This is just a perpendicular line to the brain

[sovay]

I have not written any novels, so I cannot participate in the meme that is making the rounds of my friendlist (see matociquala, stillsostrange). But this is as good a place as any to mention that my oldest real story, "Stone Song," has been accepted by norilana for her new anthology Sky Whales and Other Wonders, in which I know time_shark also has a piece. This actually happened while I was in Orlando at the ICFA; it was one of the many wonderful elements of the conference about which I have not yet posted in any substantive way. To make up for this oversight, have a picture of me in a hat.




The hint of fair hair and blue-shirted shoulder on the deck chair behind me is David Swanger. About the same level of identification is possible for Eric Van's knee. Taken by Greer Gilman.



Left to right, I can identify Lila Garrott, Patricia McKillip, Greer Gilman, and Eric Van. Also my hat. Taken by Cheryl Morgan.



This is not my hat. These are Lila's feet. That sounds like a surrealistic lyric. (The hands with the silver ring, however, do belong to me.) Taken by Greer Gilman.

Our third night at the conference, I went downstairs after dinner to look for people. The previous night, there had been roaming and music. But the outdoor pool was almost deserted; other than a cluster of smokers outside the door, all I saw were three raccoons and a possum, which looked up at me from three feet away in the rhododendrons, unimpressed. I don't think they were anyone I knew. But if any of my friends were to have transformed into raccoons or possums, the International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts would have been a completely believable place to do it.


Meat pie time!

Comments

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I wouldst that thou had written novels, for then I could read them, and that would make me very happy indeed.

And, you know, your ability to just hang around with McKillip just fills me with envy. Superpowers!

[sovay]

And, you know, your ability to just hang around with McKillip just fills me with envy. Superpowers!

That was the piece of the conference I wanted to write most about and couldn't figure out how to without deteriorating into incoherence. Along with Jane Yolen and Peter S. Beagle, Patricia McKillip is one of my earliest and most favorite (and probably most formative) writers; I read The Riddle-Master of Hed before I was twelve and it is one of the books to which I always return, with different angles each time; The Sorceress and the Cygnet is also important to me. I had been introduced to her at the reception the first night, but of course she had no idea who I was. She came to nineweaving's panels; her husband was part of the same poetry reading as me. (He is, by the way, phenomenal. I cannot recommend his co-translation of Bian Zhilin's The Carving of Insects highly enough: it was my single favorite book-steal from their rather impressive dealer's room.) And after the poetry reading, she came up to me to tell me how much she had enjoyed it. They bought copies of both my collections, which I inscribed no doubt with something painfully brainless, because I was so happy. Many other things in the course of the con were good, but I think that moment was the best.