Readercon and Rhyslings

[tmcg]

I'm heading to Readercon this weekend.


Readercon_16 Participant Schedule: Terry McGarry

Friday 5:30 PM. Reading (30 min.)
Terry McGarry reads "Threshold" from the anthology I, Alien. A coming-of-age
story from the first-person point-of-view of a member of an extraterrestrial
race with no gender as we understand it and memories/personalities uploaded into
the next generation.


Friday 7:00 PM. Kaffeeklatsch


Saturday 12:00 Noon. Panel
"Twenty-Five Years Passed."
Paul Di Filippo, Gregory Feeley (+M), Terry McGarry, Ed Meskys, Graham Sleight
That first sentence of Book Three of John Crowley's Little, Big is a profound
shock to the reader. For the first time, they realize that the tale they are
reading will cover a large swath of time. It strikes us that the characters in
two classic types of sf stories--the tale of suspended animation, and the tale
of relativistic time dilation--experience precisely the same shock. The world
has changed, perhaps subtly, perhaps severely, and the sf protagonist or
chronicle-novel reader has to learn what has changed. Both types of stories are
concerned with the limits of the human ability to grasp change over time. In
the chronicle novel the challenge to the reader is a proxy for the characters'
limited grasp of their own history (which the novel will ultimately make clear
to the reader); in the sf story, the reader and protagonist are more directly
equated.


Saturday 8:00 PM. Event (75 min.)
The Rhysling Award Poetry Slan.
Mike Allen, Theodora Goss, Joe Haldeman, Terry McGarry, Darrell Schweitzer, Vandana Singh, Sonya Taaffe, Sheree Renee Thomas
(A "poetry slan," to be confused with "poetry slam," is a poetry reading by sf
folks, of course.) Climaxed by the presentation of this year's Rhysling Award.


Sunday 2:00 PM. Talk / Discussion (60 min.)
Copyediting.
How to get started if you think it's something you might like to do; how and why
it's valuable to your own writing.


In honor of the Poetry Slan to be held in celebration of the Rhysling Award, here's "Awakenings: Cryogenic Dream #2," a poem by the wonderful Roger Dutcher featured on the Star*Line Website till the next issue comes out. Roger and Mike Allen coedited The Alchemy of Stars: The Rhysling Award Winners Showcase, which will debut at the con. Yay SFPA. :)

Comments

[helcat.livejournal.com]

In the first attempt I had at creative writing as an adult, long before I knew there was such a thing as even fandom, my city was parked on the side of the Rhysling River.

I'd like to think I was precocious, but more likely there were subliminal signals coming out of my genie connection.

[terrymcgarry.livejournal.com]

That's a lovely name. And so appropriate. I lived on a tiny street in Queens called Celtic Avenue for a while--it was a diagonal cut-through street about half an ordinary block long--and was inordinately pleased by the coincidence.

[stevendj.livejournal.com]

Hah. I've had the in-person version of the copyediting talk, but I should go anyway. (I really need to get the letter to the disability lawyer written—I can't plan the transition out of my current job until I know whether I qualify for disability retirement.)

[terrymcgarry.livejournal.com]

Yes, definitely, on both counts!

I did a version the copyediting talk at 10am on a weekend morning at Worldcon, and expected it to be a half-hour with about ten people sitting around a boardroom table; we ended up with an hour, and a packed panel room. I'll be somewhat more prepared for the Readercon one, and we do have sixty minutes, but it may turn out to be just three or four of us. Which would maintain cosmic symmetry, and we'll have a good time. :)