Go West! (You’ll be glad you did)
Tags: Blind Eye BooksSince Blind Eye Books are so popular on Weightless, we asked Nicole Kimberling, Blind Eye Books’s publisher, to give us an update on her fall convention schedule:
This year Blind Eye Books’ fall convention schedule took us to three of the west coast’s most interesting alternative conventions: Yaoi-Con, GeekGirlCon, and Bent-Con. In addition to being interesting from the LGBT speculative fiction angle, each of these three events has it’s own particular focus.
Yaoi-Con is a Bay Area (NorCal) anime and manga event that has drawn around 1000 people annually for more than a decade. It focuses on Boy’s Love manga, anime and games. Strictly an 18+ event, Yaoi-Con is not for folks who strongly value propriety but neither is it sleazy. Because many of the con-goers are just barely 18, liquor is often gladly bypassed for vat-sized mochaccinos and darkside skittles. Attended mainly by younger women, Yaoi-Con has the feel of a three-day slumber party and sugar-fueled giggle-fest. In particular the con’s signature event, The Bishounen Auction where buyers (which can be single or groups of up to four) bid for the right to take cosplaying hot guys out on a Saturday night dance date, brings back fond memories of being an 18 year old fantasy-prone dork. And though I am, myself, a lesbian I can’t help but be charmed every year by the sheer boy-craziness of the entire event.
Boy-craziness was also a hot topic at GeekGirlCon as evidenced by the well-attended panel called, “Zombies, Butts, and Teen Female Sexual Agency,” which highlighted the Bob’s Burger’s character, Tina Belcher.
(If you’re not familiar with Tina Belcher, AJ Dent writes an excellent description of her on the GeekGirlCon blog here.)
GeekGirlCon (see photo 1 below) could be described as WisCon’s westside little sister: the strong feminist vibe is still there but there are more cute t-shirts for sale and one entire floor devoted to gaming of all kinds. This year attendance was capped at 5000 and all badges sold out on the first day. This is one con where I was struck by the presence of whole cosplaying geek families from tiny little two-foot tall daleks to wise-women dispensing engineering knowledge in the DIY Science Zone.
Taking place in the Washington State Convention center in Seattle, GeekGirlCon is definitely an event where a large percentage of the population goes back to the hotel and takes naps (though I’m sure there were some wild room parties that I didn’t locate on account of napping.)
Last on this year’s list is Bent-Con (see photos 2&3 below). As with Yaoi-Con, sleeping is low on the list of priorities for attendees of Bent-Con. Like The Price is Right, Bent-Con takes place in sunny Burbank, California. Originally convened to showcase queer comics, the event has expanded to include spec fic books, games and films focusing on QUILTBAG characters. While not as naughty as Yaoi-Con, Bent-Con is the place to go to see and meet real (probably gay and mostly over 21) men and women in skimpy costumes. Attended by a couple thousand people, and growing every year, Bent-Con has a wonderfully inclusive social scene featuring a Saturday night mermaid party (with mermen too!) as well as film screenings. While GeekGirlCon begins at 10 am, Bent-Con takes a more leisurely approach to mornings, starting at noon, but stretches on into the night, with official programming ending at the witching hour. It’s a hotel con with a good bar scene where you can expect to spot amazing costumes, make new friends and pick up great merchandise.
Blind Eye Books will be returning to all three cons next year and we hope to see you there!
Photos by Nicole Kimberling.
Highfell Grimoires: PW Best Books of Summer
Tags: Blind Eye Books, Langley Hyde
Hey, I just saw that Langley Hyde’s novel Highfell Grimoires (Blind Eye Books) not only received a starred review from Publishers Weekly, it’s also one of their Best Summer Books 2014 picks! You can preorder it here and download a pdf excerpt here.
PW says:
A young man becomes a teacher at a most peculiar school in this gripping, beautifully written, and thoroughly enjoyable steampunk story. It’s rife with class injustice, intrigue, and mislaid identities, blending the best parts of the modern thriller and the Victorian sensation novel.
Irregulars is a DABWAHA finalist
Tags: awards, Blind Eye Books, Ginn Hale, Irregulars, Nicole K
I’m writing this so that I can write DABWAHA a couple of times. DABWAHA, DABWAHA! It stands for Dear Author Bitchery Writing Award for Hella Good Authors which is I think the best name for an award in the world.
Who wouldn’t want to be a DABWAHA finalist? Anyway, I was pleased to get a tip that Irregulars by Nicole Kimberling, Josh Lanyon, Ginn Hale, and Astrid Amara is nominated in the GLBT category (and that Libba Bray’s The Diviners is up in the NwRE/Crossover* category along with some other lovely people I know of including Sarah Rees Brennan and Malinda Lo). You can also nominate 2012 titles here and the schedule is here.
And for confused readers (me! me!), here’s How to Play: start here. The deadline for selections is March 18: go!
* I don’t know what that is!
First and last for 2012
Tags: Blind Eye Books, Ginn Hale, Tansy Rayner Roberts, Twelfth Planet PressIn the same way that it can be fun to see the first and last word or sentence of a book, I thought it would be interesting to see what the first and last orders of 2012 were.
The very first book bought on Weightless in 2012 was for Ginn Hale’s incredibly popular novel Wicked Gentlemen and the very final one was Tansy Rayner Roberts’s alternate history collection Love and Romanpunk (“History is not what you think it is.”).
First and last sentences? Ok:
1st: “The night hung in tatters.” Last: “It fit me well enough.”
1st: “Let us begin with the issue of most interest to future historians: I did not poison my uncle and husband, the Emperor Claudius.” Last: “Where do we start?”
Ha! Both of those are fantastic. (Although the second sentences are even better than the first.)
Get your Carl Brandon reader
Tags: Blind Eye Books, DRM, Kate BernheimerI’ve got to hand it to Nicole Kimberling at Blind Eye Books who basically wrote this article to me in an email a few months ago. Which is one of the reasons we’re very happy to have this site available and getting busier all the time.
Also: you have until 11/22 to get an ereader stuffed with excellent books for a measly buck. Or, at least a fighting chance at one. Buy some dollar tix to get and Alex, Nook, or Kobo reader and support the Carl Brandon Society while you’re at it.
Fairy Tale Review Press managing editor Kate Bernheimer has a new collection of stories out from Coffee House, Horse, Flower, Bird, as well as a new anthology from Penguin, My Mother She Killed Me, My Father She Ate Me, and there was a nice interview recently in Shelf Awareness. Sadly we won’t have Coffee House titles on here as they still like DRM for their ebooks. Maybe later.
We should have a new press going up next week as well as . . . launching LCRW esubs!