#lunacon

[70sscifiart]

A front cover wraparound by Mike Hinge for the Lunacon 1968 program

[johnskylar]

Just wrapped up the Lunacon science program that I put together, and am delighted at how it went. A friend of mine from the con circuit, who didn't know I was science track coordinator this year, told me nonchalantly that he'd been coming to Lunacon for ten years and this was "the best science track I've ever seen here." That was really nice to hear. And I was super happy that part of that was having a fellow virologist and State Department senior Health Scientist, Dr. Jessica Petrillo, as part of the program. It really got across how much the government, even now, values the future and science that she was allowed to attend in her official capacity--and in fact enthusiastically encouraged to do so. Something she said is still sticking with me. That basically, the government needs science fiction to show them what problems people care about, and to see what we want to see improved. In other words, that science fiction is art that is also a strategic asset.

[mickiemueller]

Guys! This starts today! Llewellyn has a great line up of authors speaking on so many topics and it’s free! #Repost @llewellynbooks with @get_repost
・・・
Mark your calendars! Join us for the inaugural Llewellyn’s LunaCon, a full week of virtual author events, #giveaways, and more, June 12 - 19! Stay tuned for more details! #llewellynbooks #lunacon #llewellynlunacon #lunacon2020
https://www.instagram.com/p/CBV3g1mHRna/?igshid=uzwbc0lhb1ne

[christinamrau]

On SATURDAY APRIL 8 at 7 PM join me in Erasing SF+ Fantasy: Writing Found Poetry Room:Hudson with Christina M. Rau (moderator) Cross out, cut out, and get creative with sf, fantasy, and science-based textbooks, novels, short stories, and plays to create new poems. A great way to either write a poem for the first time or change up the way you read and write poetry. All ages welcome.

[paullev]

People have been clamoring for my Lunacon schedule - screaming "Lunacon" as I drive by them in the street - well, maybe it was "lunatic," I...

[lmdhawk]

I went to Lunacon this weekend, which was very cool, and I spent a good deal of time in the filk room. I realized that all the fansongs we have are just a reinvention of filk that came out of the internet age instead of adopting to it.

[xwhy]

There was a #Science #math joke buried in here with the #Liebniz and #Newtons. Late Pi Day celebration with cookies but no pie at #lunacon

[johnskylar]

Lunacon post-thoughts

So, if you’re unfamiliar, Lunacon is a science fiction convention that used to be part of a fairly big-deal con circuit but has fallen on some uncertain times (politically, attendee-wise, financially, etc.) of late.

This is a familiar story in fandom and I am sad that it is far too familiar.

So when I heard that Lunacon, after a one year hiatus, would be returning, and would be taking place right across the street from my office building, I went for it.

The general summation is that the con was small and was working bugs out of its system. That’s okay! In fact, that gave me more opportunities to hang out with fans, fellow writers, and editors than I expect I’m going to get at a bigger con where I’m actually on the schedule (Balticon in May) as a guest.

It also had its positives in that this access did something for me that I really needed as I heal from the process of finishing graduate school as roughly as I did: it got me excited about writing again. My day job is writing now. I finally did it, I became a professional writer.

But I’m a medical writer, and after writing all day I come home and...well, I don’t usually want to write more. When I was coming home from the lab and then writing it was a different story because I was changing gears.

But the thing is, it’s still changing gears to go from writing nonfiction to writing fiction or popular nonfiction, and I needed something to remind me of that. Enter the con experience.

A few other things came to mind over the course of the con that I think are of general interest:

- Titling short stories is a totally different thing from titling movies, and this is a mistake that many young writers (including me) make. Call a movie “The Revenant” and you have a brand anchor at the end of the trailer that locks people into the visual experience that they were teased with and makes them seek out the product. On the other hand, a story title doesn’t go in a poster or a trailer. A story title is there to do one thing: make someone read the story. Calling a story “The Revenant” tells no one anything about what your story is and doesn’t pique interest, not really--it’s a noun. Calling a story “Sixty Thousand Dollars Per Hour” does pique interest. Calling a story “A Stretch of Highway Two Lanes Wide” or “The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making” or even “The Hunger Games” does a lot more for it than calling it “My Prosthetic Arm,” “Fairyland,” or “The Games” would do. Meanwhile, the latter would actually make fairly decent film titles.  Basically, a film title and a short story title have something in common, in that they help sell the product, but they have different goals in their purpose within the greater marketing strategy. That’s something to keep in mind.  Hat tip to Alex Shvartsman for provoking this line of thought in a conversation.

- Always always always mention to an editor that you met them at a convention when you’re submitting a story, provided that you actually met and spoke to them at a convention. Editors want to remember you, and they want to give your story a fair chance. But they are also busy people and they are also people. Account for this. Remind them who you are and that you spoke. The fact that you showed interest in them will help them to see how motivated you are, and that usually bodes well for your output.

- Naomi Novik is a boss.

- Lunacon next year is gonna be pretty cool.