Tag Archives: catherynne valente

I’m way behind with this post, because I’m always way behind. Tardiness aside, I attended Capclave a few weekends ago (more weekends now than I’d care to admit), and it was thoroughly enjoyable.

The first official thing I did, other than show up, check in, and drink, was attend Catherynne Valente’s reading on Saturday morning. She was a guest of honor for a reason, folks. She read White Lines on a Green Field, which is one of those devastatingly wonderful stories she’s so good at, the ones that make me want to give up writing forever, because I will never produce anything that beautiful. If you haven’t read it yet, you can do so here. And you really should. Trust me.

The next official thing I did was attend a small press panel, which was informative, and gave me ideas regarding The Journal of Unlikely Entomology. There was another small press-related panel somewhere along the line, and although much of what was discussed in each wasn’t entirely relevant to JoUE, it was still valuable to hear what other people have done, what has worked for them, and what hasn’t.

The thing after small press panel number one (though I may have stuff in the wrong order, because memory is tricky like that) was one of the convention highlights for me. Sir Terry Pratchett made an appearance as a surprise guest. There was a reading, by his assistant, of his latest book Snuff, which is all well and good, but the thing I found really fascinating was listening to him speak about his BBC documentary Choosing to Die. There’s a link here, which I can’t vouch for, because I haven’t watched it yet. Choosing to Die isn’t available on US stations, as far as I know. You have to rely on the good old internet if you want to watch it here.

For those who don’t know, Choosing to Die is a documentary about assisted suicide. Listening to Mr. Pratchett speak about it was an incredibly powerful experience. According to him, and his assistant, it was the first time he’d spoken about the documentary on his US tour, and…wow. Assisted suicide is completely outside my realm of experience, but leaving aside what he’s done as an author, I have enormous respect for Mr. Pratchett for the way he spoke about the subject of assisted death, and for making the documentary in the first place. He said things that were real, and honest, and touching, and scary, and they were things that needed to be said. Kudos to him.

Aside from attending panels and readings, I helped set up and breakdown the Dark Quest Books table. I consumed delicious Chinese food. And I purchased books from the dealers’ room. While in said dealer’s room I finally got to meet in person Neil Clarke of Clarkesworld Magazine and Wyrm Publishing, and Sean Wallace of Prime Books. Sean was one of the first editors to ever publish my work, and it was a strange, circuitous route to publication at that, so meeting him was a vaguely surreal experience for me.

Next up is Philcon. This time around, I’ll theoretically be a guest, as in being on panels. As in speaking in front of people. This prospect is flat out terrifying. Nonetheless, I will be there, and I will post my schedule when I know it.

And on a totally unrelated note, I appear to have sold a story to Apex Magazine, which I’m endlessly thrilled about. It should appear in their February 2012 issue.