Readercon report

Readercon was wonderful. It was hands down the best con I have attended so far (out of a small sample, but I think it counts nonetheless).

PSA: If you have any pictures of me from Readercon, please do not post them online without my permission. Due to privacy issues, please do not put pictures of me on Facebook! Thanks.

Highlights of the con included:
-Seeing my terrific friends
-the awesome Alex Dally Macfarlane ( alankria ), who helped me navigate the con and made sure I was fed with Rose-appropriate foods and not lost.
-Meeting many online friends in the flesh for the first time! YAY
-Meeting so many wonderful new people, too many to list!
-panels, lovely wonderful panels, most of which I shared with Sabrina Vourvoulias, and this was a joy.
-Sociolinguistics panel in particular was a smashing success - it was packed (standing room only, and people could not get in). The panelists Anil Menon, Alex Dally MacFarlane, Sabrina Vourvoulias, and John Chu were outstanding. I am planning to do a follow-up panel next year.
-the con (to me) felt friendly to non-binary people; a few attendees asked me about my pronouns. This was lovely, and it was such a relief to drop my guard a little on that score.
-the con felt safe to me.
-the Mythic Poetry reading - I read "I will show you a single treasure from the treasures of Shah Niyaz," which, as I suspected, was extremely powerful - I am not saying this for the purposes of ego-boosting, because I was ever only a vehicle for this poem's power. By the end I could hardly stay upright, I was shaking so hard. It was very well received. At the same reading, I loved work by Sam Henderson, Lisa Bradley, and... well, everybody else :D IT was a terrific reading.
- At the open mic reading, I read "Baba Yaga tries to donate money" and people thought it was funny. I am glad, because I was blurry by that time.
- My Sunday reading at 9AM - I was sure I would have 1-2 people in the audience, but it was pretty full with people I knew and people I did not know (!!!) - I read from Bridgers. It seems to have gone well.
- readings by Greer Gilman ( nineweaving ), Sonya Taaffe ( sovay ), and C.S.E. Cooney ( csecooney ) were terrific. I wish I could attend more readings, but my aural processing was shot to hell.
- people seem to have read my "Care and Feeding" post, and though I ended up hugging a lot of people, I did not feel ambushed by touch as I so often do at cons. Between this and Alex's help, I was less disoriented/dizzy than usual at cons.
- Con organizers were very understanding of issues, and when I had to beg off one panel due to complete crash, there was no problem whatsoever. Thanks, rosefox !
-Breakfast buffet at Summer Winter - this was probably the best breakfast buffet I ever had.
-nobody ridiculed my accent

Lowlights:
-Travel to Boston was eventful; I was lucky to be only 8hrs delayed, not stranded altogether.
-Certain accessibility issues at the con that had to do mainly with food, and lack of a lobby (chairs were not always available in the corridor either). Overall most everything went smoothly for me because my friends took care of me. I ate Rose-appropriate foods and felt better than usual at cons.
-pain, dizziness, sensory issues - all better than during other cons, but I still had pain, dizziness, and sensory issues.
- was overbooked for panels, though I loved them all. I begged off the last panel (could not have been able to do it physically), but also I think that I should have begged off the Realism panel; I felt physically awful by that panel and not sure I made any sense beyond the Dostoyevsky line. This is something to remember for the future.
- Not enough time with Sonya Taaffe and so many other friends I was hoping to have tea/lunch/chats with.
-I was unable to attend any parties due to spoons and sensory overwhelm. This is normal.

Bottomline: I loved Readercon! It was a very well put together, worthwhile, satisfying con that was not perfect, but felt safe and welcoming. I plan to be back next year.