I’ve been given my Ravencon Schedule. Thought I’d pass it along. Below you’ll find the panels I’m on, along with the program description and my commentary and pleas for help in formulating my b.s. (brilliant satire?) for each.

A Chance to Begin Again 3 PM Friday, April 20th
If you had the chance to restart/change the human race under a new set of guidelines, which book/author would you choose as a blueprint? (Think of H. G. Wells and The Time Machine.) Many writers have formed their own societies—some are considered idealistic, while others are perhaps too fantastic to comprehend.

Nice way to begin, don’t you think? I’m still mulling over the possibilities—Memoirs of a Revolutionist, Orlando Furioso, The Long Good-Bye, The Wind in the Willows, Shakespeare. Probably not the Bible, seeing how well George Bush is doing with that little experiment. Suggestions are welcome.

What I Learned From My Panel From Hell Experience! 7 PM Friday, April 20th
It seems like it is a tradition to have the Panels from Hell every year. So to change things a little, this is a panel where panelists share what good came out of their panel from hell.

As Boethius said after being on a really bad panel, there’s no such thing as bad fortune, since we learn from it. Come hear how The Fourth World was born from one such panel with the help of Rudy Rucker and some really kludgy software. I’ll also share my surefire secrets for how a sweet guy like me can piss off an entire auditorium full of people.

Autograph Session 8 PM Friday, April 20th
You know what this is. Look for the long, snaking line. I’m the guy next to the person all those people are waiting for. At Worldcon in Glasgow, I was next to Terry Pratchett. When Simon’s Shoestore sent me to a huge romance writers con in Ft. Worth, I was next to Nora Roberts. I’ve sat next to some really big names, I’ll have you know. So if you want to drop by, I’ll be glad to chat you up while you’re waiting for whoever’s sitting next to me. If it’s like last year, the table will be conveniently located by the bar. Oh yeah. I’ll sign stuff too, but it’s not necessary.

Revenge of the Mediocre Characters! 4 PM Saturday, April 21st
They’re not smart and they’re not stupid—they are the everyday character. How do we keep them mediocre without screwing it up? Are they good enough to keep a story interesting or do we have to have larger than life heroes?

As I’ve mentioned here a couple of times, I’ve been reading a lot of Murakami lately. (I’ve just finished The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle). If you want to see what a good mediocre character can do, check him out. I try to stamp out larger than life heroes wherever I find them, but they’re tough to kill, you know, like cockroaches. I’m not sure how the mediocre feel about that exclamation mark punctuating their panel, however.

Author Slamfest 10 PM Saturday, April 21st
Moderator has authors read snippets of their work, but … the moderator selects the page number on the spot, gives the author 10 seconds to pick a line or two and has them read them to the audience. Authors must bring a copy of ONE book.

You’ve got to love the sadist who dreamed this up. I haven’t chosen a book yet. I welcome suggestions. Something “voicy� I suppose. Sympathetic supporters to witness the spectacle are also welcome.

The Report Read “Routine retirement of a replicant…� 9 AM Sunday, April 22nd
Killing off characters—is there a new wave or are we just exploring the same old thing time and time again? How can writers be innovative in killing off their characters?

A great topic for first thing Sunday morning when the revelers will be feeling dead already. I often have the hardest time figuring out what dead is in my fiction, though it’s certainly clear enough in real life. Death, almost by definition, is the same old thing time and time again, isn’t it? Seems to me I remember a novel with that title once. I suspect between Six Feet Under and CSI in its many incarnations, innovative killing could stand to take a hiatus? Maybe each death might (ahem) mean something? Just a thought. What are yours?

Sniff-Sniff 10 AM Sunday, April 22nd
Tear-jerkers in science fiction, fantasy, and horror; is this just a romance genre issue or do we have them? If so name your best and why.

I’d love to hear suggestions here as well. If I don’t choke readers up at least a couple of times in a novel, I don’t figure I’m doing my job. Several sf movies come to mind, like Starman. I hear the music, and I have to reach for a hankie! I cried the first time I saw On the Beach. Print sf is less fond of tears. Robert Charles Wilson’s novels always have their poignant moments. Carol Emshwiller’s short stories can be quite emotional. Fantasy weeps often, it seems to me. Stories like A Portrait of Jenny, for example, are wrapped around a wistful sadness from beginning to end. So what are your favorite fictive cries? What does it say about the genre if we aren’t expected to cry over any of those innovatively killed characters in the last panel?

As part of The Big Read, I will be giving a lecture and leading a discussion of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 March 22nd 7:30 p.m. at the Ashland Branch Library in Hanover County just north of Richmond.  If you haven’t read the novel, or it’s been awhile, you might be surprised how well it holds up.

April 20th-22nd I’ll be participating in the second Ravencon here in Richmond.  It’s maiden voyage last year was one of the best cons of any size I’ve participated in, certainly the best small con.  There were about 500 attendees last year, and this year should be even stronger.  I just received the list of panels to choose from, and unlike most of these things where I read all the way through without anything catching my interest, I easily found several I’m eager to take part in.  Tony Ruggiero who developed the programming last year is doing it again this year, and he’s very good.  The hotel is, well, an airport hotel, but the staff was friendly and eager to accommodate all the strangeness of a con. The airport is an easy fifteen minutes into the city where many restaurant choices await.  If you come be sure to say hello.

I will be part of the Appomattox Regional Governor’s School Writers’ Fest.

