Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts

By Alyce Wilson

Last Saturday for lunch, I met up with The Gryphon and my friends outside Room 409, which was where the anime panels were being held at Philcon.

We all went off to lunch together at the Reading Terminal Market, with The Gryphon directing us to a Pennsylvania Dutch eatery.

He and I had a little trouble finding something to eat because we were trying to stay within our Weight Watchers diet. We settled on a turkey burger without chips or cheese, with corn as a side dish. The only way we could have done better was to have not had the bun.

We were broken into several groups around the counter, so it was a little difficult to talk, but we managed to call across to each other a little bit.

Then we all headed back to the convention with just enough time to get to the 3 p.m. panel. I walked over to the room where keynote speaker George Zebrowski would soon be leaving, and happened to catch him and his partner, Pamela Sargent, walking through the hallway. She introduced me to him, and I shook his left hand, since with his right he was using a cane.

I didn't even get a chance to ask him when a good time would be to interview him, because he suggested I follow him to the book signing they were giving and that I could talk to him in when he had free time between signing books.

There was a rush of people at first, but then they spaced out a bit. I pulled out my tape recorder and would turn it on as soon as people left to ask him some more questions. It was really nice of him to let me do that, and we had a really interesting conversation until they had to take off to get to their keynote speech.

Now just then, I knew that the panel that Tom Purdom was on was ending, and he was the last person I'd planned to interview at Philcon. He's a Philadelphia area writer who's been widely published, both in science fiction and in nonfiction, such as music criticism. He suggested the best time to talk would be right then. His wife wanted to go back to the hotel room to rest, so he invited me to come up and sit and talk with him there.

So I followed them back, and we talked for a long time. I was conscious of the fact that she probably couldn't rest very well with me there, and so I tried to make it as brief as possible.

Once more, it had been longer than I thought it was, and it was time for me to head over to the panel I was supposed to be on, where The Gryphon was supposed to meet me and had promised to take some pictures of me at the front of the room.

He did show up, albeit a little late, since he had to wait until the end of the panel he'd been on. But still, he got there before the panel started.

I was seated next to someone who had been on the morning panel I'd attended, which I found interesting. They had me introduce myself first, and I forget about getting my book out to display. But as the people after me got theirs out, I pulled mine out as well.

It was a panel of writers and editors, and the subject was what you can get away with in a science fiction story. I spoke from the point of view of both a writer and an editor, although I made it clear I primarily write poetry and nonfiction.

I thought it was important to emphasize principles of good writing, which I think are often overlooked but which are essential. I wish I'd had more time to prepare: I might have brought along some specific examples. Unfortunately, I had a very busy week, and once the panel schedules were finalized I didn't have a lot of time to prepare.

Still, I thought we had a good discussion. I even had one person come up afterwards and ask me more about Wild Violet. I handed him one of the cards I had with me about the magazine.

Then I dashed over to the room where Greg Pak had promised to meet me, outside of his screening. He was in the hallway, chatting with Tony, one of the Philcon staffers. So I greeted him, and we managed to find an empty room two doors down. Tony promised he'd ring Greg's phone just before the ending credits so he could return for the Q&A session.

We talked about 20 minutes, which didn't seem nearly long enough. I tried to ask the important questions first, but there were still quite a few left when he received the call, so I asked if it would be possible to e-mail him the rest of the questions. He said that would be fine.

He also offered, out of the blue, to let me borrow his screening copy of Robot Stories, since I hadn't had a chance to see it. I thanked him and promised to get it back the next day.

I asked if I could record the Q&A session, and he said fine. So I sat up front and unobtrusively taped. He got some great questions and had some really illuminating responses, all about the production of Robot Stories.

Then he showed a short I hadn't had a chance to see, which was a two-minute movie he did for Nike, Everybody is Supersonic. It features a runner who's disappointed with his time until an alien surfer comes down and tells him his planet is moving extremely fast on its axis and extremely fast through the universe. He finishes with, "Your planet rocks!" before spinning off into space.

After the Q&A, I thanked Greg again, and he gave me the DVD. And I was pretty much done for the day. Now it was time to meet up with The Gryphon and see what else was shaking.

More from Philcon 2004:

December 14, 2004 - Friendly Philcon Morning

December 17, 2004 - Philcon Stories

Copyright 2004 by Alyce Wilson

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