Necronomicon

This post was actually written on Oct 28, 2012, but I didn't have access to the internet to get it posted.

My husband and I have been exploring some Florida conventions these last few years, and particularly this year. This weekend, we have been at Necronomicon, a 31-year-old sf convention held in Tampa/St Petersburg.

I like this con! Even though there are apparently no ‘big publishers’ in attendance, or even any big book sellers, this con is strongly centered on books. There are a number of small presses and self-published authors here, eager to share whatever knowledge they have gleaned with others. So there are plenty of panels that concentrate on writing, contracts and so on. Even though these panels might be touching on subjects that I may have heard about at many other conventions over the years, I am hearing them discussed by authors I haven’t already heard a dozen times. And publishing is in such flux right now, it is good to get information from as many sources as you can.

Many of the panelists here also have some sort of science background, so there are panels on science subjects also. I have always like science, but I seldom seem to see science panels at the midwest conventions I usually attend. These are not ‘classes’ like one would take in school, but discussions on a specific topic that sometimes wander off topic, sometimes get a bit silly, but they are entertaining and also a call to a person’s curiosity. Certainly they have called to mine.

Now, I don’t mean to imply that this is all that is happening at Necronomicon. Absolutely not. There are several rooms devoted to gaming, both tabletop and computer, a video room, dealer’s room and art show... . A concert on Saturday night preceded the costume call. And the costumes run the gamut from D&D characters to anime, Dr Who, Joker & Harlequin, Poison Ivy, steampunk, space armor, Chathulu - a wonderful pantheon of imagination and craftsmanship!

I’m going to give some serious thought to coming back next year.

Disquieting News This Week

A well-known blogger outed himself as a her. She became a 'him' almost by accident; in the midst of trying to make a living as a writer, she used a male pen name, and acceptance of her/his work (and the pay for such) came much easier. So the pen name continued to be used. She was only acknowledging her gender because another writer (also a woman writing as a man) had blown the bugle, so to speak.

This is SO disquieting, on SO many levels.

First, what makes the second writer so superior that she felt she had to 'cast stones' at someone for doing exactly what she was doing?

Second, this completely blows my fervent hope that humans (or at least, those of us who live in supposedly civilized parts of the world) were moving past those prejudices against people based on gender, race, and so on. Apparently not, if women must use a male nom de plume in order to make a decent living as a writer. Bummer.

As I stewed about this turn of events, I wondered if I needed to take a male pen name. Women have been doing it since … forever, practically. Occasionally, a man will take a female pen name, but usually it's the other way around. Writers take a pen name for any number of reasons. There's even instructions in some of my reference books aimed at the beginning writer on how to correctly identify your work and pen name, without confusing the editors.

This particular instance sounded more serious – why would the acceptance and money be any different if the editors/clients had known they were dealing with a woman and not a man? So apparently, she had some way for them to issue checks to her as a man. Now, how did she do that? I've checked with a banker; I can't set up a bank account in a fictitious name. If I sign a check as "Female Name AKA Pen Name", the clients would soon figure out I'm female. (Or maybe not – these days, most banks do not return checks to the initiator like they did in the old days.) About the only thing we could figure out was that the writer needed to set up a business, have the checks made out to that business, and sign the checks as the owner of that business.

Obviously, hiding your gender as a writer is possible, at least for several years. Then what? Pick a new pen name and start again? I just find it so depressing that in this day and age, any of that is necessary. It's the twenty-first century, for crying out loud! Humans have made some wonderful progress in the last two thousand years, even in the last two hundred years. But I like to think 'progress' is not just technology, that it's also a way of thinking. In that respect, we haven't made nearly as much progress as I'd like.

Color me bummed. Trudy