| Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf-lovers,rec.arts.books
Path: decwrl!labrea!rutgers!mit-eddie!zermelo
Subject: Readercon 2
Posted: 12 Oct 88 19:36:48 GMT
Organization: MIT, EE/CS Computer Facilities, Cambridge, MA
Xref: decwrl rec.arts.sf-lovers:19685 rec.arts.books:4657
Up-front confession: This is a convention announcement. If the
following looks like long-winded propaganda, it's only because we (the
committee orga- nizing the convention) felt a need to expound some of
the motivating ideas behind Readercon in a non-perfunctory way. (Also
it's a small convention and we could really use more members!;^)
You're of course free to use `n' if you find it annoying, or to
respond to the polemics while ignoring the actual convention.
The following is excerpted from our upcoming program book; below that
are the convention details (including planned panels) for anyone interested:
"Transcending Genre (What We're All About)"
by Robert Colby
Readercon is more or less what its name makes it out to be, a
conference that explores the different areas of imaginative literature
*as* literature, and one which does not confine its definition of that
literature to that which is published and marketed as SF, fantasy, or
horror. What I'd like to talk about are the ways in which we'd like
to *expand* our appeal.
How so? In a just world, who would you *really* expect to see on
the same book-rack, J.G. Ballard and Edgar Rice Burroughs, or J.G.
Ballard and William S. Burroughs? Philip K. Dick and John Norman, or
Philip K. Dick and Franz Kafka? Gene Wolfe and Jerry Pournelle, or
Gene Wolfe and Jorge Luis Borges? Those who look at things mostly in
terms of categories and traditions will opt for the former groupings
(they get sold in the "SF/Fantasy" rack, are brought out by the same
imprints, and may well have been published in the same maga- zines);
those who judge writers by their *vision* will see a higher logic in
the latter.
The problem here is that SF/Fantasy conventions, to date, have
been run as though the works of people like Burroughs (William S.),
Pynchon, Kafka, Borges, et al. either didn't exist (not part of the
gang, after all), or were not relevant to matters at hand. Worse
still is how we see the readers of such authors. Although they're
reading some of the most genuinely *imagina- tive* world literature of
the past and present, many SF people see them as `mundanes': no
better than Judith Krantz fans, pale and dull creatures com- pared to
the enlightened minds lapping up this week's hot trilogy. What
offends me about all this (and I do understand how this ghetto mentality
developed, believe me) is that I could easily have been one of them.
Had I not stumbled into the reading of SF and fantasy in early
adolescence, I doubt very much that I would have ended up reading
mostly best-sellers or spy thrillers. I probably would have
concentrated on writers like Kafka, Poe, and Orwell, as well as the
better realist writers. Eventually someone would have turned me on to
Wolfe, or Delany, or LeGuin, or some such. And when I went over to
that "Science Fiction/Fantasy" rack looking for another injection of
this strange new substance, what do you think I'd have found?
Unless I was especially lucky that day, I would have been
assaulted by the collective marketing schemes of an industry seemingly
determined to convince the casual browser that nothing of interest to
an intelligent adult could pos- sibly be found beneath these covers.
I would likely have written off my expe- rience as an isolated
exception to the rule. And that would have been unfair to a fair
portion of what was on display that day, and would have robbed me of
some reading experiences that no literate person should be deprived of.
If this could easily have happened to me, then how many demanding,
critical readers, hungry for genuine stimulation and armed with
well-oiled bullshit detectors, is this field missing? People who
would love the best of this literature if that best were marketed as
though it had been written for grown-ups (measured by chronology or
state of mind) with taste? Not necessarily `fans', just people who
like a variety of good things in their literary diet?
We would like to *find* these people. To do so would reshape the
basic idea of *conventions* far more radically than simply taking
fandom at large and deciding which elements to focus on. It could
create a community that might actually begin to do something about the
state of affairs outlined above. Who knows, some brave bookstore of
the future might open an "Imaginative Literature" section some day,
a section which would be the province of real visionaries, whose
contents would not be predictable and which would startle and provoke.
[All of that notwithstanding, we also intend to have fun! Just
ask anyone who's been to either of the two Kirk Poland Memorial Bad
Prose Competitions we've held (the last at Boskone this past winter)].
Our current flyer reads:
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The conference on imaginative literature, second edition
["Readercon 2" logo here]
November 18 - 20, 1988
Lowell Hilton, Lowell, Massachusetts (508-452-1200)
(25 miles northwest of Boston; accessible by public transportation)
Room rates (per night): $75/single or double, $80/twin, $85/triple, $90/quad
(+ 9.7% tax)
Membership: $15 if postmarked by Oct. 14; $20 afterwards and at the door
Guest of Honor: Samuel R. Delany
Past Master: Theodore Sturgeon (in memoriam)
Algis Budrys David G. Hartwell
George Alec Effinger Barry B. Longyear Patricia McKillip
James Patrick Kelly James Morrow Lawrence Watt-Evans
Terry Bisson Ellen Kushner Paul Park Terri Windling
Richard Bowker Jeffrey Carver Craig Shaw Gardner John Morressy
Geary Gravel Paul Hazel Steven Popkes Darrell Schweitzer
Paul DiFilippo Alexander Jablokov Elissa Malcohn
Susan Palwick Delia Sherman
Scott Edelman J.F. Rivkin Charles C. Ryan D. Alexander Smith
Kathryn Cramer Martha Millard Joe Shea (Joey Zone) Stanley Wiater
Janice M. Eisen Scott E. Green Stan Leventhal Resa Nelson Sarah Smith
Bernadette Bosky Lise Eisenberg Arthur Hlavaty Vernon Hyles Fred Lerner
. . . and more to come!
