ArmadilloCon Report

So I was at ArmadilloCon this weekend and it was awesome! Even more awesome than it usually is. 

I was Special Guest this year and had a lot of programming, especially on Saturday, including an hour interview (conducted by the lovely Jessica Reisman) and an hour reading (I read from Network Effect and then answered questions), plus panels and an autographing.  That kept me pretty busy so I didn't get to see hardly any of the other great stuff going on. 

For the last few years the ArmadilloCon writers workshop has been sponsoring several seats for writers of color, and sponsoring guest teachers and panelists who wouldn't otherwise be able to come to the convention. (This year the guests were K. Tempest Bradford and Suyi Davies Okungbowa, whose novel David Mogo, Godhunter was just published.) I think this has opened up and revitalized the convention, and brought in so many great new attendees and panelists. If you want to donate to the workshop to help writers of color attend, or if you just want more info, the website is here: http://www.turkeycity.org/ 

A couple of highlights of the convention:

Toastmaster Marshall Ryan Maresca did a wonderful opening ceremonies speech about acknowledging the problematic past of fandom and SF/F and moving into the future, and how ArmadilloCon and the writers workshop give us the chance to pay forward to the next generations:

...this isn’t just a place that celebrates what’s happening now in all the tremendously geeky and fannish things we love. Nor is it a place that just looks to the fascinating and problematic past of those things.  It is a place that fosters the people who will make those things tomorrow.  We do that with our writers workshop, with the multiple panels on craft and business.  We do that by filling the room with people who want to share, who want to pay it forward, who want to hold out a hand to the person behind them and say, “Hey, let’s go.”

If you are a person who ever whispered to yourself, “Maybe I could do that.  Maybe I could write that.  Maybe I could make that.  Maybe I could be that.” 

This is a place that opens its doors to you.

You are seen.

You are heard.

You are believed in.

And he also said nice things about me and the other guests. I'm going to excerpt what he said about me here because it was really nice and made me cry.

There’s a question that writers get asked all the time, and it’s one we usually have some sort of canned answer for.  It’s a question so fundamental to digging at the roots of any artist, Jimmy Rabbit used it as his opener for musicians auditioning for his band in The Commitments.  “Who are your influences?”  But the question we do not get asked, which is just as important, is, “Who are your heroes?”  Because for me, the answer to that question is Martha Wells. 

The publishing industry is one that, quite frankly, will grind you up and spit you out.  And Martha has spent the last twenty-five years—if you’ll pardon the metaphor—refusing to be spit out.  We’ve had the privilege to have her be a part of this convention many, many times, including as the Guest of Honor in 2002. And to bring it back to my own experience here, she was one of the instructors at the writers workshop the first year I attended, and the year after that, almost all the years that followed.  She’s paid forward to this community again, and again.  I’ve personally had the privilege to share several panel discussions with her, on a wide range of topics of both business and craft, and every time I’ve walked out a little wiser thanks to her presence.  And I’ve been thrilled in the past few years to see her Murderbot Diaries—available in the dealer’s room—get accolade after accolade, because her talent, her intelligence and her generosity have shown us how very deserving she has always been.

You can read the whole thing here: https://curiousfictions.com/posts/2435-marshall-ryan-maresca-armadillocon-41-toastmaster-speech 

Among the stuff I missed: presentations by the science guest of honor Moriba K. Jah from UT Austin. Jah's research interests are focused upon the detection, tracking, identification, and characterization of resident space objects. The goal is to quantify, assess, and predict the behavior of all resident space objects, both natural and human-made. Jah's published works span the areas of space situational awareness, space traffic management, spacecraft navigation, space surveillance and tracking, multi-source information fusion, and more recently the intersection with space security and safety. 

And I missed getting to see Robin R. Murphy again, (who I met before at TAMU CRASAR, the Center for Robot-Assisted Search and Rescue). She specializes in human-robot interaction and human-centered AI for ground, air, and marine robots. She brought one of the boat-robots that helps life guards save drowning people. 

And I didn't get to see enough of Patrice Caldwell, an agent, editor, and author, who is the founder of People of Color in Publishing, a grassroots organization dedicated to supporting, empowering, and uplifting racially and ethnically marginalized members of the book publishing industry. 

I missed the panel called The Female Monk Description: Why is it so hard for us to accept and love a female character whose raison d'etre is not a romance or children, but some other engagement with life, some other struggle or calling? Where is our female character like Caine from Kung Fu?

Here's a few links to photos on Twitter:

Opening ceremonies:  https://twitter.com/longpromises/status/1157445216556802048 

Me at my reading: https://twitter.com/davedwelling/status/1158172178778451968 

Guest of honor Rebecca Roanhorse: https://twitter.com/davedwelling/status/1158046848709472256 

The Award Winners panel: https://twitter.com/marthawells1/status/1157986859118731264 

Suyi's reading: https://twitter.com/curiousworlds/status/1157691324130312192 

Growing the Next Generation of Readers panel with Patrice Caldwell: https://twitter.com/Mexicanity/status/1157684982745374720 

Dr. Robin Murphy and a robot: https://twitter.com/amber_royer/status/1157773015406534658 

The swordfight: https://twitter.com/BlackOnBlues/status/1157694206510546949