Anonymous Comments = Off
A quick note for readers: I ran a bit of an experiment with comments to see if turning off registration requirements (even with something like Open ID) would affect the activity on this blog. Unfortunately, all that seemed to happen is that spammers got more comments into my moderation queue than real people with real things to say. For that reason, I’m turning off anonymous comments. It’ll prevent my statistics from being skewed and it’ll make my life easier, since I won’t have to delete mountains of annoying spam comments from my inbox. Hopefully, this won’t be a problem for anyone. You should be able to use any social media account to leave a comment here (via Open ID), which I imagine almost all of you have. Anywhoodles.
5 Don’ts of Panels (and Podcast Roundtables)
I’m officially back from Worldcon/LonCon3, which marks my third convention this year (preceded by ICFA and CONvergence). Having had a few experiences as a panelist, I’ve learned a few things about what works and what doesn’t. The below list is not exhaustive by any means, but it reflects my fairly new experiences as an panelist and audience member. Here goes: Do NOT assume something personal about a panelistIn particular, do NOT assume you share experiences with a panelist because you share some physical or personal feature. Two religious people may have had entirely different journeys. Two gay men or lesbian women (or bisexuals) may have had entirely different lives. Two people of the same race or gender? The same. The problem with making these assumptions isn’t that they are inherently “bad” in any kind of moral sense; rather, the problem is that some of these assumptions can actually make panelists extremely uncomfortable. In some cases, a panelist might be so uncomfortable talking about personal experiences of race or gender or whatever that asking them point blank will reveal that discomfort to the audience. I would hope it’s obvious why this is not a good thing. Many of the topics we now discuss in the sf/f community are not unlike handling prickly pears, and so it’s incumbent upon each of us to recognize that everyone has a different level of comfort with those topics. On a related note: don’t assume vaguely topical jokes about a panelist based on some defining feature of their physical person (race, gender, dress, etc.) will be received as jokes. I think many jokes are harmless, but you really should know what an individual is comfortable with before making jokes about their appearance. None of this is universal. I just think the best practice in cases of potentially controversial topics is to ask your panelists whether there is anything they really don’t want to discuss. And then you drop those undesirable topics entirely. Moderators Should ModerateYour ONLY job is to keep the panelists discussing the topic. This isn’t an easy thing to do, as I’ve learned from moderating a handful of panels. It takes some degree of skill to keep a conversation evolving organically. The biggest no-no of moderating, however, is in assuming you are a panelist, too. You’re not. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t respond to questions if you can bring something to the table that your panelists have not; it only means that you should be more interested in keeping the conversation going than in making sure your voice is heard. The worst moderators are the ones who seem to think this is as much their show as everyone else’s. And the worst of the worst moderators are those that have to be moderated by the panelists. I’ve seen this happen. It is not pretty. Ask Questions; Don’t BabbleTaking into account that exceptions might exist, audience participation in panels should be in the form of actual questions. Most of us have heard this piece of advice before — and for good reason. The audience only gets a small portion of time in which to participate, so when someone takes up 5 minutes offering their own point, it comes off as a tad selfish. I’ve had this happen at an academic conference: one individual went on and on with a critique of a fellow panelist’s paper, refusing to allow anyone else to ask a question; in the end, the Q&A time became “random dude’s babblefest time.” I’m not saying that offering up a comment is necessarily a bad thing, but if you’re in a room full of raised hands, a question is much more useful than a running commentary. Ask a question. If you can, turn that comment into a question; you can always talk to the panelists afterwards! Wait to Prep Your Panel Until the Last MinuteIf possible, prep your panel well ahead of time, as travel arrangements may mean your panelists aren’t available a week before the convention. I learned this first hand; it’s not a wicked sin or anything, but it does mean your panelists can be put on the spot more often than they are comfortable with. Sometimes, you can produce a more