Jason Sizemore (LJ: jasonbsizemore), who is the publisher of Apex Books, has a very funny short story appearing online in a contest run by the die, monday! blog. I didn't know much about the blog or the contest, but I read the story and enjoyed it immensely. Jason explains what the contest is all about in his post Rallying the troops: Unwarranted Serendipity. Essentially, "die, monday!" is a humor blog for people needing levity in their workday, and the contest was for work-related stories. The ten best stories are currently appearing on the blog, and readers are being asked to vote for their favorite.

Jason's entry, Unwarranted Serendipity, is a fictionalized (I hope) account of his first convention experience. Anyone who's ever been to a science fiction, fantasy, or horror convention will find a lot of familiar humor in his story. And if you haven't been, it's an...interesting introduction.

If I was asked for a tag line for the story, it would be, "See the wacky hi-jinks ensue when a brand new horror publisher attends his first convention!" Or something like that.

Anyway, I highly recommend it. It'll take a few minutes to read, and it'll give you a good laugh. And if you like it, you can vote for it.

And if you're interested in the rest of the stories, the list of the top ten stories can be found at die, monday!: Top 10 Stories! for the Best Story Contest.

(Disclosure: Apex Books is the publisher bringing out I Remember the Future this fall.)

Tags: conventions, science-fiction, stories

1. Letter in The Brookline TAB supporting the re-election of Gil Hoy to the Board of Selectmen

2. A comic strip by Seanan (LJ: cadhla)

Guess which one is more amusing. Go ahead, guess.

Tags: brookline, conventions, personal, politics

Once again, the kind folks over at SF Signal asked me to participate in their Mind Meld discussion. This time, the question was, "Is Science Fiction Antithetical to Religion?"

I'm not going to restate here what I said there; if you'd like to read it, you can click on the following link: Mind Meld: Is Science Fiction Antithetical to Religion? They got a lot of fascinating people to respond to the question, including Mike Resnick, Lou Anders, Ben Bova, Gabriel Mckee, Jay Lake, James Wallace Harris, Carl Vincent, Adam Roberts, Larry Niven, Andrew Wheeler, D.G.D. Davidson, L.E. Modesitt, Jr., John C. Wright, and James Morrow.

I'm amused to note that Mike Resnick "outed" me in his own response to the question, listing me as one of the Orthodox Jews in science fiction (along with Avram Davidson). He also notes that Gene Wolfe is a devout Catholic and that Ray Lafferty was a devout Catholic. What he doesn't note, however, is that there's a big difference between being observant Jewish and being observant something else in science fiction circles.

Basically, the question is: why do people in the science fiction community know that I'm religiously observant? Certain parts of American society tend to play religious observance and feeling close to the vest. We consider it something personal, and tend not to discuss it in depth with others unless invited to.

But when you're trying to observe Judaism at an Orthodox level, especially at a science fiction convention, you're faced with a lot of issues that push your observance to the forefront. Most of that has to do with the restrictions you place on your activities during the Jewish sabbath, which means not participating in certain convention events. Some of it also has to do with keeping the laws of kashrut, requiring you to bring your own food to the convention and to avoid the hotel restaurants. So you find yourself missing out on some of the social networking that takes place at a convention.

And of course there's the kippah (or yarmulke) that I wear. For conventions, I have a special kippah that shows a rocket ship flying through the universe. It was a birthday present given to me years back by vettecat, and as soon as I saw it, I knew I would always wear it at conventions. It gets a lot of attention; many fans have approached me at cons to compliment me on it – come to think of it, that's how I became friends with Farah Mendelson – and at the Nebulas last year, I even overheard Norman Spinrad commenting on it.

Anyway, that has nothing to do with the Mind Meld topic. Do I think science fiction is antithetical to religion? You can probably guess my answer at this point, but you might as well go over to Mind Meld and see for yourself.

Tags: conventions, jewish, personal, science-fiction

One of the people I feel very privileged to be friends with is Katherine Bryant (LJ: saxikath). And this weekend, I have many reasons to wish her good luck. But first, some background.

Katherine Bryant Solves a Sunday Times Puzzle Photo copyright © Michael A. Burstein. All rights reserved.

I first met Katherine in my sophomore year of college, when she was in her first year. We met through the Harvard-Radcliffe GIlbert & Sullivan Players' production of Princess Ida. We were both in the chorus, and as it so happens, the director chose to make us a G&S couple, so that gave us a chance to talk. Even back in college, I was impressed with her quick wit, her love of wordplay, and her ability to solve puzzles. (Embarrassed yet, Katherine? Be glad I didn't mention your appearance on Jeopardy!)

