There will be some space-time discontinuum in this post, because it will include a few pictures from a distant time known as…yesterday…
Bobbing Birds!
You can see, at the party last night, the interrelationship between the actual birds and the one on the cover. These were the prizes given for the Last Drink Bird Head Awards.
behold...
Here, Neil Clarke, who happened to be holding the final award, ready to give it to the winner, turned out to actually be the winner! A nice moment.
Here is the scene from the Zoran Živković reading. A great story about meeting God on a train. Existential hijinks ensue.
Zoran was also a participant in the translation panel–the consensus seems to be that, although the situation is woeful with books being translated into English, with wide swaths of practically entire fields never making it to American shores, the situation is slowly but surely changing for the better. The Internet’s potential to bring readers from different cultures together cannot be underestimated. The manga market, and its attendant spillover into a demand for fiction, is an excellent example of a potential global template for finding new audiences for speculative fiction.
Then, the “limits of violence” panel that I happened to be on. A good panel with many different viewpoints: how real-life experiences with violence can shape fiction-writing, how setting and culture can affect the “triggers” that lead a character to violence, and many more interesting strands of conversation.
Later tonight is the Night Shade Books party, the Locus party, and who knows what else. We shall see what occurs!
