Kyell Gold's Blog, page 43

Belated RainFurrest Con Report part one

In which our fox flies to Seattle, launches a book, sits on many panels, and records a live episode of Unsheathed.

It’s our fourth RainFurrest, and in some respects things stay the same. We stand by the Sofawolf table in the dealers room, I work on writing panels, and we record a live podcast. RainFurrest was the first con to welcome Unsheathed, and it is always one of our favorite places to visit.

We got in on Thursday and visited with some friends who were opening up their dealer tables. Sofawolf had opted to hold off until Friday, mostly because Kit and I were to be the main staffers and we didn’t discover that the dealer’s room would be open on Thursday until our travel plans had already been set. That just made Thursday more relaxed for us. We went out to 13 Coins with a few friends and had a fun meal that was charmingly inappropriate at times.

I did a reading at 5 pm, starting with the opening couple chapters of “Winter Games,” which was due to be released that evening. I had to elide one of the segments because it wasn’t an age-controlled audience, but at least one person told me that was enough to convince him to take a chance on it. After that, I told people a bunch of different things I had on my computer that I could read (I held off on OOP3 for the moment). The audience chose to hear the beginning of the Calatians novel, and that went over pretty well too, so I was happy about that.

At 9, we made our way upstairs for the release party, which featured amazing catering from Ashe (with an assist from Sparf). Gene Armstrong, this year’s RainFurrest chair, has been one of the main forces pushing the con to be more writing-focused, and he’s the one who’s instituted release parties for books coming out at the con. He officially kicked off the party and then had to go attend to more con business while the rest of us enjoyed the amazing cookies and crudités that had been laid out for us (the oatmeal raisin cookie bars were an exemplar of the form).

A little ways into the party, Ashe revealed the giant red velvet cupcake honoring my Cupcake, and I sliced it for everyone to enjoy. It was a cupcake about as big as my head, in two layers, and it was delicious, with awesome frosting.

So Thursday went pretty well, all in all, and Friday we just had to scramble to get the Sofawolf table set up. Brer and Alo have setup down to a science, but Kit and I aren’t quite as adept at it, and I think we were finally ready at 10:15 or so. We had limited quantities of Red Lantern and Green Fairy, and those were gone by early Friday afternoon. I’m glad there was such demand for Green Fairy; I like that book a lot and I think it deserves as much recognition as Out of Position. Which of course has a new volume coming out in January. But you guys knew that, right?

Friday I also had a couple panels. I talked about Getting Published with Teiran and Rahne Kallon, which went well, and then I got to do a Writing 101 panel with Rikoshi and Caladon. We had a lot of good questions, and Rikky and I have a pretty good panel rapport, so I had a good time there too. During the day, I got to meet Asher, a fan who has a fursuit with a football uniform; he came back in costume and had me sign his football.

In the evening, we ate in the hotel restaurant and then went to our Erotic Writing panel, with Kitsderwulf and K.M. Hirosaki. It was about as spirited and fun as those things usually are, and it got very academic in parts, which always amuses me: the theory of writing blow jobs.

Our Unsheathed podcast went really well. K.M. and I were a little tired, and/or bucket-influenced, but we got some terrific writing questions that prompted a lot of thoughtful discussion. We addressed questions on theme and imagery and planning novels and so on. We both had a great time and you will get to hear that podcast sometime in the next couple weeks.

(I think my highlight was in the middle when the woman asking the question took out her phone and said, “Wait, let me record this,” and K.M. said, “You do know what all this stuff on the table is, right?”)

On Saturday I had only one panel, on Collaboration in Writing, and that was with Sterling, who served as moderator, and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, the writing guest of honor. I have only written a few collaborations, none of which have been published, and so when Ann said, “I’ve written sixteen novels with Anne McCaffrey,” I kind of let her take center stage. She had some great stories, which everyone really enjoyed hearing, and even if I felt more like an attendee than a panelist, I still had fun.

I missed the Coyotl Awards presentation, but Science Friction, the only nominee for “Mature Novella,” won its category, and buni came by the table to give me my certificate.

Saturday for dinner, we revisited the Marriott bar, which has become a tradition since the con left that hotel. Our waiter was a trip, and if he hadn’t been efficient and professional to go along with his patter, I would have seriously thought he was on speed or something (coke? meth?). He informed us that HE always squeezed lime or lemon into drinks because he didn’t think it was right for someone to have to reach into their own drink. And he approved of my choice of lime with my club soda.

