It’s 7:30 — in an hour…

It's 7:30 -- in an hour and a half, I leave for WorldCon -- I *think* I have everything done (or will). Box for Susan left to be mailed -- check. Packing done -- check. (Except for computer stuff, of which I will of course forget something. Usually it's either the cell phone or camera battery charger, but now I'm not likely to forget either, which means it will be something more important. I love my gizmos, but I have many of them, in many little pieces...) Dishes -- soon. BU reading plans -- check. Water plants, feed fish -- soon. I'll have tea in a bit, and all will become clear. That's the hope, at any rate. If I can finish getting ready in half an hour, then I might actually have an hour to do some relatively urgent BW stuff. (My life has become acronyms. If you love me, you will know what all of these mean: CS, SH, BW, AE, BU, CB, KW, KR, JH, DH, UHGCC (How well did *you* do?)).

By the way, the presentation on Plato yesterday, that I spent the previous night having anxiety dreams about, went absolutely swimmingly. Gods -- if I just have time to prepare properly, I'm actually not half bad at this grad school stuff. It's when I'm over-committed (or lazy) that things start falling apart.

If you're coming to WorldCon, please stop by the Strange Horizons tea party -- that's Sunday at 3 p.m., room TBA. I'm also coordinating the Broad Universe rapid-fire reading -- seven readers, in one hour. I'm being very mean and restricting them to seven minutes each. We'll see how good they are about time. Saturday at 1 p.m., room TBA, immediately preceding the Broad Universe tea party. Reading will be:

• Nancy Jane Moore
• Mindy Klasky
• Barbara Krasnoff
• Sarah A. Hoyt
• Winifred Halsey
• Carol Berg
• Ellen Klages

Please come!

BIOS:

• Nancy Jane Moore has four stories currently in print in two anthologies and Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet. Her work was recently reviewed in Tangent Online.

• Librarian by day, writer by night, lawyer in a former life -- Mindy L. Klasky is the author of the Glasswright Series and other fantasy novels.

• Barbara Krasnoff is a technology journalist who has sold two science fiction stories, one in 1990 and one in 2000. She hopes to publish a third before the next decade.

• Sarah A. Hoyt's short fiction has been published in Absolute Magnitude, Weird Tales, and Dreams of Decadence. She will be published in Analog and Apprentice Fantastic. Her first novel, Ill Met By Moonlight, will be out from Ace this October.

• Winifred Halsey is the founder of Speculation Press, focusing on intelligent science fiction and fantasy for women; she is also the author of To Kill an Eidolon.

• Carol Berg's first novel, the epic fantasy Transformation, was published in summer 2000. The sequel, Revelation, was just published in August 2001. She is a software engineer whose recently acquired hobby of writing got out of hand.

• Ellen Klages is an eclectic writer with four non-fiction books, a couple of short stories, and two Nebula nominations. She also does auctions.