Our own lives caused us to drift apart for a few years until we found ourselves working together at the same company. During that time, Katherine became very well-known in the puzzling community. For one thing, she served as the editor of The Enigma, the monthly magazine of the National Puzzlers' League. And for another...

For the past few years, she's consistently scored in the top ten at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament. The ACPT is known as Stamford to many people, since until this year it was held at a hotel in Stamford, Connecticut. This year it's been moved to Brooklyn, where it will probably remain for the foreseeable future.

Katherine was already placing in the top ten at the ACPT even before we started working together in December 2005. But after she returned from the 2006 ACPT, I decided that I wanted to help her out. So since March of 2006 or so, I've taken on the role of being Katherine's personal "puzzle trainer." Essentially, every workday morning I've made a copy of that day's New York Times crossword puzzle, and then timed her on it. Katherine routinely finishes the puzzle in anywhere from two to six minutes. On occasion, it's taken her a little longer, but those occasions are few and far between.

Last year, Katherine went to the 2007 ACPT and returned with triumphant news. Although she had not placed in the top three, she had managed to complete every puzzle of the competition without a single error. (As her trainer, I was busy that weekend too, reciting Psalm 121 over and over. Did that help? Who knows? But in the words of the old joke, it couldn't hurt.)

This weekend, Katherine will once again be competing in the ACPT, and I'll be staying at home, rooting for her in my "Team Bryant" warm-up jacket. I hope she manages to get to the top three, and then win, because then I'll get to check that off my list of life goals: have a friend who wins the ACPT. But even if she doesn't, I'm still delighted that she's allowed me to be a part of it over the past two years.

Good luck, saxikath!

Katherine Bryant Solves Andrew Greene's Puzzle Photo copyright © Michael A. Burstein. All rights reserved.

Tags: conventions, harvard, personal, puzzles

I'm trying to find the time to compose a complete Boskone 45 report, especially since Nomi and I had such a great time at the convention this year. However, if you're curious to read a little bit about what I did, you can read Jamie Rubin's post Boskone, day 1, in which he basically says that I introduced him to lots of people:

Michael was great. He introduced me to a lot of people, telling them I was a new writing and where my story had been published. So, for example, he introduced me to Allen M. Steele...

He introduced me to Daniel Kimmel...

He introduced me to author Sarah Beth Durst...

And he also introduced me to writer Bruce Coville...

You can also see how much lordavon enjoyed the con at her post Boskone, which is a good bit (even if it doesn't have Marvin in it):

After all that, alcarnor and I headed into Consuite for what is becomming the traditional "Saturday Night of Sitting in Consuite with gnomi and mabfan and Discuss Whatever Comes Up." (We also couldn't remember where the Liaden party was, and besides, we like the chatting with gnomi and mabfan. In this case, we ran the gamut of yarn to religion to heritage to cultural assimilation to dead languages to zombies.

And you can get an outsider's interesting perspective by clicking here:

There were more men with ponytails there than I'd ever seen grouped together in one place...ever. And there was one guy who I think really was the stereotypical nerdy sci-fi geek - he had his pants pulled up to his chest, his NASA polo shirt tucked in, and his thick glasses dangled at the end of his nose. But I'm sure his IQ is about 657. There was a guy in a black vest and a kilt, a guy in a red cape, and a guy in an orange jumpsuit with a propeller beanie. And everyone was wearing glasses. Lenscrafters should sponsor one of these things...it was nuts.

But here's the thing - I totally respect these people. There's this crazy hippie vibe going on - they don't care what's cool, they don't care how they look to other people, they don't conform...they are who they are and if you don't like it, catch the next spaceship to Uranus. And I completely dig that.

And finally, here's a shout-out to ariadne_3, which I hope will make her squee with delight.

Tags: conventions, personal, science-fiction

In lieu of actual content, my updated program schedule for Boskone. Note the important changes in the third panel. All taken from the Boskone 45 Programming Schedule.

Saturday 11am
Tops on the Tube Tonight: Good New Genre TV Shows
Michael A. Burstein, Seanan McGuire, Jennifer Pelland, Eric M. Van

From Pushing Daisies and Eureka to Supernatural, Moonlight to Torchwood, Journeyman to Jericho, there s a fair bit of buzz in genre TV fandom about some new and newish shows. What separates the standouts from the nonstarters? What have they learned from shows and showrunners that have gone before? What offers any hint oforiginality? Where can you find the best writing? The most promising premise? The hottest honeys and hunks? And can the good survive?


Saturday 4pm
Battlestar Galactica Endings -- Roll Your Own
Michael A. Burstein, Jeffrey A. Carver, Craig Shaw Gardner, MaryAnn Johanson, Jennifer Pelland

Looks like we may never get an official end to the series. But hey, we're SF fans: we'll make one (heck, several) up. Conversation may also include but should not be limited to discussion of how BSG is (was) the awesomist esseff teevee evah!