World Champions!

Kit and I debated going to one of the World Series games in San Francisco, but ultimately we decided there were better things we could spend a thousand dollars on. Still, when it came down to a close finish of Game 4, we wanted to be somewhere with people to feel that charge of celebrating as a community. So we went down to a local brew pub and found it satisfactorily crowded with people, all the TVs turned to the eighth inning of the game, score tied 3-3.

Well, if you don’t know what happened after that, you probably don’t care. But it was a fun time. A group of people tried to get some stadium-style chants and clapping going, and we joined in. We cheered the efforts in the top of the ninth, held our breath in the bottom of the ninth (and cheered Jeremy Affeldt and Santiago Casilla as they held the Tigers scoreless), and the place erupted in cheers when Marco Scutaro drove in Ryan Theriot for the go-ahead run.

And then Sergio Romo, the goofball closer who has been Romobombing the playoffs, came in. Our crowd cheered louder and louder with every strike, and when the ninth one landed in Buster Posey’s mitt, the place went nuts. We jumped around and cheered and high-fived each other.

It’s one of the things I love about sports: that sense of unity it brings to a community. For a few minutes, last night, we were all champions.

OOP3 and MiDFur and Sundries

Blotch is busy making the third OOP book come alive with pictures, as detailed in his journal here! Sometime next week, keep an eye on @screwbald or @kyellgold (or why not both?) for official announcement of a Livestream where Blotch will be painting and I will be chatting about the image, the book, life, whatever.

Also! Next weekend I will find myself in stately Sofawolf Manor, so up through Saturday, if you order one of my books and include a note on the purchase specifying the personalization (e.g. “make the book out to DarkWolf WolfDark please!”), I will happily SIGN YOUR BOOK while I am out there. So if you’re looking to pick up a Christmas present for that special someone, or just been holding off on getting Green Fairy or In The Doghouse of Justice–well, here’s your chance. (And if you already own them, why not get yourself a signed copy and give your old copy to a friend?

As Blotch has noted, I will be down at MiDFur and am looking forward to meeting a bunch of awesome Aussies! If you’re going and want to get signed books there rather than paying the exorbitant shipping, order through Sofawolf’s special MiDFur pre-order page and you can pick up your book at the con.

It’s going to be an exciting fall!

Slash Reading Video

Okay, to my eternal shame, the video has been posted. You can see a half hour of me reading coyote/roadrunner slash fic here, with Lyda’s wonderful reactions: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSQI3Y...

(The video is unlisted, meaning it won’t come up on searches, but anyone with the link can see it.)

WARNING: It has adult content, duh. I talk about blowjobs and stuff and there is detail. Oh, 2006-Kyell, what were you thinking? More importantly, 2012-Kyell, what were YOU thinking?

That Upcoming Election Thing

Okay, so people have started voting, and we are under two weeks to the election, and I am sure you are tired of people talking about it because good god above I know I am. So I’ll keep this pretty short, because I do have one sort of important thing I want to say.

I recognize the importance of the economy. I also know that based on historical precedent, the guy sitting in the Oval Office has only a small amount of control over the economy. If you think a Romney-led government with a Republican House would be able to Get More Done, I refer you to the years 2000-2006, which contrasted sharply with the economic boom of the mid-to-late 90s. The latter, of course, were presided over by a Democrat, the former by a Republican with a mostly cooperative Congress (and the former led to an even worse economic downturn which you cannot blame on terrorist attacks).

But anyway. Even if you believe somehow that Romney’s pixie dust will magically give you more money/jobs, I think there is a fundamentally more important issue in this election. This election is between one party that believes that we should treat all people like, you know, people, and one party that believes that some people shouldn’t be allowed to marry the people they want, and some people shouldn’t be allowed to decide what happens to their own bodies.

Look, I know times are hard and some people are scraping to get by. I understand that. And what I am trying to point out is that the economy is pretty much going to do what it does no matter who wins in November. But where we have a real choice, where the President can make a real difference, is in the way our culture treats all people. And Obama has already shown that he can do that, as clearly as Romney has shown that he can’t.

So get out there and vote, and vote for the principles this country was founded on: liberty and equality.

