OryCon is Coming

It's now two months until OryCon 35, and DeeAnn and I are once again volunteering! We hope to see some of you lovely people at the con. (But not on Sunday. See below for details.)

DeeAnn has been acting as pre-con liaision for all the Guests of Honor (GoHs), including author Anne Bishop, artist Larry Elmore, editor Liz Gorinsky, and media GoH Matt Vancil. This seems to involve lots of e-mail, intermittent telephone calls, and making maps and gift baskets. I do my best to help where I can, and stay out of her way otherwise.

Myself, I'm running the Open Read and Critiques (ORCs) again, as I have since 2009. Here's this year's blurb:

An Open Read & Critique (ORC) is an opportunity to read the first 750 words of your short story or novel aloud to your peers and receive a Clarion-style critique of your work. Our theme is "How to Hook a Reader." All writers and genres are welcome! Look for sign-up sheets outside our meeting room starting Friday morning (first come, first served). Content should be rated PG-13 and contain no explicit sex, graphic violence, or excessive profanity. More info online at: http://35.orycon.org/activities-events/orc/

Because I can't resist tinkering with the schedule, this time around the one-hour ORC sessions will happen:

• Friday at 2pm
• Friday at 8pm
• Saturday at 1pm
• Saturday at 2pm

I'm also going to be on a panel titled "Social media, time suck or revolution" on Saturday at 11am, and then I have a writers' workshop critique session with two pros at noon. Finally, DeeAnn and I have to catch a flight to California Saturday night, because our good friend Chris is getting married in Calistoga on Sunday. I will also theoretically be doing NaNoWriMo the whole time.

So yeah, that second weekend in November is going to be pretty interesting.