In February, I attended the Boskone 60 SciFi conference in Boston. I’ve attended Boskone in the past, but this time I did so as both an author and a participant. I read from Stirrings alongside Suzanne Palmer. The readng was very well received, and it was fun to have such an attentive audience for this new author. Later, I was a panel member on “Murder, Mystery, and Mayhem in Film & TV.” As an oral story teller, I had fun demonstrating how modern media takes its cues from ancient story telling … with a few demonstrations which seemed to give a fellow panelist a few shivers. Well, maybe I was out of practice, as the audience didn’t run screaming out of the room (I have scared a few people in the past, and some have wondered if my tall tales – particularly the ones about murder – were true – all of which I take as a compliment). Maybe one day I’ll write down my tales where we’re all glad that cockroaches are still around, and why it might not be a good idea to be out on a Yorkshire Moor in the middle of winter.
The next day I was on a panel related to Climate Change and how it is handled in science fiction. Since I know a little bit about complex modeling (well, I’ve done quite a bit of it), and have interacted professionally in the area with climatologists, and climate deniers, I can tell you quite a few things are often got wrong. For example, climate is not weather – weather rides on climate, and swings around its decadal averages (one way of looking at the differences). Problem is those swings can get pretty crazy, making crop growing even less predictable … so where does the world go to ensure it’s food supply? Water supply? Power etc. Well, lots of interesting things to play on scifi.
I also went to Arisia 2023 in January, but not as a participant. The best part was meeting other authors. If you’re an aspiring author, nothing better than meeting others!