interesting organic paneling experience by getting the basics out of the way. I find the in-depth discussions of a topic come not from going over the surface but digging into the meaty beats underneath. For example, it’s probably less interesting to discuss *what* urban fantasy is than it is to discuss how urban fantasy has evolved over time (or how urban fantasy authors engage with the political and social realities of the real world). Prepping panelists beforehand also gives you the opportunity to ask if there’s anything they *don’t* want to discuss (which leads me back to #1). Avoid Making Negative Blanket Statements About XGenerally speaking, blanket statements are inaccurate and crass. If you identify a negative trait with an entire nationality, it’s likely you’re completely wrong; in some cases, it’s quite likely someone in the room identifies themselves as that nationality. This applies to other groupings, too. The problem with blanket statements is that they have a tendency to come off as offensive. If someone says “all Americans are X,” and that thing doesn’t apply to me, I tend to feel like I’m being shit on for being born in the USA. I can’t imagine how it feels for someone coming from a traditionally marginalized culture or country to be told something similar, especially by someone who is not part of that culture or country. There are, of course, exceptions to this rule. Context matters. There are contexts in which a group identity is used to make a point about that group; that point usually implies exceptions to the rule. That said, I think it is often more useful to qualify every statement about a group. Often, “some” is a necessary word for the panel toolbox. And that’s my list. What would you add here? —————————- Note:
The Taxonomy of Genre: Science Fiction as Supergenre
I recently stayed with Maureen Kincaid Speller and Paul Kincaid, two wonderful people whose book collections would make almost any sf fan drool. One of the brief discussions we had before I headed off for my final days in London concerned the often pointless debates about what science fiction “is.” Paul suggested that thinking of sf as a “genre” in the narrative sense is not accurate to the use of “genre.” Unlike romance or crime, there is nothing unique to the narrative practice of sf that can be separated from everything else. This might explain, for example, why there has been so much discussion about the nature of sf as a cross-pollinating genre – crossovers being so regular an occurrence that one would be hard pressed to find an sf text which does not cross over into other generic forms. Paul’s observation, it seems to me, is spot on. Even if I might define sf by such vague features as future time and extrapolation, these are merely functional terms to explain sf to someone who does not know what it is; outside of that narrow space, these definitions are practically useless, as the academic world has yet to define sf in any concrete, generally accepted sense – as opposed to other fields, such as biology, whose name defines itself (the study of life). Likewise, no two people can agree on what sf “is,” with academics and non-academics alike debating the wide range of critical definitions, from Darko Suvin to Carl Freedman to Istvan Csicsery-Ronay, Jr. During this conversation, I suggested that it might be more fruitful to think of sf as a supergenre rather than a straight genre, as doing so would allow us to apply the crossover potential of sf to a different set of parameters: namely, the interaction of subgenres or genres with the supergenres to which they belong. The supergenres would include realism, science fiction, and anti-realism, with the traditional genres of crime, romance, historicals, fantasy, and so on underneath. These supergenres would not necessarily define the genres beneath them, but they would suggest a relationship between genres that moves beyond narrative practice, but never quite leaves it behind. A fantasy novel might be as much historical as it is anti-realist; the former is a narrative practice, while the latter is a conceptual “game.” In this respect, sf would be defined by its most basic roots – its conceptual concerns, not its narrative ones. Futurity, extrapolation, and social or hard science, to give a rough sketch. Of course, sf can interact with the other supergenres, producing sf-nal works which are more realistic than not (or the other way around); this seems a supergeneric necessity, as to define “realism” as anything other than “literature which attempts to represent the world as it is” would not allow for the widest range of possibilities, which I submit a supergenre requires in order to be defined as such. A terminological shift from “as it is” to “as it could or might be” is fairly negligible in the long run. Thus, an sf text can adhere to the rigors of science in its imagining of a possible real future, and a realist text can do the same in reverse order; whichever conceptual mode is dominant would determine the supergenre to which that text most aptly belongs, but the divisions would never be hard so as to discount the cross-supergeneric influences. One might think of a typical Asimov or Bacigalupi novel as more sf-nal than realist and a Jane Rogers novel as more realist than sf-nal. Naturally, this could make things rather messy.