Back from Windycon

We are back from Windycon. It was a profitable weekend for all of us. Lynne was able to talk to about a dozen authors. One of the authors there and then placed their papers with her. Hooray! Many of the other authors also made positive noises. I am very proud of my wife. She is making NIU a true SF research center. Years from now, this is going to benefit posterity, future academics, and the entire genre. This is one of the ways SF literature will survive into the future and get the respect it deserves.

I was on three panels. The “A Distant Backwater of the Internet” panel was fantastic. We had a lot of fun with our fellow panelists, John O’Neill from Black Gate (http://www.blackgate.com/) and Dawn Kuczwara. It went well, though we were all a little surprised that so many people were unaware of sites like LJ and IMDB.

The Buffy panel was fine, and the Doctor Who panel was feisty. It was interesting to have a bunch of panelists who were eloquent and passionate about their differing opinions. Even with strong disagreement, everybody kept it polite and thoughtful. Jody Lynn Nye in particular made some compelling arguments about the problems of the new series as a family show due to how it relates to children.

Unfortunately, all of our meal plans fell through on Saturday. Still, we were able to have some nice conversations with many people over the course of the two days. We spent some moments with E.E. Knight, I had a great conversation about SFWA and copyright with Jim C. Hines and Steven Silver, and we had good chats with Tobias Buckell and our new friend Allan.

Lynne and I are exhausted, but satisfied.

Caitlin also had a great weekend with her grandma. The highlight was a trip to the circus on Sunday. Caitlin loved it. She was especially happy with the horses.

We finished the weekend with a big family dinner at my aunt’s house. It was nice to see everybody.

Today I was plunged back into reality. I had to wear my caregiver/advocate hat for most of the day. I have plenty of fires to put out before we leave for the Fantasy Matters conference on Friday.