Denvention 3 — Friday, Aug. 8th
We nearly overslept this morning but with a lot of chaos and running around (think panic-mode), we managed to get to the WSFS Business meeting without being too late. The highlight of the meeting is that the Hugo for Semiprozine was killed (this needs to be ratified next year) and the Graphic Story Hugo was created (again to be ratified next year). Montreal’s Chairman was present and will test the Graphic Story Hugo for next year’s convention. There was also lots of changes to the wording of the constitution to include web-based material. I’m sure this will all be up in the meeting minutes sometimes over the next several months.Noon came fast as there was a lot to be done and soon it was time to go to a panel or two.
1:00 pm. Guest of Honor Speech by Lois McMaster Bujold. Bujold has a sore throat but managed to make it through the entire session. She talked about her writing, how she writes, the way she approaches the material, her characters, how ideas get sparked and turned into stories, and her life.
2:30 pm. What’s New in Science Fiction and Fantasy for Children and Young Adults. Panelists: Farah Mendlesohn, Valerie Frankel, Diana Herald, Susan Fichtelberg, Bonnie Kunzel, and Sharon Rowlens. 
The group had put together a list of books that they thought were exception and were either just out or coming out soon. Their favorites were: Kristin Cashore’s Graceling, Cinda Williams Chima’s The Dragon Heir (book 3 of a series), Michael Daley’s Rat Trap (Hyperion has read this one and highly recommends it too), Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother (this is sitting on my to be read pile at the moment), Juliet Marillier’s Wildwood Dancing, and Frances Hardin’s Wellwish. The full list is available at http://www.genrefluent.com/denvention.htm (note as of today — Saturday, 8/9– this link doesn’t work). They also recommended checking out the Golden Duck Awards site.
4:00 pm. The ages of a writer’s life: writing to get published, writing for fans, writing for posterity. Panelists: Robert Silverberg, Connie Willis, Suford Lewis (moderator), Lois McMaster Bujold, and Larry Niven. The authors each talked about how their careers got started and whether they thought they matched these literary phrases of a writer’s life. They was a lot of banter and jokes as well as some great information on just what the writing life is really like when it’s your life.
There was a panel that I really wanted to attend at 5:30 on what to do when your convention needs/has to change venues but I’d committed to having supper with friends before I saw the panel was at that time. So, off to dinner at a Mongolian BBQ place. The food was good. The company excellent. And the conversation information, entertaining, and relaxing.
Masquerade. 7:30 PM. We just managed to rush from supper to the Masquerade without missing anything. Up first was the children’s category. There were some cute entries and of course all were winners. Next was the presentation of the Masters, Journeymen, and Novice categories. As usual, the quality of the costumes was excellent with some in the lower categories showing that, in a year or so, the Masters are going to really be getting some strong(er) competition (as if that category doesn’t already have some excellent costumes and costumers in it). There didn’t seem to be a program for this event this year so we don’t have the names of the entrants, hopefully the winners will be in the newsletter tomorrow and we’ll get them up soon.
After the judges adjourned, we went to the fan photography area and took some photos of the entrants. In the main hall during the Masquerade no flash photography is allowed. I did my best with my telephoto lens and the museum setting. I got a few good shots and more okay ones but the best ones are from the fan photography area because there I could use my flash.
Went up for the Capclave, WSFA, and SFRevu party for a while. Met a lot of people, talked to many, many, people and had a good time but it was necessary to get back to our room and sleep. Tomorrow — or rather today — is another day.