Anticiption – Day 2
I started the Friday off by catching a great session on writing across genres and the troubles it can often entail. The panel (which included James Patrick Kelly and Michael Swanwick) was full of great anecdotes of times they tried tocross or merge genres only to raise debate among their publishers as to whether or not the story is publishable considering potential issues around promotion, cover art, section placement and the worry of alienating the authors fans/followers with an out of genre title. All of these considerations usually add up to one conclusion, bad economics for the publisher and a story often rejected. The panel also discussed the fear many writers have of being pigeon-holed into one genre and henceforth only able to get recognition and published in that genre.  One panelist made the excellent point that Michael Chabon won a Pulitzer before going on to win a Hugo. If he had won the Hugo first, chances are he would have been labelled a sci-fi writer and have not even been considered for the Pulitzer.
Over the course of the day back in the dealers room, we had probably our busiest afternoon of the Con with swarms of people coming through and thankfully buying lots of books (always a good thing!). By the end of the day, I had already put out the majority of the back-up stock I had brought to fill the gaps. One excellent contact that we made was getting to meet the head of The Merril Collection of Science Fiction, Speculation and Fantasy, a special collection of over 68,000 items housed at the Toronto Public Library. We ended up chatting with her for a while and got a good understanding of the collection and what they are often looking to purchase.
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The second session I was able to take in was called The New Media and was by far the most dynamic panel I saw at the Worldcon. However, with panelists like Melissa Auf der Maur, Neil Gaiman, Ellen Kushner, Tobias Buckell, Steven R. Boyett, and Cory Doctorow, how could it go wrong!Â
(Thanks to Amy for getting such a great shot)
The discussion mainly revolved around the impact of new media forms on storytelling and its effect on artists and their work.  I thought that Melissa Auf Der Maur brought an incredible amount of insight to the discussion and balanced the perspectives of the authors. Gaiman and Doctorow had a playful back and forth when discussing how they write and edit their stories (Gaiman with the traditional pen & paper vs. Doctorow’s digital wizardry).  The most amazing part of the session was how the panel, which at times appeared to have almost diametrically opposed personalities and styles, came to a general consensus on the value and opportunity of using the variety of media avenues available to tell their story. The one message that resonated the most with me was Melissa’s description of how, despite already using music, video, and graphic art to tell her stories, she is still seeking the perfect media form to share a beautiful dream/vision she once had years ago and sees many artists chasing media forms that will tell the story as closely as possible to how they’ve envisioned it. Two other excellent blogposts on the session can be found here and here.
I finished the day off by attending the Prometheus Awards, an award given annually by the Libertarian Futurist Society to the best libertarian science fiction novel.  Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother was the winner this year and Doctorow gave an excellent acceptance speech. He also found himself one gold coin richer 
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Still waiting for him to post it on Boing Boing!