Tag: conventions

Another Boskone!

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It’s February. More specifically, it’s President’s Day weekend (I’ll save the rant about remembering when we got two separate days, Lincoln’s birthday and Washington’s birthday), and that means another trip to Boston for Boskone. As this goes live, I’m actually driving home, having attended a wonderful convention:

  • John Scalzi as Guest of Honor (*insert fangirl mode*)
  • Daniel Dos Santos as Official Artist
  • Toni Weisskopf as Special Guest
  • Tricky Pixie (whom I first saw last year at Renovation) as Featured Filker
  • Jerry Pournelle as NESFA Press Guest
  • Bruce Schneier as Hal Clement Science Speaker

As with last year’s Boskone, I took my son with me.

I’ll post later in the week with details about some of the panels I attended, snippets of what I learned, and maybe even a photo or two. Right now, though, I’m just grateful that such conventions exist, that I get to go and learn and see friends and make new friends, that my son is interested in going too and spending time with me, and that I’m on my way home now to see my husband & daughter.

What are you grateful for this week?

Home again, home again

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Just some quick notes today.

I didn’t post from Boskone itself because Wi-Fi at the hotel was $13/day, and I couldn’t get my iPod Touch to log on correctly in the lobby, where access apparently was free.

My son had a terrific time, got his picture taken with Bruce Coville, went to a kaffeeklatsch with both Bruce Coville and Jane Yolen, played games with other kids, learned how to armor a knight, and attended several panel discussions (including the one where he vehemently disagreed with the audience member who said that our education system traumatized kids for math and science, which is why they also won’t look at science fiction; those are his favorite subjects).

I also had a good time, and this year I attended a wider variety of events than my usual, including the play on Saturday night (“The Giant’s Tooth,” based on a story by Bruce Coville).

Between the busy weekend and the long drive home, I’m still feeling a little tired, but I should be up to posting some notes later this week.

Bound to Boston

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Tomorrow is time for my annual pilgrimage to Boston to attend
Boskone, to see other writers face-to-face, to get all tongue-tied
around editors (Oh, no, wait — I’m actually planning to try to talk
to them this year, even ask a few questions for a Vision article!),
and to overload my muse with new ideas to write about.

I’m taking my iPod Touch, so I won’t be out of contact — at the very
least, I’ll try to hit Twitter and Facebook a couple of times over
the weekend. I’m also testing my ability to post to my blog by
e-mail, as well as the new plug-in that should cross-post entries to
LJ. I’m not live-blogging by any stretch of the imagination, but I
should be in touch.

Every year, I have trouble deciding which panels to attend. Since I
write across the board, everything is interesting. This year is going
to be slightly different — yes, I will still attend panels and
sometimes have trouble choosing between a couple of different
options. However, there is the aforementioned attempt to be more
sociable and talk to editors, and this year, I’m taking my son with
me.

He’s done the children’s counterpart to NaNoWriMo, the Young Writers’
Program, a couple of times, and he even printed out copies of one of
his books a couple years ago and distributed copies to his classmates
— which means he’s actually planning to go to a panel discussion or
two himself. He’s also really excited at the chance to meet and talk
to Bruce Coville (even planning on staying up late Friday to go to
Bruce Coville’s 10 p.m. reading) and to see the swordplay
demonstrations. So sometimes my choices will be determined by what he
wants to do.

It’s going to be a lot of fun, that much is certain. Boskone always
is, no matter who I see or what I listen to!