I must say that the weekend was so lovely it killed any lingering sadness over missing BEA; also, I’d be dead if I had to tromp around the floor of the Javits Center, so there. (I will not, however, refuse kind mailings of free books from those of you on the ground — especially YA stuff. Hint. Hint.) Too lazy to provide links, but y’all know where to find most of these folks anyway, I suspect.

1. I only made it to a few programming items and barely visited the party floor this year — which meant I didn’t get to spend nearly enough time with a bunch of you (I’m looking at you Barzak and Alan and Kristin and Steph and Patrick and Lawrence and Ysabeau, and, well, LOTS more of you — but at least some of you I should get more time with later on). It was ever thus and ever will be. On the other hand, I managed chats with Jenn Reese and Sarah Prineas as opposed to just passing you in elevators, and had much more satisfying chunks of time with Karen Meisner and Susan Groppi and Terri Windling and Midori Snyder. I also feel like I met slightly more new people this time, so that’s always good (hi Kameron and Chris). For whatever reason, I ended up hiding out in rooms a lot (could it be because Wiscon is so big now and I get cranky in crowds? not sure), but that meant decent quantities of quality time with Karen Fowler and Kelly Link and Ted Chiang, among others, so yay. And we had a lovely dinner with Meghan McCarron and the amazing Liz Gorinsky, which was, well, lovely and fun. Holly Black spent her usual most of the weekend convalescing in her room with a cold, but emerged to hang out Sunday night and Monday for hours at a stretch. There may be a few more names that slip into the rest of this, but I’m really unable to do the whole Name Everyone Thing, because there are too too many fine people I adore seeing at Wiscon now. This is a good thing, if somewhat overwhelming.

2. Oh, the happiness of finally convincing the Melissas to come to Wiscon and having it turn out well! I love it when we’re right and it results in the joy of others.

3. Thanks to everyone who came to our reading. I was, of course, way out of my league with Christopher and Richard and new friend Chris Nakashima-Brown (he of the controversial quip).

4. Apparently the penguins in Antarctica lay on the ice with their tongues hanging out because it’s so warm now. Also, I hear Molly Gloss’s new book is fabulous.

5. Panels attended, three. One on feminism in YA, where smart people said smart things. Mely’s write-up tells you all you need to know. I also went to the judging the Tiptree panel, where I mostly tried to suck Midori’s wisdom in through osmosis — they read 100 books last year; eep. The third was the one I was on, about trends and YA. Someone asked that we post the list of books we recommended at the end (I should mention we also talked about middle grade and even some about picture books, so broad net), so here are the ones I mentioned: Cecil’s books but especially Beige, MT Anderson’s books but especially Octavian Nothing, Holly’s books but especially Valiant and Ironside, Ysabeau’s Flora Segunda (which had to be the most recommended book of the weekend), Elizabeth Knox’s Dreamhunter duet (also recommended by Kelly in the feminism panel), Laura Amy Schlitz’s A Drowned Maiden’s Hair, China’s Un Lun Dun, and Margaret Mahy (aka my new obsession). I think that was pretty much it. Sarah Prineas had a lengthy list that was wonderful and if she posts it, I’ll link it, along with Patrick Samphire’s ditto.

6. Readings attended, three-ish. I ducked in for the very end of Kat, Sarah and Jenn’s reading, only catching the final reader (whose name escapes me) — this is what happens when you don’t check your watch on the way to lunch. We also saw Meghan, Alice Kim, Rick Bowes and Barzak’s reading, which was fab, and Alan, Kristin, Lena, Dave and Haddayr’s, which was ditto fab. I missed a bunch of other readings I wanted to attend, including one with Holly and Ysabeau and Ellen Kushner and Greg Frost (much gnashing of teeth), but I sent Christopher with the video camera and he got snippets that may appear here later on in June as part of the Blog Blast Tour.

7. Madison is wonderful. Resolve to get out of hotel more next year.

8. I bet you didn’t know that Ted Chiang is constantly fighting to keep more towns from being named after fictional characters. It’s true.

9. Maureen McHugh is the best. And she has a total yoga glow.

10. I managed yoga only one morning and no real cardio. Someday, I really will figure out how to move at conventions. I have a feeling then I wouldn’t get half so exhausted and overstimulated all at once.

11. I actually did some revision though, so I’m cutting the slack on the work-out stuff. But my last packet of semester one is due at the end of next week and that means I should go do more. Like now. See you next year!

And the evening’s crowd pleaser from dynamic bromantic duo Christopher Rowe and Richard Butner was “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”:

Why yes, that is Ellen Kushner and Haddayr Copley-Woods shaking their booties in the background. And who could have their hands in the air but karaoke master of ceremonies Chris Barzak?

That’s right. No one.

Dear cell phone-wielding business man: You are not important. STOP TALKING.

This is my message to all the people in airports everywhere.

But we made it, lalala, and although we missed the Room of One’s Own Reading yet again, we got in some quality Governor’s Club time with the likes of the one and only Karen Fowler, Ellen Klages, Kelley Eskridge and Nicola Griffith, Doselle and Janine Young, Jeremy Lassen, Susan Groppi and Matt Withers… The latter of whom whisked us off to a party across town, where we saw tons of other peeps like Ted Chiang and the wondrous Marcia Glover, Dave Schwartz, Karen Meisner, Haddayr Copley-Wood, Steph Burgis and Patrick Samphire, the late-breaking Meghan McCarron and Liz Gorinsky — geez, I’m starting to feel like a jerk. EVERYONE IS HERE.* Why aren’t you?

Then our cab driver totally backed into a car, got out and eyeballed the dent and drove off.

Ah, Madison in spring.

xox

G

p.s. Topics discussed included: feeling betrayed by the turn of a character in fiction, publicists, the history of bananas, filking, present tense, making cosmopolitans for one’s parents, the last season of Gilmore Girls, crying, infiltration of certain subcultures, cannons and canons

*And we haven’t even seen Chris Barzak yet! Or Kelly and Gavin, for that matter!