he school year has begun again, and right on schedule students around the world are being forced to write the traditional beginning-of-semester essay, "What I Did on My Summer Vacation." To my mind, summer is a malleable thing. Regardless of what the calendar tells me about the changing of the seasons—that summer begins on June 21 and ends on Sept. 22—what my heart tells me is that summer really begins with Memorial Day and ends on Labor Day. What this means is that, as usual, my summer was bracketed by science-fiction conventions. I started the season in Baltimore (over the Memorial Day weekend) with Balticon 37 and ended it in Toronto (over the Labor Day weekend) with the 61st World Science Fiction Convention.
Since you now know that when I say summer, I'm being elastic with the term, and really mean "summer," I guess I should also explain that when I say vacation, I really mean "vacation." No lazing on the beach drinking pina coladas for me! You see, over the "summer," my "vacation" consisted of attending three science-fiction conventions (the third being Readercon in mid-July) and also teaching at the Clarion Science Fiction Writing Workshop. I was so busy pontificating on panels, reading my stories aloud, instructing others and so on that I didn't have a moment's rest at any of these events, and yet it was so much fun that it was indeed a vacation.
You know those bumper stickers you read when tailgating? Things like I'd Rather Be Water-Skiing or I'd Rather Be Crocheting? Well, my bumper sticker wouldn't say any of those. Nor would it even say something like I'd Rather Be Reading (or Watching) Science Fiction. No, my bumper sticker would say: I'd Rather Be Talking About Science Fiction.
Because in talking about it with others who are equally as interested in the genre, I learn to appreciate it more. My thoughts crystallize so that I learn why I love what I love, and why I detest what I detest as well. That intellectual give-and-take is invigorating, which is another reason why I still consider such hard work to be a "vacation."
Lessons of a lazy "summer"
Now that we have that cleared up, here's some of what I learned on this year's "summer vacation":
At Balticon, on a panel titled "The Uses of Horror in Science Fiction," I was reminded that the two genres are not so mutually exclusive as we might think (though some still seem to think that is the case), while on the "Small Press and Print-on-Demand Publishing" panel, I learned more about one of the true horror stories in SF—how mainstream publishing can sometimes marginalize writers writing on the fringes.
At Clarion, by letting one of my own short stories be critiqued by a circle of beginning writers, I learned how in just a few short weeks, it is possible for the natural common sense of such a group to be honed into a tool capable of giving valuable advice.
At Readercon, on a panel titled "Horror and Pornography: Separated at Birth (or is it Death?)," where we discussed the ways in which both genres toyed with emotions, I learned a little bit more than I necessarily wanted to know about my co-panelists' tastes in the latter of those two genres, while on "For Aficionados Only: Has SF Become Too Specialized?," I learned that others were much more frightened than I was that we were losing our audience by preaching only to the choir.
And at the World SF Convention, on a panel titled "The Babylon 5 Story Arc: Success or Failure," I learned how hard it was to keep your head when others were losing theirs and blaming it on you—especially in Hollywood. I also learned that most of those who do manage to keep their passions are usually one of us—creators with a love of SF.
But enough of the joys of summer. Fall is fast approaching. Everyone out of the pool!
Scott Edelman started his trek to the editor-in-chief position at Science
Fiction Weekly decades ago, when he began working as an assistant editor at
Marvel Comics. Between these two positions, this four-time Hugo Award nominee in
the category of Best Editor was the founding editor of the
award-winning magazine Science Fiction Age, in addition to editing
Sci-Fi Universe, Sci-Fi Flix and Satellite Orbit. Currently, he also edits SCI
FI, the official magazine of the SCI FI Channel. His upcoming short stories will appear in can be found in The Journal of Pulse-Pounding Narratives and Quietly Now: A Tribute to Charles L. Grant.