Saturday 8pm
Battle of the Mutant Plot Mashups
Michael A. Burstein, Craig Shaw Gardner, Amy Thomson

In each round of this fiendish funfest (stolen from a contest in F&SF), the moderator inflicts a new story title on the panelists, who then vie to invent a plot to match. Each title freakishly mates two actual works. Given Foundation and Empire Strike Back, a panelist might reply, "Hari Seldon goes to Dagoba to learn the ways of the Force and defeat the Mule. Unfortunately, it turns out the Mule is his father." Advice for panelists: if you don't know the plot of one (or both) originals, make up something about sex, treecats, Ents, Albus Dumbledore, hotel food, sex, Eando Binder, Microsoft, Donkey from Shrek, SFWA, or sex. This audience will be pushovers for that stuff.

Tags: conventions, personal, science-fiction

In lieu of actual content, my program schedule for Boskone:

Saturday 11am
Tops on the Tube Tonight: Good New Genre TV Shows
Michael A. Burstein, Seanan McGuire, Jennifer Pelland, Eric M. Van

From Pushing Daisies and Eureka to Supernatural, Moonlight to Torchwood, Journeyman to Jericho, there s a fair bit of buzz in genre TV fandom about some new and newish shows. What separates the standouts from the nonstarters? What have they learned from shows and showrunners that have gone before? What offers any hint oforiginality? Where can you find the best writing? The most promising premise? The hottest honeys and hunks? And can the good survive?


Saturday 4pm
Battlestar Galactica Endings -- Roll Your Own
Michael A. Burstein, Jeffrey A. Carver, Craig Shaw Gardner, MaryAnn Johanson, Jennifer Pelland

Looks like we may never get an official end to the series. But hey, we're SF fans: we'll make one (heck, several) up. Conversation may also include but should not be limited to discussion of how BSG is (was) the awesomist esseff teevee evah!


Saturday 8pm
The Stories You Wish You Never Heard Of
Michael A. Burstein, Craig Shaw Gardner, Amy Thomson

Listen as our panelists tell you about the stories you never (ever!) heard of before!Hear the plot of classics like "Foundation and Empire Strikes Back"! and "The Lights int he Sky are Little Fuzzies".

Tags: conventions, personal, science-fiction

gnomi and I had a fun time at Arisia this past weekend. As usual, our time was filled with being on panels; interestingly enough, the only two program items we tried to attend that weren't our own had too many people in the rooms for us to fit.

We had a good time at the Friday night dinner, and many people came by to wish Nomi a happy birthday at her open house on Saturday night. Sunday, as is our custom, we checked out early from the hotel so we could bring everything home and eat breakfast at Rubin's. Since we were back in Brookline anyway, we managed to make it to a birthday party that friends were throwing for their one-year-old twins. Then it was back to Arisia for our Sunday afternoon panels.

By the end, we were exhausted, Nomi had a headache, and we both had to work today. So we went home and stayed home (except that I took a brief trip out to get us dinner.)

A fuller report may be forthcoming.

Tags: boston, brookline, conventions, personal, science-fiction

For those of you who are interested, here are the Arisia panel schedules for gnomi and me:

mabfan:
Friday 9 pm "Superman and the Sins of Copyright"
Saturday 10 am "Clark 'Superman' Kent and Bruce 'Batman' Wayne"
Saturday 1 pm "Continuity? What's That?"
Saturday 2 pm "Wouldn't You Like to Be a Superhero?"
Sunday 4 pm "Best Issue and/or Story Arc Ever"

gnomi:
Saturday 12noon "Heat Between the Sheets: Writing/Selling Erotica"
Saturday 4 pm "There's No Star Trek! And No Buffy"
Saturday 5 pm "Knittly, Stitchly, Quiltly"
Sunday 2 pm "LiveJournal and the Nature of Community"
Sunday 3 pm "DVDs Killed the TV Series"
Sunday 5 pm "Why LiveJournal?"

Tags: announcements, conventions, science-fiction

For those of you attending Arisia next weekend, be it hereby announced that gnomi and I will be again be hosting a birthday gathering for gnomi, on Saturday night (19 January). We'll be starting the gathering at 8 PM, but we'll be going until after the Masquerade, so feel free to drop by any time before 11:30 PM.

There will be milchig (AKA dairy) snacks.

Room 416 in the Hyatt.

And those in the area who aren't actually attending the convention are also more than welcome to drop by the gathering.

Tags: announcements, conventions, personal, science-fiction