Donald and I will be at the World Fantasy Convention in San Diego next week. After years of attending conventions and sitting in on panels (or not, mostly–I’ve been known to attend a convention without taking in a single panel), I’m finally going to be on one (scroll down to the bottom of the page).
The panel is on “Magic and Metaphysics”. Here’s the description:
What makes a magic system believable? Authors and world builders create the rules that govern their magic when the whole point of magic, one would think, is to break the rules.  Is it reasonable to try to constrain magic by the laws of nature?  Bonewitz proposed a whole set of rules based on principles such as similarity and contagion? Is a logical and consistent magical system actually magic?
For those of you unfamiliar with the whole fantasy/science fiction convention circuit, and panels, I sit at the front of a room with three other people, and we discuss this topic amongst ourselves for the entertainment of an audience, and then maybe take questions at the end.
I’m definitely going to be the least qualified panelist, with my 6 published short stories (and 2 pending). My co-panelists are Mark Teppo and Peter Orullian, both of whom have published multiple novels and short stories, and Ted Chiang, who’s exclusively a short fiction author, but a multiply-award-winning one. But I’m excited about this opportunity to participate in an interesting discussion with some more experienced authors; hopefully I won’t embarrass myself too much!
If you’re going to be at World Fantasy, and you like panels, I hope you’ll come! It’s in Pacific 2/3 at 10 pm on Thursday night.
I’m also excited to be seeing many of my classmates from Clarion West 2008 at World Fantasy this year. Our class is having a reunion, and while not everyone is able to attend, over half of us will be there. Caren Gussoff is on a panel at 4 pm on Saturday, and Rajan Khanna has a reading at 11:30 am on Saturday.
I know I’ve been lax about blogging lately, but I’ll try to write up some posts about the con either during or after.