Okay, I’m done.

Getting books at MiDFur for cheap!

Hey you guys! Listen up and please spread the word. If you want to get some of my books, or any Sofawolf titles, for MiDFur in just over a month, please check out the sale on the Sofawolf site. They are going to have to add a bit to the price of each book to defray shipping cost, and at MiDFur, this extra charge will come to about $3. However, if you pre-order and pay early, you can pick up your book at the con for only $1.50 over the cover price.

I mean, people in Canada don’t even get shipping that cheap. So anyway, go check out the sale and stock up on those books. You know, a lot of them are mine, and you can have them signed this MiDFur, but there are a lot of other good titles there too. You can only pre-order through November 4th, because after that, Sofawolf has to pack up the books and ship them.

(Sadly, I will not have the books in Sydney when I visit–they are being shipped directly to the con in Melbourne. But if you know someone going to the con who can order them for you, now would be the time to ask for a favor…

Sydney Meet?

Hey, Sydney furs! On my way to MiDFur, I will be passing through your fair city the last week of November. Are there enough people who would be interested in meeting up to coordinate something? Sadly, I probably won’t be able to bring any books to sell, but on the off-chance that there are a bunch of Sydney furs who aren’t going to MiDFur, I thought I would mention that, you know, I’ll be around and would love to meet some of y’all.

Guest Post: Outlaw Bodies

For another blog exchange, I wrote a post on how furries use their avatars to explore themselves (my post will appear next week). In return, I present this post from Djibril al-Ayad talking about his upcoming collection of stories, Outlaw Bodies. It sounds like a pretty cool anthology, and you guys should take a look when it comes out next month.

Outlaw Bodies: Breaking the Rules

Guest post by Djibril al-Ayad

When Lori Selke and I began discussing the Outlaw Bodies anthology at the very end of last year, the images rushing through my (sf-glutted) mind were of mentally enhanced and genderqueer cyborgs in rebellion against a cyberpunk dystopia, or free-thinking, differently-abled activists refusing compulsory normalization at the hands of an intrusive medico-perfectionist state. I was thinking bodies and all the issues that surround them in terms of control, modification, aggression, persecution; I was thinking cyberpunk, activism and political SF.

The collection of nine stories that we’ve ended up with in this anthology is both more diverse, more subtle, more comprehensive and more militant than my imagining. (I suspect it was closer to Lori’s vision, although no doubt even she was surprised by some of the content.)

Yes, we still have an anthology that addresses issues of body enforcement, normalization, control and persecution; we still have feminist, queer, trans*, disability, body dysmorphia and race issues; we still have science fiction, cyberpunk, posthuman, fantasy, superhero and body horror stories. We do have stories that deal with invasive authorities controlling we way we use or change our bodies, that deal with people breaking or imposing their own norms of physicality and corporeality, and that satirize or lambaste government, corporations and society for bigotry, hypocrisy and injustice.

But the issues that came out in the submissions to this anthology, including many of the stories that we ended up buying, were a reminder that there is more to body control than legislation restricting the ability of trans and queer people to marry, limiting women’s reproductive control, banning chemical and prosthetic enhancers in sport, and denying jobs to people with visible body modifications. The shaming of fat people in the fashion, sport, diet, cosmetic surgery and media industries is as much an assertion of control over our bodies as is a legal sanction; glass ceilings, rape culture, children’s gender stereotyping, cultural imperialism and disempowerment of older women are as much issues of concern to feminism as the rights to vote and take maternity leave; our right to choose gendered clothing, hair color and length, jewelry, tattoos and digital paraphernalia without mockery, discrimination and danger is a deeply political issue impacting on our ability to define our own identity.

We can argue about changing models of what it means to be human, or of a particular race or gender, or able bodied, when so many previously immutable characteristics can be apparently or actually changed by science or by social convention. Science fiction is particularly good at this sort of speculation, because technology is limited by what we can imagine, not what we can engineer, but the real world has examples too. Sport, with its obsession with “fair”, “natural”, “pure” and “above board” competition, is highlighting many of these issues already: Oscar Pistorius, a double-amputee South African sprinter, was briefly banned from international competition because his prosthetic “blades” were considered to give him an unfair advantage above able-bodied runners; his compatriot, middle-distance runner Caster Semanya had her world title challenged on suspicion that she might be intersex, and so have an unfair advantage against other female runners. Although both challenges were ultimately overturned on scientific evidence, and neither runner swept the boards at the 2012 Olympic Games, sport’s identity crisis is clearly only going to get worse once cybernetic implants, gene therapy and transgenic humans enter the field. Will there be similar crises in the workplace, in politics, in marriage and adoption law, in medicine and social security benefits as our ability to modify or enhance (or refuse enhancement to) our bodies become more widespread and more radical?