[1] In a similar fashion, one might think of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings as both anti-realist and realist at once, which might suggest a contradiction if not for the fact that the rigor with which Tolkien wrote LOTR would seem to subvert the anti-realist tendencies of fantasy, if only minutely. I’d suggest that LOTR is dominated by its anti-realist practices simply by being more tied to myth and folklore than to the Realist tradition (in the literary sense, not the supergeneric sense). In that respect, one would place myth, fairy tales, and folklore firmly under the anti-realist banner. Defining genre this way would also kill the endless discussions about how to classify texts which seem to borrow narrative traditions from all over the place. A romantic comedy featuring a detective could be shoved into three separate genres (or subgenres), neither marring the value of the other in relation to the text. Whether dominance should determine classification at this point is up to debate, though I suspect out of a need to keep conversations about texts relatively smooth and unencumbered one would need to focus on the dominant trait rather than apply a text’s multiplicities. Outside of conversation, an acronymic practice might make things easier.[2] These are all preliminary thoughts – ones which I’m expounding upon while on my train to London Victoria. I do think they are worthwhile ones, though. Expect more on this in the future. And on that note: I leave the comments to you lot. *** [1]: Obviously, this concept is only useful outside of the marketing apparatus. [2]: If one is clever, the acronyms could be turned into clever words. A romantic comedy set in 18th century France would become a HRC, or “horic.”
On LonCon and Thanks
I’m currently in Bristol after a long, exciting weekend at LonCon, resting up, seeing some touristy stuff, and generally dropping the weight from my shoulders. Overall, this trip abroad has been beautiful. I’ll talk about some of that here (warning: this will be more rambly and random than usual). LonCon! I still have a few days to look forward to in the big magic city, but my experience at the convention was overwhelmingly positive. First, the LonCon staff put together a fantastic convention. Though I could not attend every item I wanted to for all sorts of reasons, there were so many incredible panels this year, including a whole sub-track on World SF. Clearly, the con runners heard all of the complaints and concerns about San Antonio (and previous cons) and took it to heart. The international presence was phenomenal, in part served by the location (LONDON!) and by the smart programming staff who wanted to highlight the contributions of non-US/non-UK authors and fans. I also have to say an enormous THANK YOU to the con staff for helping me deal with technology issues. For those that don’t know, my portable recorder mysteriously stopped working at the start of the con. It turns out that my device and my microSD card weren’t communicating properly, which led me to the second problem: I had already recorded a bunch of things with the device, all of which I did not want to lose. The con staff helped me get the files off of the recorder and onto a flash drive. For that, I am immensely grateful. You saved me from an otherwise terrible situation. Overall, the con was amazing. I’m so glad I got to go, and equally happy about participating in programming. Most of all, I’m glad I got to meet so many people I otherwise might never have met. Hopefully, I’ll get to travel abroad for a future con! The Hugos Ceremony Thank the heavens that it was short. They really crushed it down to the basics so we wouldn’t be stuck in those bloody chairs for all time. It’s not that I don’t like sitting down for events, but previous ceremonies have been astronomically long (in the same way as the Oscars, which I tend to mostly ignore, except when the actual winners are announced). Personally, I’d rather get the whole thing over with as quickly as possible so I can get to other things. In this case, other things involved parties…Hugo Losers Parties. On Losing a Hugo Here’s something that I think should be said about losing this award: it’s a first. It was my first time being nominated. It was my first time losing. Maybe I’ll have my first win one day. Regardless, there are so many firsts to appreciate. How many people get to say “I’ve been nominated for a Hugo” or “I