Photos from this year's Penguicon have been added to the Flickr Penguicon pool. Have a look.

Here's an interesting tidbit from the writing sessions at Penguicon. During the Q&A of one panel, the writers were asked to name their influences, and two out of three mentioned Borges. (And Borges was mentioned in at least one other session by a panelist who wasn't in the room during the first.) This thrilled me. I must admit that I only recently discovered Jorge Luis Borges, LOVED his stories, and was frustrated that no one else had heard of him. Did I happen into a panel coincidentally stacked with rare Borges admirers, or is Borges having a resurgence?

(I'm trying to remember the writers on the panel. I think Cherie Priest and Catherynne M. Valente were the Borges admirers, but I'm not positive.)

I spent the weekend at Penguicon, which was loads of fun. I may or may not get around to blogging about some of the writing sessions. Some of the sessions were useful, others less so. I did take notes. And also photos.

I'm now engaged in reading a lot of science fiction, with the aim of writing in the genre. I have to admit that I'm not a huge scifi fan, if you take fan to its "fanatic" etymological root. (I understand there is some disagreement of the "fanatic" etymology, and some propose "fancier" as an alternative.) I read a lot of scifi in my youth, but mostly stopped reading it around the end of middle school. On the other hand, I never miss an episode of Doctor Who.

I started reading scifi again last year. I happened to notice that there was a scifi convention (Penguicon) happening now only a few miles from my home. I didn't have any plans, so I decided to attend. I admit that my heart was colored with irony and cynicism; I anticipated a sort of nerd safari. The con stripped all that away, though. Once I was there, I loved the con without irony.

The mystery genre gives me that warm, fuzzy feeling more often than scifi stuff, but mystery readers and writers just don't have the kind of community that's grown around scifi. I want to be part of scifi fandom. I want to belong.