{"id":98,"date":"2007-04-23T10:43:10","date_gmt":"2007-04-23T14:43:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dennisdanvers.com\/?p=98"},"modified":"2007-04-25T08:25:09","modified_gmt":"2007-04-25T12:25:09","slug":"hurray-for-ravencon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/dennisdanvers.com\/?p=98","title":{"rendered":"Hurray for RavenCon"},"content":{"rendered":"

Compared to a lot of folks, I haven’t been to that many cons, but by now I’ve been to quite a few of all sizes, plus various similar events ranging from MLA tweedclaves to Romance Writer ginormous gatherings to marginal CritiCons to Book and Meet-the-Author Events of all species, but RavenCon<\/a> is probably the best run, and considering its size, the most interesting.
\nRobert J. Sawyer<\/a> was an outstanding GOH, though unfortunately I couldn’t see half of his events because I was at a competing event. His reading was outstanding, and the panel on social commentary was one of the best I attended.
\n<\/a><\/p>\n

David B. Coe<\/a> was also on that panel (we were also on the Sniff-Sniff and Mediocre Characters panels together later), and I consistently found his comments interesting and insightful. Edmund Schubert<\/a>, who moderated the Sniff-Sniff panel was also quite good on the Mediocre Characters panel, and I heard good reports on his contribution to the workshop track as well. I moderated the late addition Werewolf\/Sex panel and it turned into a fun discussion of sex and sexuality in sf and fantasy. The panelists\u00e2\u20ac\u201d L. Jagi Lamplighter<\/a>, Danielle Ackley-McPhail<\/a>, and Pamela Kinney\u00e2\u20ac\u201dwere terrific, as was the audience.<\/p>\n

Valerie Griswold-Ford who moderated the Death panel at 9 am Sunday morning was a moderator extraordinaire. She was reduced to a panel of me and Steve White and then a guy in the audience gets pissy and storms out as Steve was trying to answer one of his questions. She proved unflappable. Maybe a panel on ways of offing people wasn’t a good fit for first thing in the morning\u00e2\u20ac\u201dor maybe some people just need more fiber in their diet.<\/p>\n

Elizabeth Massie<\/a>, who for my money “won” the Author Slamfest, did a great job moderating the Mediocre Character panel and serving as the lone woman on the Sniff-Sniff panel. I definitely intend to check out her stories. Her partner Cortney Skinner<\/a> was my favorite audience member\u00e2\u20ac\u201dcalm, intelligent, with valuable questions and comments.<\/p>\n

As for the Slamfest, it was a fun experiment that needs some sort of revision. It also would’ve helped to have a larger audience to embarrass ourselves in front of. I also enjoyed the work of fellow slammers CJ Henderson<\/a> and James Maxey<\/a>. Mike Allen<\/a> bravely took on moderating duties, not unlike herding cats.<\/p>\n

Once again, a large measure of the success of the con was due to Tony Ruggiero<\/a>‘s outstanding programming and organizational skills. I never got a chance to talk to the guy\u00e2\u20ac\u201dhe’s always too busy staying on top of things\u00e2\u20ac\u201dbut he does great work, and I look forward to RavenCon 2008.<\/p>\n

A great weekend. Now (sigh) back to work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Compared to a lot of folks, I haven’t been to that many cons, but by now I’ve been to quite a few of all sizes, plus various similar events ranging from MLA tweedclaves to Romance Writer ginormous gatherings to marginal … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-98","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-events"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/dennisdanvers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/dennisdanvers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/dennisdanvers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dennisdanvers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dennisdanvers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=98"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/dennisdanvers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/dennisdanvers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=98"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dennisdanvers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=98"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dennisdanvers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=98"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}