WFC 2011 panels

 While I'm stuck in the kitchen waiting for the apple peeling jelly to cook down to jelly consistency, why don't I give you a few pictures from the sf-con side of WFC?
This is the last panel I attended, and a good one, too. Time Goggles: Modern perspectives and period literature. Emma Bull moderated, with panelists Jon Courtenay Grimwood, Bradford Lyau, and Marie Brennan.
Some very good discussion of how to honestly portray period attitudes without losing reader sympathy--and that tightrope between giving a character modern-day sensibilities and appearing to condone repellent practices like slavery.

 Another good one - The Not-So-Fair Folk, a discussion of the bad fae, fairies as fearsome rather than charming or benign.
Delia Sherman has something to say about this, as Mercedes Yardley listens.

Woo! Thanks to Mercedes linking it, I discover that there's a podcast of this panel on the Filipino Bibliophile.

 Jenny Blackford and Patrick Rothfuss were the other panelists. I realise that now I'll have to find my copy of Dreaming Again and re-read Jenny's story.

(Excuse me here, as the jelly seems to have reached the required temperature. Back soon.)

 With Holly Black as moderator. She had some great facial expressions as she guided the discussion or prodded the panelists, and I wish I'd caught one of the sly ones, but this will have to do as a hint.

 I might have skipped I Believe That Children Are the Future, because I've been to a few panels on juvenile and YA fantasy recently, but I couldn't resist the lineup. In any case, the discussion veered rapidly to trends in YA fantasy, particularly paranormal romance and The Book That Must Not Be Named.

Here, Tamora Pierce speculates on the mechanics of sex with the undead/dead.

 And here, Cindy Pon and Karen Healey react to those speculations.

It was a pretty amusing panel, and Tamora Pierce was gracious enough to stop in the hallway and sign books (she hadn't been at the Friday night autograph session).

Because I am, apparently, not at all on the ball, I took no photos at The Coral Sword: material culture of undersea civilizations, with panelist Sharon Mock (fellow VPer), or at But Can You Take Him Home to Mother: paranormal romance, with panelist Sandra Wickham (fellow SF-Canada).
But! Here is a pic of From Elfland to Poughkeepsie: should fantasy sound like fantasy? with Terri-Lynne Defino, Susan Forest, Ellen Klages, Shawna McCarthy and Ellen Kushner as moderator. How's that for star power?

Obviously, only to be outdone by Neil Gaiman, taking the podium during Opening Ceremonies. 
This is as close as I got to the Neil. The lineup for signings for him was immensely long, and so was the second signing added to make up for those who missed out the first time. The man must have signing muscles of iron by now.

This last pic here is why I missed about half the panels I'd put arrows next to--all the hanging out with VPers & associates.
I've forgotten the name of this restaurant, which I guess is a chain in the States? Any road, it's the chain where you can have Asian-fusion food next to the butt-end of a giant concrete horse. I hope sincerely that's an identifying feature.

I got back to the site in time to catch part of Out From Under the Bed: Monster as Protagonist, and managed to stay awake for How to Survive the Coming Zombie War (conclusion: I am pathetically unprepared and am doomed).

Panels I missed because of hanging out with people and eating food or scheduling difficulties (ie need for sleep):
The Role of Class in Fantasy and Horror
The Successful Misfit as a Theme in Fantasy
Founders of Steampunk
William Hope Hodgson's Nautical Horrors
Who Wants to Live Forever? Immortals
Don't Open That Door! The role of stupidity in genre fiction

On the whole, I think this was the best lineup of panels of the World Fantasy Conventions I've attended. Plus, that really annoying moderator whose name I've forgotten wasn't there.