Kathryn and the kids and I drove to Madison, Wisconsin for Wiscon, stopping on the way to stay over with Jim and Kathy Morrow in Pennsylvania. Wiscon was a tiny bit claustrophobic this year because it rained a lot, making it difficult to enjoy the downtown Madison location that is the setting for this gem of a convention. We spent time with Susan Palwick, old friend and founding member of NYRSF, now living, writing (new novel coming in 2005), and teaching in Reno, Nevada. The Hartwell family got calligraphed by Jae Leslie Adams and on whim, I decided to ask for a latin word. Thinking that paterfamilias was too long, I chose crux, and so functioned as a billboard for Albert Cowdrey¹s forthcoming novel (which I like. It reminds me of Tiptree and Cordwainer Smith).
Emily Pohl-Weary and her cohorts on tour ("Girls Who Bite Back cuts through the layers of the new Œfemale power,¹ questioning its corporate origins and investigating issues of race and sexual orientation. And it goes a crucial step further by asking: If you don't like what¹s out there, what do you want to see?") hosted a discover your inner superhero costume party and Peter discovered his.
On Monday after the convention closed, we drove to Illinois and stayed a might at Fred Pohl and Betty Ann Hull¹s house, and on Tuesday I drove Kathryn and the kids to O¹Hare to fly back to Westchester so Peter wouldn¹t miss too much school. Then I attended the SFRA Conference in Skokie, IL, which I will discuss in the next editorial.
I must fly to Seattle now for the opening of the lavish new SF Museum and Hall of Fame which will be linked like a Siamese twin to the Experience Music Project building at Seattle Center. I have always been a skeptic about the various sf museums proposed over the past couple of decades, but this one had $18 million dollars spent on it up front by Paul Allen (for which I, for one, am grateful), and will be at very least a snazzy place to visit in the next year. I gather they are going to charge admission, sell memberships, and host special events to raise money, like all other museums. It is also my understanding that they open with no endowment, so that they will start raising money from the outset. I wonder what the souvenir shop will sell? I will get to shop on the first day, June 18, and find out, though.
