Dave's Spotlight: People I want to see at Renovation

This is an advance copy of the publicity for Renovation that is being developed by Dave Anderson.

Put Wordcon's Renovation on your calendar for August 17-21, 2011. And do remember that RFF is partnering with AboutSF to run an all day workshop on teaching with science fiction.

Upcoming Worldcons

2011: Renovation
Renovation the 69th World Science Fiction Convention, Reno, Nevada, USA
Wednesday 17 August 2011 - Sunday 21 August 2011
email: info@renovationsf.org
postal: Renovation, PO Box 13278, Portland, OR 97123-0278

2012: Chicon 7
Chicon 7 the 70th World Science Fiction Convention, Chicago, Illinois, USA
Thursday 30 August 2012 - Monday 3 September 2012
email: info@chicon.org
postal: PO Box 13, Skokie, IL 60076

Reading for the Future Spotlight:

People I want to see at Renovation

Illustration © 2010 Maurine Starkey,
used with permission

Greg Benford

My fave WorldCon was 1968 in Berkeley, CA. I met there many sf authors
and fans. The writers, especially Poul Anderson and Terry Carr, helped
me understand how the field was going. Though I was a postdoc working
for Edward Teller, I wanted to continue writing stories and eventually a
novel. Baycon 1968 drew me into Bay Area fandom, so that by the time I
left in 1971 to take a professorship at UC Irvine, I had published my
first novel. Chip Delany, Joanna Russ, Ursula Le Guin -- they all shaped
how I thought of sf.

"Greg is a Killer B. He is one of three parents of Reading for the
Future (RFF)".~Dave

I have so many fine Worldcon memories. A favorite would have to be "my"
Worldcon ... the one in Los Angeles, way back in 1984, when I suddenly
had my own brief turn as the latest hotshot It-Boy of science fiction,
back when I could really wear a fedora, in my home town. It also was
(and remains, still) the biggest Worldcon ever held, by a large margin.
(Alas.)

David Brin

But there were other, quiet Worldcon moments that stick with me. Like
the time that Tim Powers, Jim Blaylock and their gang held a bunch of us
riveted late into the night with stories of Philip K Dick... then sent
us into stitches with amazing, wondrously paranoid fantasies about the
Nineteenth Century, made up on the spot -- "coincidences" that had to be
hints at dark conspiracies... or conspiracies that could only be
explained by marvelous coincidence.

That was when I became convinced that excessive pattern recognition,
combined with dazzling storytelling, must have been genetically
rewarded, some time deep in the human past. Else how do you explain a
shaman like Tim Powers. Dang, I'm glad he's on the side of progress and
the enlightenment and belief in the future. If he used his... er,
powers... for the dark side, we'd be doomed!

"David Brin, RFF parent wrote the letter. Killer B Greg Bear, the third
parent asked for Developing the Young Reader at the 2001 Worldcon."~Dave


One of the high-points of any WorldCon for me was ConJose, 2002, at the
Hugo Loser's party. There was this gang of west-coast-y,
vaguely-Locus-affiliated, largely recent-Clarion-grad people who were
all about my age and in my orbit, though I hadn't met all of them before.

Cory Doctorow

One of the people who was new to me was Ben Rosenbaum, with whom I
seemed to have some kind of weird, instant affinity. We immediately
began to discuss whether the conversion of matter to computronium was
zero-sum, and therefore whether the first nano-scale AI would
immediately set about turning the universe into grey goo before another
could do it. The result was a novella that was up for last year's Hugo,
called /True Names/ -- and a friendship that continues to this day.

"Cory has a Golden Duck Hal Clement Award for excellence in children’s
science fiction for Little Brother."~Dave

As the newest of newbies, I girded my ladylike loins and went off to the
Los Angeles Worldcon in 1996. My second novel -- a modest little fantasy
paperback -- was about to come out. I had only learned that cons existed
when I attended Clarion West, and I walked into the ginormous convention
center in L.A. feeling insignificant and out of my depth. I didn't "get"
fandom at all, and I truly didn't know a thing about how conventions
worked. I had the good fortune, that year, to meet my buddy Sharon Shinn
for the first time, at an Ace function. My first editor, Susan Allison,
was so gracious, and introduced me to a number of luminaries whose names
left me speechless.

Louise Marley

Bob Eggleton personally escorted me into the art show to look at the
gorgeous painting he'd done for /Sing the Warmth/. It was an amazing,
and inclusive, experience. Discovering fandom has been one of the great
blessings of this new career, and Worldcon is always one of my favorite
gatherings. See you all in Reno!

RFF went public at LACon III.~Dave

Her Glass Harmonica The Glass Harmonica won the 2001 Endeavover Award. ~Dave

When I finally got a chance to go to Worldcon, which was Noreascon 3 in
Boston in 1989, I hadn't traveled much. For the first several years of
my Worldcon experiences, I went to places I would never ever have seen
without the convention choosing that city as its location. Even the
first Chicago Worldcon I went to, in 1991, showed me parts of the city
I'd just driven by before.

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

I always made it a point to arrive early and spend a few days looking at
the city. Dean and I and Debb Cook (Debb DeNoux now - she married a
mystery writer she met at a convention) went on a walking tour of Boston
that remains one of the highlights of my travel life. You got a map and
followed markings on the sidewalk of the city to see all of these
marvelous historic places. We saw things I still remember, and would
like to return to. Great stuff.

The convention is always fun, but it seems like one ongoing convention
at different locations. I can't tell you if the dinner Dean and I had
with Julius Schwartz and Samuel Delany took place at a Worldcon (come to
think of it, it might have been Icon or Lunacon), but it was a marvelous
dinner, with great food and even greater company. I've had many of
those, so many that they're all tending to blur unless something
triggers the memory.

Kristine Kathryn Rusch was the Cascadiacon SF in the Classroom keynote
speaker. Dean Wesley Smith is her husband.~Dave

The Reno Worldcon will be the first Worldcon I've gone to in a city with
which I am very familiar. Dean and I have traveled in and out of Reno
since we met in 1986. We stay there quite often and love the city. In
fact, we even had a Rusch family reunion there about ten years ago -
shocking my Midwestern relatives by staying in a place that encourages
gambling (oh, my!). The Ruschs were bad for Reno's economy though - they
didn't gamble at all.

So I'll be in Reno, pontificating on panels, and hanging out in the bar
that the pros choose as their own. I've already seen the area, so I'll
be at the convention more than usual. And I'm really looking forward to
that.

Reading for the Future/AboutSF Workshop @ Renovation

Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Reno NV

9 am to 5 pm
-- Special Day Rate offered --

Keynote address – Tim Powers

*Give the kid a Science Fiction book*

Reading for the Future

Contact: Reading4Future@gmail.com
[sic., spelling not correct; use link or copy link.]

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Illustration © 2010 Maurine Starkey, used with permission

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