"Readercon is the sort of convention all readers of SF should support."
-- Gene Wolfe
"Pretty much my favorite convention." -- Mark Ziesing
" . . . Judging from the program . . . probably the best con in America."
-- John Shirley
---------------------------(on other side)----------------------------
(A con flyer that lists its entire prospective program? What
better advertising is there?)
Main Programming Track
Firing the Canon: The Public Perception of F and SF.
See Dick Run. See Jane Reveal Depths of the Human Condition: The Juvenile as
Literature.
The Notion of Lives on Paper: Self and Science Fiction, 1929-1988.
Elfland uber Alles: Hidden Racism and Fascism in F and SF.
People I Can't Read, and Wish I Could.
Personality Crisis: Publishers, Editors, and Imprint Identities.
You've Crossed the Reality Border; Anything to Declare?
Maximum R & D: Rock 'n' Roll and SF.
Out of the Bomb Shelter, Into the Greenhouse: Writing About the Coming
Ecological Crisis.
Really Heart-Rending: The Horror Novel as Literature.
How Does a Book Review Mean?
Writers' Workshops: Friend or Menace?
Hugo Gernsback, Chicken Farmer: If SF Had Never Been Ghettoized.
Who Cares: Creating Sympathetic Characters.
Unfortunately Still Too Sensitive a Topic For a Silly Title: Alternate Sexual
Lifestyles in F and SF.
Is Chip Delany the Woody Allen of SF? (or, I Really Like Your Books . . .
Especially the Earlier, Simpler Ones . . .)
What About _Dhalgren_, Then?
Caviar: A Ted Sturgeon Appreciation.
plus the usual (and perhaps some unusual) GoH stuff.
Late Night Programming (8:00 PM and later; 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM)
The Third Kirk Poland Memorial Science Fiction and Fantasy Bad Prose
Competition.
Lifestyles of the Poor and Obscure.
The Bohemian Poetry Club.
The Alternate History Tag-Team Wrestling Match Planning Session.
Bookaholics Anonymous Meeting.
In the Future, Everyone Will Be Obnoxious For Five Minutes.
plus dramatic readings of short stories by Sturgeon.
Mini-Track
Readings (fiction, poetry, and critical papers), discussion groups, workshops
(including a writers' workshop led by Barry B. Longyear, and Elissa
Malcohn's character creation workshop), a book auction, and our Meet the
Pros(e) Reception.
Plus: If You Love X, You'll Love Y (special dinner-time discussion groups).
And a dealers room devoted almost entirely to books and magazines.
(No costume events, weapons, movies, or video. Unfortunately no art
show for now.)
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
For more info, you may call or write:
READERCON, P.O. Box 6138, Boston, MA 02209
617-576-0415 (evenings, weekends)
or e-mail me (see below). In the interest of speed, we have a
"response form" which I can e-mail for you to print out and snail-mail.
...............................................................................
zermelo@eddie.mit.edu |((lambda (x) (list x (list (quote quote) x)))
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|
| I was only there Friday night, but I saw two good sessions. The
first was called "Sox Win 6th Straight World Series". A group of
local writers are setting their stories in a shared world called Future
Boston. It extrapolates the history of the city out for the next
120 years. It's boring to simply continue existing trends, so
they put some stress on the city by having it sink by four inches
a year. The low-lying suburbs are drowned. Back Bay has a
Venetian period. Downtown builds a wall around itself and
becomes an arcology. Hull and Southie become flooded, criminal
slums. (They really have it in for Hull. In order to clean out
the gangs, the town is eventually bombed to the waterline.) The
city has always been a place of immigrants, so the next wave
arrives in 2015: aliens. Look for the stories in Asimov's.
The other was a lecture on Deconstruction and Semiotics from
Samuel Delaney. I've heard a lot about these terms, but never
had a good explanation. It turns out that there's a reason for that:
explanations are frowned upon by deconstructionists because
they inevitably leave out important information. Attempts to
explain or clarify are control manuevers, efforts to achieve mastery,
and so politically unacceptable. At least, I think that's the
reason. Delaney didn't give any examples or arguments because
that would be missing the point. I don't know if this goes
anywhere, but it sounds like a fun way to pull the professors'
beards.
It's remarkable, actually, that cons like this exist. Here's a
literature of really marginal respectability, and yet its devotees
will come from all over the country at their own expense to argue
about it at quite sophisticated levels. It's one thing for
technicals and academics to go to conventions; it's their work
and they're paid for it. It's another for these amateurs to gather.
At Readercon they didn't even have the chance to dress up in
costume or to see free shows; they were all there for the
pleasure of conversation about things they love. It's heartening
to see.
/jlr
|
| Well, now that I've recovered from the con, I'd really love to hear
what you all thought of it. I'd appreciate any suggestions you
may have, whether for new panel ideas or ways we could have made
things easier. You probably should send me mail so we don't clutter
up this conference with your rave reviews... :-)
This was just our second try, and it went pretty well, I think.
I'll be attending the committee debriefing session next Tuesday,
so I'd appreciate it if you'd send me comments by Tuesday at 5pm,
EST (for you folks from Utah or something (yes, we have at least
one person who loves us so much that he comes from UTAH for our
con!)). I'll print it all out and bring it with me.
BTW, if any of you are in the Boston area and want to help put on
Readercon 3, in April of 1990 at the Lowell Hilton, *please* write!
Again, thanks for your attendance, and your comments, and your help.
Next year ought to be even better!
Merryl-who-can-now-get-to-work-on-her-thesis...
|