Tag: FogCon

books · writing

FogCon 2020

Kara HartzLeave a comment

This was my second year attending Fog Con. It’s a smaller Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Horror literary convention in Walnut Creek, California. It’s just delightful. While the books above are the only physical books I left the con with I have a much, much, much, longer list of titles, authors, podcasts and a few games that I will be looking into in the coming months. It was hard to restrain myself in my purchases but I have literal stacks of books falling over because I am out of shelf space. Will I avoid buying more? – HA! of course not. But I’ll be looking mainly at ebooks for a bit.

The most fun part is meeting these amazing authors and listening to them talk about writing, fan over the stuff they love, and learning so much. It’s a small enough gathering that several times I would go to a panel and listen, sometimes figure out that, hey! that person wrote that book I like so much! Then at the next panel I went to, they were sitting next to me in the audience.

I attended panels on Societal Defaults That Carry Into Fiction, Choose Your Own Adventures, How Deep Do We Dig: Research for Writers, Small Scale SFF, SFF Podcasts, The Value of Hopepunk, and I went to a Reading with 3 great authors who made me want to run out and get their horror books even though I usually avoid horror.

I also did a very brave thing for me, and I signed up to attend a lunch get together for a local writing group that I technically joined some time ago, but haven’t actually ever attended any of their meetups. I’m glad I did. I enjoy the company of other writers, they are such interesting people (or maybe just because they clearly love books as much as I do). So now I am also signed up to attend one of their critique sessions and I think the lunch helped make me brave enough to not back out of that. Although I suppose it’s possible it won’t happen, at least in person. We’ll see what state of social distancing we are in come mid April.

Here’s hoping for the best.

And I’m already looking forward to next year’s con.

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Forgot to Show Off My New Books

Kara HartzLeave a comment

I forgot to show what I bought at FogCon last weekend. I knew I wouldn’t be buying as much as I wanted since the budget is what it is right now, but here’s what I went home with:

I’d already read The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers, and enjoyed it a lot, so I knew going that picking up the next book was part of my plan.

I’ve wanted to read In Calabria for awhile now, so when I saw a signed copy available I snapped that up (Peter S Beagle was not at FogCon as far as I know, but there was a bookseller there with lots of signed books from lots of authors).
Then there were a ton of things I saw that were already on my TBR (To Be Read for anyone who doesn’t do book lingo) list, plus I started a whole new TBR list as I listened to panels and got interested both in books the presenters had written, and ones they recommended or quoted or talked about. Picking was tough. Then I also sort of had in my head ahead of time that I’d like to get something I didn’t know anything about before attending. Something new to me. That’s where Defrag came in. I piked it up in the dealer room because of the cover art and the thin size I thought it might be a graphic novel, and my daughter might like it. No, it’s just a short-ish book, but I still love the cover art, and the blurb sounded interesting, so it’s my ‘new thing to try out’.

Then I made the good financial decision to not go back to the dealer room again. I still have my list though, so I am all set on reading material for a nice while.

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FogCon 2019

Kara HartzLeave a comment

I’ve wanted to attend FogCon since I first learned about it, maybe 4 or 5 years ago. I have trouble spending money on myself, and on the years I wasn’t in the hospital, it always fell on a weekend I had to work. If I was uncomfortable spending the relatively small membership fee for something just for me, I was doubly so about taking time off work to do it. Maybe I was just afraid to go alone to a place where I would know no one. That was probably a bigger part than I’d like to admit to myself.

Lucky for me, I have the most supportive husband in the planet. When I sighed, alas, FogCon was again on a weekend I worked, he just looked at me, and said, “Then take time off.” He encouraged me to buy my membership early and ask for the time off. So I did.

I only took Saturday off though, because I didn’t realize how much happened on Fridays. Still I attended the panel on “Life in a Closed System” on Friday night. It was great. Saturday there were some tough choices, but I ended up going to “Decolonizing Space” about colonialism in our world and in fiction, “Science to the Rescue!” about how science and scientists are portrayed in fiction, “Sense of Place” about worldbuilding, “Creating with a Day Job” about what it says – this was super encouraging and so what I needed to hear at times even if I didn’t get anything specific to use that I’m not already doing.

By that time I was pretty exhausted and there was a dinner break for 2 hours, and I decided I wouldn’t come back since I had a big day of family events on Sunday. I did sneak in one last panel Sunday morning, and I was proudly on time for it even with the time change. It was “It’s Never too Late to be a Writer” and again, nothing really actionable to take away, but lots of encouragement and inspiration, and I always need that.

I regret not making it to any readings, but there was just so many panels I wanted to attend.

The idea of going to a multi-day event like this alone was daunting, but since I was primarily sitting in an audience, listening and taking notes it was manageable for me. Everyone I spoke to – usually to ask a question since I was new and didn’t know how things worked or where things were – was very friendly. If I can schedule things to go again next year, maybe I’ll work my way up to being more social – attending the lunch banquet or visiting the Con Suite or something like that. Maybe not though. Not if I would miss an interesting talk.

I’m so happy I got to go.