Ready for more info on coastal magic! Here we go…

My day Friday started out moderating the Not your brother’s SciFi & Fantasy panel. It was great seeing Linnea Sinclair and Amy Lane again to meet panelists Gini Koch, Ciara Knight, and Alex Hughes. These ladies all had an impressive understanding of the challenges of writing these genres and a good sense of the positive change that’s been taking place in recent years. I think the most memorable moment on the panel was Amy Lane’s passionate declaration that speculative romance is a place where romantic partners can meet on equal terms without the weight of traditional gender roles weighing them down. Here, here, Amy! Well said.

In the afternoon I moderated a panel on M/M or gay romance making strides into the mainstream. Damon Suede stood firmly in the “we’ve arrived” camp and pointed to J.R. Ward’s Lover at Last as the proof.  One of the bloggers in the audience was tweeting the session and announced that this comment landed her in a bit of a tweeter battle. Damon confessed he hadn’t actually read the book, but stuck to his claim, saying it didn’t matter what gay romance readers thought of the book, what was important is that it was accepted by Ward’s mainstream readers. Kiernan Kelly brought a slightly different view to the panel, having been in the business a long time. She acknowledged the great strides that had been made, but seemed less comfortable saying declaring the struggle to acceptance in the mainstream as over.

When the panels were done for the day, there was still tons of fun ahead. There was an author improve in which authors, including Damon Suede, Alex Hughes, Amy Lane, Lucienne Diver, Angie Fox, and Kiernan Kelly improved their way through scenes based on audience cues. The audience had no intention of making things easy, shouting out prompts like turkey-shifters and dinosaurs in a historical setting and mermaids in New York City. The authors rose to the challenge entertaining us with their imagination and skill.  After that I dashed across the street to play laser-tag with Rebecca Zannetti and Gini Koch. After setting aside my fangirl brainless fog I learned that laser tag is harder than I thought, the vest you have to wear smell like dirty socks, Rebecca is darn good with a pistol and Gini is fiercely competitive. A very instructive evening. To top things off, I rushed back to the hotel to the Cinema Craptastique showing of Red Riding Hood with snarky narration by Damon Suede. My sides were aching from laughter and that’s all I’m going to say about that. You really should have been there.

That about sums up Friday, but check back in for more on Saturday and Sunday later in the week.

And don’t forget the giveaway.