Orycon is very enjoyable this year. I am confident the new hotel (which, as Orycon oldtimers will remind me, is actually the *old* hotel, as Orycon #1 & 2 were held there) will grow on me, even though I’m finding it pretty disorienting at the moment. But it has several distinct advantages (free parking! MAX right across the street! Small conference rooms for the Writers Workshop! Lots of free WiFi!) And there are a lot of great people here which makes up for any navigational difficulties I’ve encountered. I was thinking that this might be a kind of low-attendance year, given that the event was being held the weekend after Thanksgiving, but it seems to be quite well attended. Lots of great costuming (I missed the Masquerade, darn it), and some really good panels. Seriously, all the panels I’ve been on or attended have been top-notch this year.

Speaking of top-notch panels, my daughter was on her first-ever panel this year! She got a little stage-fright, but I was very proud of her. And all the kids did wonderful. It was great to hear them talk so eloquently on the life of a child in a fascist dictatorship in a creative environment.

The Broad Universe reading, especially, went better than it’s gone in many a year. Everyone brought pieces of exactly the right length, which made my moderation job easy, and we got quite a good turnout. I’ve recorded it for podcasting purposes, and you’ll be able to listen to (most) of the pieces on the BU Website. My tactic of reading last (and hopefully not having to read at all, if the other pieces went long) backfired, and I actually had to *read* something! I did a snippet of a short story that I’ve been working on for ages, that has problems in the end but the first 1000 words are OK, so …

The Jay Lake reading and fundraiser for the Clayton Memorial Medical Fund was very well attended, and as far as I could tell, we raised a lot of money. It was an enthusiastic and supportive audience (all of whom were wearing INSANELY bright Hawaiian shirts!) and the radio-style recording was incredibly fun. I think more readings should be group affairs, actually. Anyway, it was recorded and we’ll be sending the recording to Jay. Even though the story we read had to do with heat transfer, it was water transfer that ruled the evening, with a huge dripping leak coming from the ceiling behind the readers through most of the reading. There were *3* leaks by the end of the reading, prompting me to comment, “maybe we should evacuate this room before the ceiling caves in.” I didn’t mean to stampede the herd, but people did start exiting the room rather quickly.

2 more panels today, then off to Powell’s to hear the readings. I’ll be twittering as I go, but for some reason Twitter Tools isn’t posting a twitter digest to my blog automagically like it was before. One more thing to troubleshoot. Sigh.

Have a great Sunday, everyone!