It appears to be the fashion for people to post details of what panels they will be on at Worldcon. Goodness only knows why any of you would want to see me in person, except perhaps to confirm for yourselves that I should not be let out in public without a paper bag over my head, but I am involved in some interesting panels and I hope to be doing some interesting journalism during the convention. Here is a brief run down of the plans.
Wednesday and Thursday are currently fairly quiet, but I am looking to record some podcasts while I am there. If anyone has something that they particularly want to talk to the world about, please let me know. I’m planning on tracking down someone from the Melbourne bid to talk about their plans and what has changed at the Melbourne site since 1999. There may also be something about Montreal.
Thursday evening sees the Chesley Award ceremony, which I will try to cover for SFAW. There are also panel items for the Prometheus Awards and Sidewise Awards which I will try to attend.
Friday is Masquerade day, which means I will be busy most of the evening. I have bought myself a small video camera (one of these). I have no idea what the quality will turn out like, but I may decide to join the paparazzi scrum this year, Failing that I’ll probably be backstage doing den mom duty.
Saturday sees my one ordinary conventional panel. I’m moderating a discussion called “20 essential science fiction books of the last 20 years.” For various reasons I’ve been pretty much able to select my panelists for this, so you will get to listen to Charles Brown, Gary K Wolfe, Graham Sleight and Karen Burnham. I am sure that they will be very entertaining. I will record the panel if I can get permission from all concerned to do so. The panel is scheduled for 14:30 in Korbel 1B.
My evening will be taken up with the Hugo Award ceremony. That means that you will get a chance to see my fabulous bargain dress. Should you bump into me that evening, please note that the dress cost a mere $23 and consequently I deserve a Hugo for Best Shopping Genius.
Most of the Hugo coverage will go on SF Awards Watch. I’ll be wandering round looking for people willing to commit podcast. I’d love to get some live coverage up, but knowing the way that convention centers behave it seems more likely that nothing will go online until the evening. If I get time I’ll look into posting the results from my mobile phone as they are announced.
I’ll also have the video camera available. The main project for that will be to hugely enhance coverage of the Emerald City Best Dressed Award. Those of you who have speccy dresses, please be prepared to do a twirl or two.
And finally Sunday, on which day I am taking part in something rather special. Colin Hinz and I will be doing a live demonstration of producing a mimeo fanzine. Colin is actually doing most of the work, because he’s actually got production talent whereas all I ever did with mimeo was produce stencils covered in words. But we do have a stellar array of contributors lined up so the end result should be something quite special. Those of you who were born in the electronic age should try to make time for this panel so that you can see just what people had to go through to produce fanzines back in the dim past of the late 20th Century. If nothing else you will find out why, when I started Emerald City, I didn’t want to have anything more to do with paper. The demonstration is scheduled for 13:00 in Room 507.
I’ll write more about the ‘zine later when I know what we have actually produced, but huge thanks are already due to Glenn Glazer for thinking of the idea and for providing the typewriter, Randy Smith for the loan of the duplicator, Geri Sullivan for advice and support, and Kevin for transporting the duplicator to Denver,
I’m not sure if there will be a BASFA meeting on Sunday evening. Usually we hold one on the last night of Worldcon, but then the last night is usually a Monday. The decision will presumably be made at the next regular meeting, which I won’t be at due to Kevin having left for Denver with the van. I’ll let you know as soon as I can, but BASFA meetings are generally excellent entertainment so I hope we do one.
Well, I for one would love to see you in person, as I’m dying to have an intelligent chat about the Hugo ballot, particularly the novel section.
Conversation I can do. Intelligent depends on where my brain is by the time my body gets to Denver.
Intelligent in this case means not having to hear “But Brasyl was sooo haaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrddddd” in a whiny tone.:)
Hard? Oh dear.
Have you heard anything about an oldpharts party?
Mike:
Kevin tells me that the Worldcon Chairs photo will be immediately after the final Business Meeting (which must be Saturday). That’s a deliberate schedule change because the Old Pharts Party is, as usual, on the last night of the con and many of the Old Pharts will have gone home.
Mike:
There will be an Old Pharts party on Sunday, but I don’t have the exact details at hand. I’ll write to you in e-mail when I get a chance with more information.