mrissa | In other news: water wet. Plus: panel report, such as it is.

(Here's the post-flight vertigo: wheee! What fun.)

Personal revelations that were really, really obvious to everyone else seem to be sort of a standard thing on livejournal. I don't know why I should expect to be exempt.

But really, did you know that I'm a very political novel writer?

Why didn't you tell me?

Did you think that the bit where I got the glowing praise up and down and sideways in my last novel rejection with the only negative bit being that it was "too political" was going to clue me in? Anyway, this was my major bit of self-revelation last weekend: at the "Fantasy of Manners" panel, at the "A Different Magic" panel, at the "Writing for all ages" panel...most of the panels, really. Of course at the "Kings, Seventh Sons, and the lamentable absence of miller's daughters" panel. I ended up thinking, "Um. Sounds like I'm very political. Comparatively speaking."

From the way

ksumnersmith laughed at me when I shared this thought with her, I suspect I am the only one to whom it is news.

Still and all: political. Apparently.

At the "Fantasy of Manners" panel, I managed not to leap up and cheer when

adrian_turtle said that fantasy of manners was about non-binary distinctions, and I managed again not to leap up and cheer when Debra Doyle said, "Manners are how you manage division of power." But it was a near thing in both cases. People going around being smart about these things; it's very heartening.

I don't know how to do reports on the panels I was on, really. I can come the closest on the Joy of Reading panel, where

papersky asked a bunch of us to read from a bunch of things. People were requesting a list of who read what, and I've almost got it:

papersky did Keats's "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer,"

tnh did a bit of The Last Hot Time,

elisem did part of The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars,

rysmiel read from a Peter Fleming travel book, I did the bit with sleep and ducks in Gaudy Night, Jim Macdonald read a short story by an M. Clark in its entirety (but I have forgotten what the M stands for), David Goldfarb read the bit with Eowyn and the Witch-King, and

rushthatspeaks did some Calvino. But I don't remember what

pnh read at all, although I will say, "Of course!" and feel stupid when someone reminds me.

I'm afraid I'm a dreadful failure at reporting on panels. Hmm. I liked "Making Real Things and Making Things Real," because it was full of such fascinating tidbits, like the Quaker handwriting and the false hills of Acre and the Japanese books down the wells. Good panels make me want to go out and do things, or do the things I've been doing better, and these did. So.