FyreCon 3 Report

I had a great time at FyreCon, held June 20-22. I had a busy schedule, consisting of:

A book signing.

• Some friends stopped by to chat and I sold some books.

Three solo classes.

• Senses Beyond the Big Five: Expanding Your Descriptive Toolbox
• Making Infinite Worlds in Finite Time
• Beginning Calligraphy

One team-taught class with Lyn Worthen

• Surviving the Slush Pile

A couple panels.

• The Future of VR and Video Games
• Robots, Androids, and AI

Now I need to update my presentations page. That's where I keep a record of what I've done, and when. This year I didn't teach anything on writing short stories, but the Slush Pile class covered a bit of the same stuff.

The Senses class was great fun, and was the first time I've covered that material. It was inspired by my panel at MisCon a couple years ago talking about the senses involved in violence.

Infinite Worlds went well, and was a lot of fun reviewing ways of building background information on a world to give the characters something to do, whether they're aligned, opposed, or surprised by some aspect of the world around them.

Beginning Calligraphy was great fun as usual. I've taught that class I think four times now (three at FyreCon) and it's cool to see people excited about an art form that doesn't see much attention.

Surviving the Slush Pile was a great chance to help new writiers find ways to get past the first round of gatekeepers. Once you have a fair amount of writing skill, success often consists of being professional and following instructions.

The VR and Video Game panel was me and Jay Barnson talking to several local game development veterans and a couple of teenagers interested in games. I think we avoided traumetizing them with war stories.

Robots, Androids, and AI with Martin Shoemaker was great fun. We talked about the scientific views on AI and how that's too boring for fiction in most cases.

I attended a handful of classes and spent a little time at our bookstore table selling books, but I spent a lot of time on the honored tradition of networking and hanging out with friends, often in the Green Room (which was not actually green).

This time around I was also representing the League of Utah Writiers, and spent a little time supporting our volunteers there manning an information table. We have the League's Quills conference coming up in August, so we're getting the news out.

Overall, the conference was a great success. Attendance was up, several of my classes were near capacity, and a great time was had by most. Problems with an elevator (not me), a low blood sugar incident (also not me), and other challenges were dealt with quickly and smoothly.