getting ready to go somewhere else. Like I said, pensive.
Next–I’ll talk about readings and some panels. I really didn’t do a lot of either this year, given the social stuff that was going on, but I’m happy to share what I did do.
