Capclave 2012 Recap

As I’m sure you guessed from the post title, this is my Capclave 2012 recap. It was my first Capclave, and it’s left me pretty goddamn wiped, so instead of writing something narratively coherent and richly descriptive I’m going to just vomit up a bunch of bullet points. If that’s okay.

• The panels were great. I went to a bunch on e-publishing and reading in the context of a lot of changing technology (Neil Clarke was on most of these and I wonder if he thinks I was stalking him or something). Also a panel on the autobiography of Cthulhu, which was both interesting and really funny, as well as confirming for me that I haven’t spent all these years entirely mispronouncing the dread name of the great tentacled horror from beyond the stars. Also a fun talk by John Ashmead on quantum mechanics that featured all the requisite bad Schrodinger’s Cat jokes. Also I’d seriously watch a TV show that was just a series of conversations between Nick Mamatas and John Scalzi.
• The people were great. I finally got to meet Neil Clarke (see above) and he was intensely nice, and I was also relieved to see that he’s looking quite well, health-wise. He confirmed that Clarkesworld is going to be picking back up with its print issues, and also its annual anthologies, which is very happy-making. I also got to meet John Scalzi briefly, and he was incredibly gracious while I was awkward and blushing fiercely, and he signed a copy of Old Man’s War as a Christmas present for my dad (who introduced me to Robert Heinlein, so it seems like an appropriate gift). Also I ended up explaining Twitter backchannels to programming director Bill Lawhorn, which was also sort of awkward but quite fun.
• Something I would like to do next time: Get on the program. I wasn’t in time to do that this go-round, but given how fun the panels were to attend, I’d like to try to be on some. I remember that went a long way toward helping me feel more at home when I went to Wiscon. Also, I need to work on being more social in general. I’m violently introverted (there was actually a panel on dealing with this, incidentally) and it’s really hard for me to approach people I don’t know. But given that I still don’t know most people at these things, I better suck it up and start doing some approaching.
• Something I would like to see more of next time: A more vibrant Twitter backchannel. This is something I think Wiscon does really well, I think it’s  a really useful tool for introverts like myself in making connections with people that can translate over into physical space, and it also just generates good discussion. I feel like it’s mostly a cultural thing for it to be less present, and I’m not sure how to help foster it in this case. But I’d love to see it.

Thanks so much to everyone involved for making it such a good time.

It’s looking 99.99% likely that I’ll be at Philcon in a few weeks. RavenCon and MystiCon are also now on the table. The updated list of probables is here. It’s a bit odd to go from doing maybe one con a year to attempting to do six, but I’m looking forward to it.