Readercon 2024, the Aftermath

Wed 17 Jul 2024 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

We arrived at the Quincy Marriott for Readercon a little after 1 p.m. on Saturday. I was relieved and delighted to immediately get into our room and take a break as there was a panel I wanted to see at 3 p.m., The Works of Naomi Mitchison, with Amal El-Mohtar, Kate Nepveu (moderator), Lila Garrott, Max Gladstone, and Rebecca Fraimow.

Outside our room Kelly, our kid, and I were all masked and we all use a nasal spray: used to be Enovid, now we use ePothex.

I took a break then took the lift down (no more stairs for me, meh) and slipped into a seat at the back of the room while Kelly took some last minute books and T-shirts to the dealer’s room where Kate and Jonathan had set up next to friends at the Ninepin and Reckoning tables.

The panel was great. Everyone knowledgeably discussed three of Mitchison’s novels with thoughtful and sometimes amusing diversions into discussions of some of her other books. Her UK publisher does her few favors with the terrible covers they’ve slapped on all the books. Oh well, better in print than not? I’d have been happy if the panel had been twice as long. Well, maybe not all at once. I visited the dealer’s room to say hi to a few people, many fewer than I’d like to, returned to our room and went to bed.

Later on Kelly sat with three friends having dinner and now two of them have tested positive for Covid. I woke up when she came back from that and we ordered dinner delivered. I hoped to make it to more convention programming but I couldn’t really make it out of bed, so that was Saturday.

On Sunday morning after breakfast in our room we went to the dealer’s room at 10 a.m. and I was lucky enough to see some friends and chat while sitting down. By eleven I was done in and we set out for home.

I just checked Bluesky again — good break for when I get so tired every word or two has a typo — and someone reports there are now 20 Covid cases “out of a (rough) total of 700 attendees.”

So now we’re waiting to see if — at my first convention/bookfair/conference in four years — any of us have picked up Covid, too.

That said, I’m delighted that Readercon takes safety so seriously. They require masking in panels and added Corsi-Rosenthal boxes to rooms so as not to just rely on the hotel’s air filtration system. But they can’t control people outside of that. People travel, eat, wander around outside without masks and since the coronavirus is an aerosol that stays in the air (especially if a place gets stuffy), the virus gets passed around.

We’ve missed so many events, concerts, movies, let’s not even get into travel, and so on because 1) I am disabled, and 2) masking is not required. I don’t know what would would happen if I get Covid. Would I, lying on this couch as sitting up wears me out, shrug it off? Hmm.

We went to Readercon knowing and planning on it being a test for our household of The Way We Live Now (ahem). How will I do? Can we as a family go to conferences? (Our kid is 15 and would love to go to more of them.)

The answer is that we’re still assessing the risks — as ever these days. I understand the want for the pandemic to go away as it was so lovely to sit with friends, even if briefly. We’ll just cross our fingers and keep replying on nasal sprays, vaccinations, N95 masks, Corsi-Rosenthal boxes at Book Moon, and asking visitors to either stay outside or test before coming in. I don’t have the energy or ability to return to my pre-pandemic life so I really need to do what I can to not get Covid again.*

 

* I am in the long Covid cohort who never tested positive for Covid, woohoo, etc.


Times: Top 100. Lithub: 71 More. Small Beer: 101+

Wed 17 Jul 2024 - Filed under: Not a Journal.| Posted by: Gavin

The NYT, not a paper I’ve given money to in years because despite their usually solid work I find them terrible on US politics — did they ever stop prevaricating and just state that Tr*mp lies? Ugh — and can be awful on minorities and trans people. They have millions of subscribers and don’t need me.

Anyway, their latest complicated listicle is something along the lines of some hundreds of writers come up with 10 books from this century they admire and they made a Top 100 out of that list: 100 Best Books of the 21st Century.

I’ve enjoyed some of the books on the list and there are definitely some I intend to read. Hilariously Lithub then published What the New York Times Missed: 71 More of the Best Books of the 21st Century. I don’t know if there is any crossover. So that’s 100+71 books. What about the 101+ Small Beer books? Always 10% off on Bookshop.org — shipping free today.

In the meantime, I’m reading Ben Francisco’s Val Vega: Secret Ambassador to Earth which is a pageturner and now our kid wants to steal it from me before I finish. Eek. I recommend it and am open to suggestions for what to read next.


Readercon 2024

Wed 10 Jul 2024 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , , , , , | Posted by: Gavin

I’m looking forward to Readercon this coming weekend. It looks like we will be there from Saturday afternoon to Sunday morning. I am hoping to attend a panel on Naomi Mitchison on Saturday afternoon and then lie around and not do much. A number of Small Beer authors will be there —

Benjamin Rosenbaum
Greer Gilman
Jeffrey Ford
Sofia Samatar
Susan Stinson

— and Kate and Jonathan will have some of their books at the Small Beer/Book Moon table in the dealer’s room.

I am both intrigued to go to a convention for the first time since Boskone 2020 (what a close escape as there was an early superspreader event at another Boston convention that month!) and also nervous about 120-year-old me running out of steam very quickly. Oh well! It will be a lot for everyone.

Quite a few people are down with Covid so we’ll be using our carrageenan nasal sprays, wearing our N95 masks, and cross our fingers that everyone doing the same will keep us all safe.

screenshot of many titles by Benjamin Rosenbaum Greer Gilman Jeffrey Ford Sofia Samatar Susan Stinson


Added Illustrations

Tue 2 Jul 2024 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | Posted by: Gavin

As things move along on The Book of Love I’ve updated the description and added a page with all Wesley Allsbrook’s interior illustrations.