But speculative fiction can—and as we have always argued, should—also be used to cast light on more mundane, less science fictional ways in which our bodies are modified, controlled and judged. Does a parent have the right to let their small child choose their own gender expression, rather than conforming to societal norms? Too easy? Does a parent have the right to let their small child refuse medical treatment for a life-threatening condition on religious grounds? Is there a clean line between these two questions, with no grey area between? Does the law ever have any right to dictate whether, when, how and with whom we can conceive (or avoid or undo conception)? Does government have a duty to protect those who have chosen (or more commonly who refuse to hide or repress) an unconventional orientation, expression, identity or lifestyle from the morality, judgment and prejudice even of an overwhelming majority? How can we, without banning coarse humor or censoring disagreeable speech, help to encourage a culture in which racism, homophobia and trans*-abuse are unacceptable, rape is never funny, and exploitation of marginalized groups is taken seriously as a social problem?

The stories in Outlaw Bodies do not of course answer all of these questions—they don’t even ask all of them—but they are a contribution to the ongoing dialogue about the place of our bodies, our individual, rebellious, wild, finite, exploited and deconstructed bodies, in an evolving political world. I for one have learned a huge amount from reading these nine stories (and the hundred or so other lovely pieces we received in response to the call for submissions but could not fit within this one book). I hope you will engage with this conversation too, by reading these stories, commenting on them, arguing with them, critiquing them, writing your own stories.

Djibril al-Ayad is the nom de guerre of the general editor of The Future Fire, an online magazine of social and political speculative fiction, and co-editor with Lori Selke of Outlaw Bodies, an anthology that Futurefire.net Publishing will release in November 2012, and with Fabio Fernandes of We See a Different Frontier, a colonialism-themed anthology expected in Spring 2013.

The Tubes Are Broken

We got home Monday night to find no cable and no Internet. Well, Comcast usually doesn’t let outages go that long, we thought, and went to bed.

Tuesday morning: still out. So I called them and got transferred around and ended up on this one guy who said, “Oh yeah, an outage was just reported in your area. We’ll call you when it’s resolved.” I thought it a little strange that the twelve-hour outage had just been reported, but whatever.

Tuesday evening, no word. I called back and got another service technician who said, “Oh, we’re going to need to send someone out.” And of course the earliest appointment they could make was Thursday–the day I’m leaving at stupid o’clock in the morning to fly to OklaCon. Kit can’t work from home if there’s no Internet, so basically if we can’t cajole someone into coming out here today, it won’t be fixed until at least Tuesday.

Speaking of which! I am going to be traveling to OklaCon tomorrow. Hoping to see lots of you wonderful people there, but of course, I am assuming there will be no Wi-Fi and I have no idea about cell phone coverage, so it is possible that you won’t hear much from me over the weekend. Rest assured I will let you know exactly how much awesome is going on, even if it’s after the fact.

Speaking of which, I still need to get my RF report up. Maybe I will do that before I leave this Starbucks. Wonderful, wonderful Internets.

In the e-Doghouse of Justice

Have you been craving superhero stories with a romantic element? Have you been seeking stunning illustrations by AmonOmega? Worry not! “In the Doghouse of Justice,” with all of those things, is available as an e-book on Amazon and Smashwords, and will be available soon on BN.com and iTunes.

If you are going to Smashwords, use coupon code FE92Q. This will bring the price down to what it is on Amazon. Because Amazon price-matches, and I can’t control when other sites discount the books (hi, Google), I put the book up on Smashwords at a 20% premium, anticipating distribution to other sites. Fortunately, Smashwords allows me to make a coupon that will get you the book at the Amazon/BN/iTunes price, so anyway. There you go.

I’m trying out Smashwords to get my books to some of the sites I don’t currently distribute to (or distribute to spottily, like Kobo). If this book works well, I will start uploading others.

FE92Q