lost a Hugo”? Not that many. So, I lost. Oh noes. And while it kind of hurt at first — especially when I looked at the numbers — it really did become less a “oh noes” situation than a “holy crap, I got nominated and I’m in a room full of amazing people who also got nominated and lost and all this losing crap doesn’t really matter all that much because George R. R. Martin is over there and he lost, too, and he’s amazing, and then there are the Book Smugglers over there, who lost, and Justin Landon, who lost, and a bunch of amazing authors who lost” situation. And I tacked on the “holy crap, two of my favorite authors this year, John Chu and Ann Leckie, won awards this year, and they’re amazing and deserving and I shouldn’t mope cause I didn’t win because I wanted these two to win so bad, and they did, and OMG I’m filling up with amazing happy feelings.” That’s kind of the evolution of the Hugo loser, I guess. In any case, The Skiffy and Fanty Show will continue to do what it does to the best of our ability. We’re dedicated to spreading the love for World SF this year, and to our focus on women in 2015. A Moment for Thanks This is going to be long, and it will involve a whole lot of people. First, I want to thank all the listeners of The Skiffy and Fanty Show for supporting the podcast all these years, for nominating us, and voting for us. It really is an honor to be on the ballot, and the fact that the community of voters thought we were worthy of being on the list means a lot. Second, I want to thank my family for their support throughout the years, not just for the podcast, but for my studies. When times have been tough, they’ve been there for me, giving me money for rent, helping me fly home to spend time with family, and generally being supportive. If I ever need something, I know I can go to my family for help. I should also thank Julie and Scott Crawford, Erik and Hilary Vos, and Janel and Johannes (my aunt and uncle) for donating to my fundraiser; Kevin (my uncle) for basically buying my flight to England; my mom and my grandmother for their endless support; and everyone else, friends and so on, who have supported me all of these years doing whatever it is I do. Thank you. Third, I need to thank my various cohosts on the show: To Adam Callaway: thank you for starting The Skiffy and Fanty Show with me all those years ago. To Jen Zink: thank you for filling in for Adam and helping me make the show what it is today; without you, the show would have died before it could find its wings. Additionally, I have to thank you from the deepest part of my heart for being my best friend, through thick and thin, for your advice and support, and for just being you. Thank
Adventures in England: A Primer (Worldcon / LonCon3 Schedules and the Yorkshire Secession)
If you didn’t know this already, I will be in the lovely country of England tomorrow morning. There are two reasons for this. First, I’m attending Worldcon / LonCon 3, partly because of the World SF Tour on The Skiffy and Fanty Show and partly because I happen to be nominated for a Hugo. Second, I have been hard at work on the secession of Yorkshire from the United Kingdom with other like-minded individuals who believe in the necessity for the return of the Ormian Republic and its attending empire (the Yorkshire Empire, as it were). I will be meeting with several leaders of the Yorkshire Secessionary Front and coordinating the process of land allocation and touristic public relations. Only one of these things is true. I’ll let you guess. In the event that the first is true, I should let you know that I may be on programming. As such, my schedule would look like the following: The Philosophical Mecha (Saturday 15:00 – 16:30, London Suite 3) On The Blogs: Bloggers Discuss their Roles in the World of YA (Sunday 10:00 – 11:00, Capital Suite 16) Writing Post-Colonialism (Sunday 18:00 – 19:00, Capital Suite 9) The Limitless Imagination of Anime (Monday 13:30 – 15:00, London Suite 3) They Do It Differently (Monday 16:30 – 18:00, Capital Suite 3) If you are attending and feeling inclined to visit, please do so. Other things will also be happening at Worldcon, but most of that will be noted on the Skiffy and Fanty Twitter feed. In any case, expect more from me either during my trip OR immediately after (depending on wifi access). I’m also making a video of silliness. It will make the world happy. In the event that the second option is true, it’s likely you will never hear from me again, as I am likely to have been assassinated by the Freedom Fighters of Northumberland.
My CONvergence Schedule!
If you’re curious what I’ll be up to at CONvergence this year, you’re in luck because I’ve just dropped a not-quite-full schedule over on the Skiffy and Fanty Show blog! The schedule will be updated later w/ other happenings; for now, enjoy the huge list of panels, some of which I’m actually on!