March 16, 2018

FOGcon 2018 Report

I attended FOGcon last weekend, the eighth year of this speculative fiction convention and my eighth time participating. I had a great time, as I do every year. It's always a delightful mix of familiar and new experiences and people.

This year (like last year), both honored guests contributed to many of the high points of my weekend. In preparation for the con, I started reading the work of Ada Palmer -- I've raved about TOO LIKE THE LIGHTNING and am still in the midst of the second half of that story, SEVEN SURRENDERS. It was great to hear Palmer speak several times about her series and her areas of expertise. She gave a captivating presentation on the history of books and book censorship that demonstrated she's as skilled a storyteller in person as on the page. I also attended a fascinating panel Palmer wasn't involved in that focused on the gender aspects of her novels, and I really appreciated hearing critiques from a range of perspectives.

I didn't make enough time to read Andrea Hairston before the con, but now I can check out her work (maybe REDWOOD AND WILDFIRE) with her lively voice in mind. In addition to writing novels, Hairston is involved in theater as a playwright, director, and actor, and her performance skills were evident whenever I saw her this weekend. I was glad I didn't miss her dramatic reading of passages from her work, accompanied by music from Pan Morigan. Another attendee shared a brief video clip with the accurate word "mesmerizing".

I found the programming this year to be particularly strong, so I was happy to spend most of the weekend in conference rooms listening to people talk. Writing Sexual Assault was a thoughtful discussion of when and how sexual violence can be effective in fiction rather than a tired trope. The panelists for Acting Normal shared their experiences with disability and neurodiversity, whether they do or can try to act "normal", and the idea that normality is a myth. I was impressed in both panels by how well these difficult subjects were covered.

The panel on architecture in fiction was a lot of fun, with great examples of city and building design in Palmer's series and others. Playing And Writing The Alien, about how aliens are used in stories and how that relates to otherness, was another entertaining discussion that included Hairston's tales of imagining the body language for alien creatures in her plays.

I was excited to participate in a roundtable discussion called Whither Programming? that brainstormed possible ways to evolve the events at this con in the future. I'm looking forward to whatever the next FOGcon will bring!

Good Stuff Out There:

→ Monica Byrne's talk for the Texas A&M Science Fiction Lecture Series, Instructions for the Age of Emergency, examines the future Byrne imagines for her next novel and how it stems from the present: "In 3012, there are no borders. There are no nations. There are no families, aside from the human family. We call every other person 'carnala,' a Mexican Spanish term meaning 'a blood relation.' The average life expectancy is 130 years. The world population is steady at one billion. We roam the earth as permanent nomads, and, by common agreement, only own as much as we can carry--this is why the system is called Laviaja, a feminized form of 'El Viaje,' Spanish for 'the journey.' Those of us who cannot move or walk are accommodated so radically by mutual aid, artificial intelligence, and augmented reality that the very concept of disability no longer exists. In fact, many of us choose to have what we think of as disabilities, and call them 'gifts,' because they are ways of creating community." (Thanks, Jennifer!)

3 comments:

Andrea Blythe said...

Sounds like it was fabulous. I'm sad I missed out this year — missing out on see you two mostly, but also the panels, which seem fantastic.

KT Sweet said...

Lisa, sounds rich and wonderful. Sorry I missed it. Thanks for the reading recs. Add to the pile! ;-)

Lisa Eckstein said...

Sorry you had to skip this year, Andrea! And KT, it would be great to have you join us some time!

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