Notes from the Year's Best Fantasy and Science Fiction 2010 Panel, Norwescon 34

Panel description: Explore the overlap among Magical Realism and contemporary, urban, and traditional fantasy–and even horror.
Participants: Lillian Cauldwell, Thomas Olde Heuvelt, Nick Mamatas, Cat Rambo, Kat Richardson (M)

I don’t know that we said too much that was insightful about the division between magic realism and fantasy, but we did arrive at a decent and interesting booklist, which I present here for your pleasure.

Ambrose Bierce – An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge (free on the Kindle)
Mikhail Bulgakov – The Master and Margarita
Paola Corso – Giovanna’s 86 Circles, The Laundress Catches Her Breath (poetry)
Andy Duncan – Beluthahatchie and Other Stories
Laura Esquival – Like Water for Chocolate
Barbara Howes – Eye of the Heart
Natsuki Ikezawa – The Navidad Incident: The Downfall of Matías Guili
Franz Kafka – anything (I like the stories.)
Stephen King – The Green Mile (opinions differed on whether this should be counted)
Yann Martell – Life of Pi
Haruki Murakami – anything
Salman Rushdie – Midnight’s Children
Elif Shafak – The Bastard of Istanbul, Flea Palace
Latif Tekin – Dear Shameless Death
Ngugi wa Thiongo – The Wizard of the Crow
Amos Tutuola – The Palm-Wine Drunkard
T.H. White – Mrs. Masham’s Repose
Carlos Ruiz Zafon – The Prisoner of Heaven (Cemetery of Forgotten Books), The Shadow of the Wind

Margin Magazine

Lisa Mantchev described it best when she Tweeted: I’ve never actually been run over by a Zamboni full of glitter, but that’s what it feels like after a really great convention.

That’s how SteamCon was. I arrived Friday afternoon for the Steampunk Reimagines Fairy Tales. This was a writing-focused panel, and I’d like to see future SteamCons make a wider space for a writing track, since this was jam-packed with attendees. Lisa Mantchev was our excellent moderator, and J.R. Boyett, a fellow participant in the FairyPunk project, was another panelist. We talked about how to create stories that best take advantage of the steampunk setting, without making it seem as though you’re just gluing a gear on it.

Later that evening, I had the first of my three panels on Victorian explorers. This was the best of them, because it focused on women explorers, and that’s an area I am reasonably well-read in, because I love some of those stories so much. That session included moderator Carmen Beaudry, Lori Edwards and another exquisitely garbed woman whose name, unfortunately, I didn’t catch. It was AWESOME and we all had a lovely time. I’ll mention some of the names we touched on, and urge you to go look these ladies and their amazing stories up: Harriet Chalmers Adams, Gertrude Bell, Isabelle Eberhardt, Mary Kingsley, Annie Smith Peck, May French Sheldon, and Lady Hester Stanhope, among many others.

Saturday was two more panels on expeditions, first one with Joshua Merrill-Nach on Great Quests of the 19th Century and later one on cryptozooological expeditions with a last minute substitute panelist whose name I know only as “Sean,” unfortunately, but who was terrific. Both panels were pretty full, the second one standing room only.

Sunday morning, I read from “Her Windowed Eyes, Her Chambered Heart” to a small but select audience that included the fabulous Sandra M. Odell. And then I made one last pass through the wonders of the dealer’s room and retreated home. Adieu glitter and goggles!