World Fantasy Convention 2006, Austin, Texas: Thursday night
World Fantasy Convention 2006 took place in Austin, TX, November 2-5, 2006. It started on a Thursday night. Here are some pictures of writers and editors (and perhaps people of other publishing-related professions) hanging out at the hotel bar and in the hallways.
Myself, I had an encounter on that Thursday night that made me feel validated. At the ConSuite I ran into a family of very friendly writers — a woman, her husband, and their 15-year-old son (he too had sold SF stories professionally!) — and had an interesting chat with them. The woman was born and grew up in Portugal, but has lived more than 20 years in the US. She is a SF/F writer who writes in English. She has published a few books. So, it was very encouraging to know that it’s not unheard of for a non-native English speaker to successfully write in English. Nabokov wasn’t the only one, apparently. The woman said she knew several more SF/F authors in that category.
But that wasn’t the most validating part.
The encounter started out on a predictable track to disaster, or at least a disappointment. It was the kind of situation I found myself in numerous times. As soon as I opened my mouth to say something, the guy asked: “Is that an accent?” Ah, I thought, here we go again. Instead of continuing with whatever topic was being discussed, he had to draw attention to my accent, and thus derail the topic. I probably rolled my eyes, or something, because the guy added: “Accents are sexy! Accents are cool!” His wife, standing next to him — the Portuguese SF/F author who writes in English — protested: “no, they are not!” She had an accent herself. And for the next 5 minutes she and I commiserated about how annoying it gets to be asked this question over and over by every new person I meet. She has been asked this question for 20 years and counting, the entire time she has lived in the US. And she dislikes it every bit as much as I do. Which proves I’m not crazy!
On the other hand, being a non-native speaker sometimes actually helps to understand the language, as is evident from a funny fact the guy mentioned. When he calls customer service or some such thing where he’s supposed to give his name over the phone, the customer service reps often misinterpret his last name. Especially if the rep sounds like a Southerner. His last name is Hoyt, and people (especially Southerners) hear it as White. He always has to spell it out very carefully, and even then they are sometimes not convinced it’s not White.
As a non-native English speaker, I suspect that the map of pronunciation to spelling is different in my brain than in the brain of a native English speaker. For me there is very little overlap between Hoyt and White, so I would never confuse the two.
It’s too bad I didn’t take a picture of them. 15 years later, this still ranks as one of the best conversations I had at a convention (though conventions have been pretty much disappointing in that respect, so perhaps that’s not such a high bar). But this was the first time when, 12 years into my life in the US, somebody agreed with me that (1) accents are not “cool” or “sexy”, definitely not to the accent-haver, and (2) even when it is meant with the best intentions, it is still a hostile act to draw attention to the person’s accent. Most likely, the speaker just wanted to join the conversation to talk about the topic at hand. But once you shift the topic to their accent, the original topic is dead. And the speaker both (a) didn’t get to talk about things they wanted to talk about, and (b) was singled out and put on the spot for a thing they mostly don’t have control over.
But I took pictures of many other people, most of which I didn’t know and with who I never crossed paths again. I’ll only make one observation about them. The people here were better dressed than in a typical science fiction / fantasy convention. (Well, this was a convention for professionals, after all.) Instead of Fannish Drab, the color scale ran towards Gothy Black.
Authors Lou Anders (left) and L. E. Modesitt
Michael Gallowglas (the only person of this group whose name tag I was able to read) (center), surrounded by other people at the hotel bar.
Jeffrey Lyman (center), and other con-goers (whose name tags I couldn’t read) in the hotel hallway
Unidentified people at the hotel bar
K. Z. Perry (left) and a person whose name tag I couldn’t see, in the hotel bar
K. Z. Perry (left) and a person whose name tag I couldn’t see, in the hotel bar
Writer Jay Lake (left) and a person whose name I don’t know.
Deanna Hoak (who I first met at Readercon) and other people in the hotel bar
Editor Liz Gorinsky holds a flyer that says “Who are the TOReadors? And how can you drink their booze?”. I assume TOReadors were authors published by the TOR publishing house, which had a presence at the convention. The Three TOReadors listed on the flyer were Daniel Abraham, Jay Lake, and Jeff Vandermeer, and apparently they were throwing a room party at the World Fantasy Convention, which they advertised on this flyer.
Liz Gorinsky and Blake Charlton (that’s what his name tag says) in the hotel bar
Unidentified people at the hotel bar
Left to right: Liz Gorinsky, Blake Charlton, and Deanna Hoak in the hotel bar
