Strange Radiation Archive
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Aug 22 08: talking with storytellers
So back in June — and yes, this is going to be one of those “what I was up to during the two months I wasn’t posting” posts — I went to the MoCCA Festival, an annual mostly-small-presses-and-self-publishers comics festival, and met one of my Big Damn Heroes: Lynda Barry! Of Ernie Pook’s Comeek and of One! Hundred! Demons! It was everything I could do not to swoon right there. She was lovely and she made every single person who came to get something signed feel like she was genuinely delighted to meet them. And, because she was there to sign What It Is, her new book about writing (it’s an outgrowth of writing workshops she has been teaching around the country, and it’s full of thought-provoking stuff), we talked a little about writing: apparently she feels that science-fiction writers are vital to the continuation of humanity, which was nice to hear. I told her about my gorillas-and-tulpas story and it made her laugh and clap her hands. And that, coming from one’s Big Damn Hero, always feels good.
After that I ran around stalking Shaenon Garrity, of the webcomics Narbonic and Skin Horse, so that I could buy copies of the Narbonic collections and embarass myself with fanboy gushing. Never did find her, but I did manage to score copies of most of the collections. (But no Volume 1, sadly.) If you’re not reading her stuff, you should; both of them make it easy to start from the beginning. They’re great fun. Narbonic is finished now — you can read it from start to end and not only have a fine time indeed but also watch a creator hone her skills before your eyes. I also met the Wondermark guy and the XKCD guy and the Dinosaur Comics guy. And how cool is that?
And then I went to a meeting of the Secret Cabal and my gorillas-and-tulpas story was on the slab and, to my surprise and delight, they liked it. It needs a little tinkering — I really should attend to that — but it’s not far from being ready for sending out into the world. And that feels good, too.
Commentary
gorillas and tulpas? spill!
posted by satyr69, Jun 5 09 6:22 PM