Lessons of a BayCon Gofer: Ribbons & Tags

Last door on the hall.  What a great panel, wish I’d been there the whole time.  Highest concentration of folks-of-color ever–on panel and in the room.  Great discussions.Especially interesting to hear real people—not canned advice-mongers–talking about how to deal with multi-ethnicity and whether or not any individual should be expected to represent their ‘race’ (or really, culture, since race is technically meaningless) to others.  There seemed general agreement that if one is uncertain about another’s background, it’s much preferred to be asked than pigeonholed in the wrong category.  As well as some shared amusement at turning people’s expectations upside-down.

All of the published writers in the group complained about the difficulty of marketing their work when the standards in cover art lean strongly to picturing characters as white, regardless of how they are described in text.  At the same time, they were each somewhat philosophical about bending a bit in that regard if it could get someone to pick up the book in the first place.

Self-published authors have more control over cover art but need to make their own choices to draw readers;  Leslie Ann Moore chose cover art in which her lead character is pictured from the back, but directed the artist to be sure the character’s hair was like her own natural African-American hair, so the observant reader looking for books with “people like me” in them would be quickly clued-in while the casual browser would be first attracted to the scenery the character is contemplating and by then have the book in hand, ready to purchase.

Afterwards, chatted briefly with Heidi Stauffer, a Ph.D. candidate at the UCSC Earth Sciences department who happens to be Singaporean-American as well as female.  She also sees a dearth of women in her field and is politely exasperated by people assuming she’s Mexican-American.     I got her card to share with my Berkeley Earth&Planetary Sciences son.  It’s a relief to talk to someone who isn’t characterizing climate change as something that is “controversial”.

Feeling lucky for the moment, I turned back and sought out the Art Show, signed up as a bidder, and took a serious look at the offerings.  Found two small pieces with “direct sale” prices I could afford and paid for them.  And placed a minimum-bid on one of the butterfly-dragon prints, positive I’d be outbid, but enjoying the feeling of taking part.

Finally, decided it was time to retire for a delicious “lunch” of a peanut-butter-or-jelly sandwich and some chips, in the quiet of my personal car.  Plus, it being late afternoon, I was able to move the car close in.

Back into the venue, for a stroll through the Dealer’s Room.  Not too overwhelming.  Maybe worth coming back later.  One of the people from the Fans of Color session was reading upstairs, so I ducked into that session.  Dang.  Her name was last in the list, but she had read first, instead.  I listened to two readings and started to feel faint in the hot, stuffy room.  Out again.  Time to sit a bit and review the program for the evening.

And am starved.  And it is still some time before the masquerade, so I stop at the little store and buy a sandwich.

I got myself back at the Masquerade hall a few minutes after 7:30, but, uh, it was over bar the judging.  Wow.  Fast.  Probably they started at 7 instead.  Oh, well, I could sit and watch the robots from RoboGames dance about while the judges finished and watch the awards and take some pictures afterwards.  My personal fav–the group of women dressed as Dr. Who villains, plus K-9.  Today was my day to wear my Tom Baker Dr. Who scarf.  In fact, during the croquet game, a passer-by awarded me a “Jelly Baby?”  ribbon for my Whovian-ness.

I peeked into the boffers room briefly, but the Stanford nurse had been very firm about “no strenuous activity for 24 hours”, so instead I hiked to the music room.  There was a Bujold-themed performance coming up.  When I arrived, a harpist and a guitarist were in the middle of their last piece.  Then Diana Paxson and friends arrived in Chalion costumes, explained the concept–she wrote songs using the themes from Bujold’s book, and with the help of the previous pair, Margaret and Christoph, they performed five songs to the “Chalion” gods.  Then they forced Bujold to stand and be applauded, too.

Enough music for now…there was supposed to be a panel discussion on science fiction down the hall.  I’m kind of dozy in the small room, but Altoids help and the discussion is relatively lively.  I’m annoyed to be embarrassed when the response to my question about fiction related to games (one panelist had said he works in gaming) was “it’s sh***”.  Great place to find a closed mind.  Good questions from the one young teen in the audience did get some reasoned responses.  Still, kind of relieved to head back to the music room.

However, on the way, I heard gongs and laughter from another room and stopped in to watch the Klingon Slave Auction in progress.  It’s fun for a bit and nice to see people bidding each other up to donate to the Make-A-Wish foundation.  But there was a concert I wanted to see!  And I just barely caught the last few songs from the Bohnhoffs and feel sorry I didn’t get to hear more.  Maya K.B. has always been one of my favorite Analog short-story writers, but I’ve only just learned what a good singer she is.  Darn, should have skipped the panel talk.