A few last pics from ICFA. Me and Stephen Donaldson — his books were formative for me. We talked for a little while about the difficulty with creating an ambiguous protagonist, one who really could tip towards the dark as easily as the light. It’s tough for readers — they start to invest in someone, and then that character does something awful, and it’s understandable if they want to just put the book down (or throw it across the room). But if you start in a dark place, sometimes you can climb (slowly, painfully) towards the light.
(I definitely still get a little thrill talking with the significant authors of my youth!)
Here’s a new book by Justin Key, _The World Wasn’t Ready For You_ — really looking forward to reading that, will probably start it on the plane. Justin himself. Poke and virgin mango daiquiri — the hotel poke is sadly not as good as it used to be (missing the dressing, very odd), but the virgin daiquiris are a great option when you want that vacation vibe but still have work to do later in the day. 🙂
It was a weird ICFA for me — much shorter than usual. I’ve been very disorganized the last month (family crisis stuff adding to the normal work overload), and I did everything at the last minute for this trip, including buying plane tickets, which meant I ended up with non-direct flights, and couldn’t even get something reasonable to get in on Wednesday night, which I would’ve otherwise.
So a truncated trip — I’m at the Orlando airport now, getting ready for the next leg, flying to LA to connect to San Francisco, meeting up with Mary and Alex to do a three day writing retreat. I can’t complain about that, but it does feel weird to have ICFA be such a brief trip. Don’t like it.
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That said, lots got done — I interviewed Eileen Gunn for the SLF’s Portolan Project, which I’ve been wanting to do for a while. We spent a while talking about the early days of web magazines, and I learned a bunch about how Infinite Matrix got started, and how it continued when the funding was abruptly pulled! We also got to talk about a few of her short stories in depth, which was terrific, and got a hint or two about her novel-in-progress.
We should have that up within a month or so, once Darius Vinesar has a chance to edit it (we’ll probably incorporate it into the podcast queue for season 3), and once Shaun Duke has someone write the study guide questions and writing exercises. (If you’re a grad student interested in working on this project, drop me a line and I’ll connect you with Shaun.)
I moderated three readings, including my own, and I had just enough time at mine to read the latest draft of the Russ essay. It was pretty much the perfect audience — we had about 15-20 people in the room, and I think most if not all of them had read Russ.
People seemed to like the piece, which was reassuring. I’ll be working on revisions on the plane today — it’s due back to the editors on the 19th. They’ve already basically accepted it; they would’ve taken something close to the last draft, but I think it’ll be improved by some work on the second half, so I’m looking forward to doing that.
I did unexpectedly tear up reading the next to last paragraph out loud, so that’s good, I think — it’s a sign I’m doing the deep work, the vulnerable work. Saying the things that matter.
I still need a title for the damn thing.
“I wanted to take off all my clothes and step out of my underwear. And then take off my hair and fingernails and my face and my flesh and finally my very bones. Just to step out of it. All the way out of it.”
(Russ, _On Strike Against God_ (which has nothing to do with God, despite the title)
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Mostly, though, ICFA is all about the conversations. I got to hear Isabel J. Kim read her brilliant and brutal story, “Why Don’t We Just Kill the Kid in the Omelas Hole?,” and met some great new folks (like Justin! and author guest of honor CE Murphy! and very briefly, scholar (and author) guest of honor Mame Diene — wish we’d had more time to talk! come to Chicago!), and had lots of conversations with old friends. Lots of good stuff about writing, publishing, criticism. That was all great.
The conversations with old friends were sometimes hard, though. People would ask how I was, and I’d reflexively start to answer “Fine!” or even “Good!” And then I’d pause and realize that was wrong, and give the real answer — “Pretty sucky.” It’s been a rough month. Lots of people at ICFA know Jed, and some had heard about the breakup and some hadn’t.
So there was a lot of disclosing that, and sometimes people would ask “What happened?,” often in tones of incredulity, because from the outside, Jed and I have looked very solid for a very long time. Would we have done better if we’d been more open about our struggles the last several years? I have no idea. And there’s some other family stuff that I can’t talk about publicly right now, but which is also awful.
Mostly, I didn’t try to get into the details of any of it — it’s tough when there’s a mixed group around a table, and you’re intimate with some and not others. And I can barely talk about it sometimes anyway — I didn’t want to spend all of ICFA in tears.
But there were a few sympathetic conversations with old friends (Julia Rios, your words were very helpful), and I did feel surrounded in a blanket of love and care throughout the con, and that was nice. It’s good to be with my people. I suspect if I’d been there another night, I probably would’ve ended up finding an old friend to talk to, late at night, over a nice cocktail or two. I ended up calling Roshani last night and talking to her for a while, which helped.
And I’ll be able to have more of those conversations with Alex and Mary the next few days; we won’t be writing intensively, like monks in their cells, every minute of the retreat. Slowly, slowly, we process and progress. Sometimes it does feel like one step forward, two steps back, but I’m trying to trust in the process.
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I’m flying Delta for a change, and they seem to have free WIFI, which was pretty solid on the flight down — we’ll see how they do across the country. I may end up posting more while in transit, or I may just keep my head down and work on revisions, or I may give it all up and read Justin’s book, or Song of Achilles, which Kavi recommended, and it’ll all be good.
Eventually, it’ll be better.
Goodbye, ICFA. Your sunshine and pool definitely helped.
