Rosemary Kirstein

Still hunkered down, either working, or working at working, or working the peripheral tasks.   I need to get as much done as I can before various upcoming events take me away from my office and into the actual world of people who I did not invent.

Some of them are quite nice, of course, and I’m looking forward to seeing them!  But time seems to tick away far too quickly lately.  July and August are already chewed-into.

First up is Readercon, running from July 7 – 10.   I have exactly one panel:

Friday July 08

1:00 PM    5    Why Women Become Protagonists . Gwenda Bond, LJ Cohen, Rosemary Kirstein, Hillary Monahan, Navah Wolfe. In a 2015 essay about portrayals of female protagonists in crime fiction, Sara Paretsky writes, “Detectives like V.I. came to life in a time of bravado, when my peers and I… wrote out of a kind of cockiness: we’re doing a job because we want it, we like the work, no one can stop us. Today, the female hero often has been brutally assaulted… or suffered some other form of serious trauma. It’s as if the only acceptable reason for a woman to embrace the investigative life is to recover from damage, or get revenge for it—not because she takes pleasure in the work, and comes to it as a free spirit.” Let’s explore the reasons that female protagonists decide to protag, and discuss the many ways to motivate them other than assault and trauma.

I’m not sorry to have only one panel this time out, and I don’t mind the time slot — but it might be unfortunate for anyone who works a day-job, and would only be able to make it to Readercon  from Friday after work until Sunday.  I suspect I’ll also have a Kaffeeklatsch, but the schedule for that has not yet been settled.  If the klatsch is not on the weekend, I’ll make sure to set aside some time to be at some locale, available to meet anyone who cares to show up!  I’ll post the time for that, when I know it, here, on Facebook, and on Twitter (where I am @rkirstein).

This entirely in addition to persons to whom I’ve already promised hang-out time — you know who you are.

After Readercon I generally hang out with pals Ann Zeddies and Geary Gravel for a few days.   So, that’s about a full week of July in use for non-writing.

And then: August!   I’ve got three whole weeks of commitments!  Including WorldCon.  You can see why I’m trying to get as much done now as possible.

Of course, I am much encouraged by the most recent meeting of the Fabulous Genrettes, which could not have gone better, in my opinion.   It’s nice when you think you’ve done something especially well, and other people agree!  The encouraging feedback was great — but so was the constructive feedback.   A fine time was had by all.

In other news:

The roof of my office is a pretty good place from which to watch fireworks.   Not as good as actually being under them, but the high ones did manage to clear the trees that stood between me and them.

Not the best shot, but hey! iPhone, and at night.

I do love fireworks.   Always have.