Capclave Report

My good friend John and I decided to run over to Capclave for a Saturday-only sampling. The only other con I'd been to previously was World Fantasy (twice), so I certainly wasn't expecting Capclave to match WFC in size or quality, but it was quite good.

John and I went to the dealer room first (of course) where we literally bumped into Andy Duncan and his wife Sydney. It's always great fun to see Andy and it was a real pleasure to meet Sydney. (And it's also nice having them in Maryland.)

Most of the panels we attended were pretty good. I always enjoy the wit and wisdom of David Hartwell, who had a lot to say about why we have dividing lines in genre and how they came about in the first place. And I enjoyed the panel on the TV show Lost, where I discovered that compared to some fans, I am only a casual observer of the series.

Which brings me to the best panels:

The Future of Small Press Magazines consisted of four panelists: Neil Clarke (Clarkesworld), Ed Schubert (InterGalactic Medicine Show), Lawrence Watt-Evans (Helix) and Sean Wallace (Fantasy Magazine).

Each publication is different in their format, their payment and their philosophy. While Clarkesworld pays 10 cents a word, they only publish two stories a month, one by an established writer and one by a relative newcomer. (The stories appear online and in chapbook format. Online is free, chapbook is not.) Fantasy pays 2 cents a word, but includes a healthy twelve stories an issue. Wallace says that he feels it's more important to include more 4,000K (or fewer) stories than one or two stories of novellete or novella length, that most readers seem to want to read shorter fiction. (I tend to agree with him.) Helix is not an open submission publication, but they do tend to publish stories by established authors that's been turned down by other mags because they're too controversial.

There's a lot more to say about this panel and Endings: Slingshots and Other Varieties of Wrapping Up, but if I'm going to get to the gym before it closes, I've gotta go now. More later (pending interest). All in all, a good con I plan to attend again next year.