I’ll be reading Friday evening at 5:30-6:00.  On Saturday I’ll be part of a “coffee talk” at 1-2, and will teach an sf workshop from 2:30-4:30.  The other writers include Tom De Haven, Darlene Scott, Maribeth Fischer, Greg Donovan, Dan Hefko, Elizabeth Hodges, and d.l. Hopkins.

Too much has been going on. I enjoyed my first WFC. The highlight for me was hearing Hal Duncan read Sonnets for Orpheus, one of the best readings I’ve heard anywhere, and the poem rocks.

I enjoyed the easy informality of the convention, making it easy to meet people. I’ll definitely return. I’ve got to say, however, that the suburban venue, especially if you were in the “overflow hotel,” pretty much sucked. This was a pedestrian hostile zone a fifteen mile cab ride from anything I’d call Austin. Who comes to Austin to go to TGIF? The facilities at both hotels were fine, the award banquet expertly catered, and both staffs were wonderful, especially the former tattoo artist shuttle driver for the Fairfield. But nothing could make up for the fact that it was a real geography of nowhere nightmare. I’m weird; I walk. A route that includes crossing two major freeways past two Home Depots (one living—one dead) with sidewalks that come and go between the main hotel and the overflow strains the definition of overflow.

I was holding my breath yesterday until Allen conceded. I am delighted with the results of the election except for the so-called Marriage Amendment’s passage. But I’ve ranted about that elsewhere. I don’t want to hear any whining that the Democrats don’t have a plan in Iraq. You call what’s been going on a plan? The Three Stooges could do better. I did hate to see Rummy go though. Whenever they let him out of the box to talk, you knew things were going badly for the Bushies. He’s a real known known, that guy. But I’m not sure if he knows it.

I enjoyed Capclave. I wasn’t staying at the hotel, so I didn’t partake of the party scene, but the two panels I was on went well, and the ones I attended were consistently interesting. The highlight for me was Stan Robinson’s lecture on time and the novel Friday evening. I was struck by how much smarter his conclusions and insights were than the rather unimaginative panel I moderated at James River Writers Conference in which the panelists clung to the notion that there was a right pace for a novel, and once you found it you hit cruise control and away you go. Stan argued for a much more sophisticated view that encourages a more symphonic variation in pace. His comments helped me see some of the pacing problems in a manuscript I’m working on and has given me ideas for revision—always a good thing. I also heard James Morrow read a bit from his novel in progress, an homage to Frankenstein. Naturally I was interested having just written my own satiric but affectionate homage in The Bright Spot. We shared panelist duties after his reading, so I got to meet him and talk briefly, a very nice man. I’ve always liked his work. In general, the programming was a little chaotic—no moderators specified, everyone pretty much plugged in last minute—but with folks like Michael Dirda and Paul Park on the panels, they still managed to be consistently interesting, if not always on the stated topic. I’ll most likely be back. Next year the GOH will be friend Jeffrey Ford, and I definitely don’t want to miss that.

Outside of the con, Sarah and I visited the National Zoo pandas early Saturday morning and pretty much had them to ourselves except for a couple of photographers with lenses the size of sewer pipes. Saturday night we had dinner with old friend Denny Dobbin who had graciously let us stay at his place.

I will be at Capclave this weekend in DC—the Silver Spring Hilton, to be more precise. I don’t go to many cons, but this one is only an Amtrak/Metro ride away and has as its motto “where reading is not extinct” with a dodo as its mascot. And if that’s not enough, Kim Stanley Robinson, a fave, is the GOH. I don’t have a definite schedule yet, but I’ll be on a couple of panels, as well as in a “conversation pit.” Sounds inviting, doesn’t it? If you’re there, say hello. I’ll buy you a coffee.

I enjoyed my moderating duties. Both panels went well. The organizers of the conference went out of their way to advise moderators to maintain a low profile in the discussion. There was only one time I had to chew my moderating tongue. During the pacing panel Q & A one of the panelists advised avoiding dialogue as an enemy of good pacing because real conversation is filled with deadwood, giving a lengthy example of tape-recorded conversation. What about Chandler? Mamet? What’s that dude’s name, Shakespeare? Who ever said dialogue is real conversation? The words on the page are never what’s being represented there—the description is not the countryside—even when what’s being represented is words. The best advice I ever had about dialogue was from playwright and novelist Jim Pendleton who said good dialogue is action. People are acting on each other when they talk. Every line of dialogue should be a significant action. Do you include every “hi Bob� or “well, uh�? Of course not. No more than you would describe every leaf or drop of blood. That doesn’t mean you avoid forests or murders.

The social consciousness panel was a lively bit of serious fun with poet Elena Georgiou, Richmond Times-Dispatch columnist Mark Holmberg, and GQ staff writer Andrew Corsello coming at the subject from radically different directions and ending up at the same place: Socially conscious writing begins and ends with empathy, the experience of it and the desire to pass it on.

I also attended a panel on the community of poets with Elena, Christian Peet, and Joshua Poteat, moderated by Cheryl Pallant. I always go to the poetry panels. It’s so easy to find a chair. Most of the people there could’ve been up front. The audience was a who’s who of Richmond poets. I asked a question and got a page full of answers. Elena and Christian have a press and poetry journal, Tarpaulin Sky, publishing some excellent poetry.

I will be at the James River Writers Conference again this year as a moderator on two panels, one on “Pacing” and the other on “Socially Conscious Writing.” The Conference is this Friday and Saturday at the State Library of Virginia.