4th Street Fantasy Conversation
Tuesday, July 5th, 2011 10:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lizvogelSo, 4th Street was last weekend. It was awesome.
We started off with the writers' seminar. Lois McMaster Bujold, Patricia Wrede, and Elizabeth Bear talking about everything from beta-readers to accountants -- what more could an aspiring author want? TBH, it didn't tell me all that much that I didn't already know, but it did confirm an awful lot of things I'd been strongly suspecting. Ultimately, it all boils down to finding the right people for your support network. There may be some learning curve involved, but part of being the right people is being willing and able to do that learning.
Met some interesting folks during the luncheon, which I'm sure is part of why they set it up that way. Don't know if anything will develop out of that, we shall see, but it was nice to talk to some people in more-or-less the same boat.
The con itself started up Friday afternoon, and pretty much kept going non-stop through Sunday. It's been a long time since I've been at a panel with that high a level of discourse, never mind an entire convention. A bunch of very smart, very well-read people having serious discussions without ever losing sight of their senses of humor -- fabulous. Everybody brought their A game and kept playing it all weekend; in fact, it seemed to be their default setting. I actually had to skip one panel, not because I wasn't interested, but because my brain was so thinking-saturated that I was literally losing the ability to parse complete sentences. The single-track programming schedule fostered a real sense of involvement throughout, as did the attitude that while the panelists are there to kick the topic off and keep it moving, audience participation is just as important. (The organizers also sensibly scheduled in time for things like food, sleep, and the limitations of the human bladder; very clever folks, these.) The panel topics were generally interesting, and even the ones that might not have sounded like my cup of tea on paper turned out to be fascinating once they got going.
In fact, it was a low-key but very well-run con overall. The con suite was small but very well stocked, with some seriously yummy chow. (Man, those brownies!) The Sunday brunch was very fine. Information was distributed clearly and effectively. (Probably helped to have most of the con in one place most of the time.)
The best part, however, wasn't something that could be scheduled or planned. 4th Street is a very small, mostly-local con, and most of the attendees have known each other forever. You never know what you're going to get, walking new into a situation like that; people can be cliquish and exclusionary to newcomers, sometimes without meaning to or even realizing it. But not so here. Everyone at 4th Street was extremely friendly and welcoming. And not just during panels and organized events; I've never seen so many conversation circles in a con suite open up so fast to include new faces. And they were conversations worth joining, whether about books or rock-climbing or pets or How To Spot A Minnesotan.
Overall, I had a fantastic time, I left wanting more, and I'm definitely planning on going back next year.
We started off with the writers' seminar. Lois McMaster Bujold, Patricia Wrede, and Elizabeth Bear talking about everything from beta-readers to accountants -- what more could an aspiring author want? TBH, it didn't tell me all that much that I didn't already know, but it did confirm an awful lot of things I'd been strongly suspecting. Ultimately, it all boils down to finding the right people for your support network. There may be some learning curve involved, but part of being the right people is being willing and able to do that learning.
Met some interesting folks during the luncheon, which I'm sure is part of why they set it up that way. Don't know if anything will develop out of that, we shall see, but it was nice to talk to some people in more-or-less the same boat.
The con itself started up Friday afternoon, and pretty much kept going non-stop through Sunday. It's been a long time since I've been at a panel with that high a level of discourse, never mind an entire convention. A bunch of very smart, very well-read people having serious discussions without ever losing sight of their senses of humor -- fabulous. Everybody brought their A game and kept playing it all weekend; in fact, it seemed to be their default setting. I actually had to skip one panel, not because I wasn't interested, but because my brain was so thinking-saturated that I was literally losing the ability to parse complete sentences. The single-track programming schedule fostered a real sense of involvement throughout, as did the attitude that while the panelists are there to kick the topic off and keep it moving, audience participation is just as important. (The organizers also sensibly scheduled in time for things like food, sleep, and the limitations of the human bladder; very clever folks, these.) The panel topics were generally interesting, and even the ones that might not have sounded like my cup of tea on paper turned out to be fascinating once they got going.
In fact, it was a low-key but very well-run con overall. The con suite was small but very well stocked, with some seriously yummy chow. (Man, those brownies!) The Sunday brunch was very fine. Information was distributed clearly and effectively. (Probably helped to have most of the con in one place most of the time.)
The best part, however, wasn't something that could be scheduled or planned. 4th Street is a very small, mostly-local con, and most of the attendees have known each other forever. You never know what you're going to get, walking new into a situation like that; people can be cliquish and exclusionary to newcomers, sometimes without meaning to or even realizing it. But not so here. Everyone at 4th Street was extremely friendly and welcoming. And not just during panels and organized events; I've never seen so many conversation circles in a con suite open up so fast to include new faces. And they were conversations worth joining, whether about books or rock-climbing or pets or How To Spot A Minnesotan.
Overall, I had a fantastic time, I left wanting more, and I'm definitely planning on going back next year.
