Art electronic and tangible

I know that being somewhere by 11:30 on a Saturday morning is not any sort of hardship for most people, but given my fatigue and my late bedtime last night, it felt rough to make this morning.  Still, I succeeded and was in Durham way before the start of my panel at the Escapist Expo. 

At noon, in a small room packed to its capacity, Richard Dansky, David Drake, Mur Lafferty, and I began the panel.  On short notice and with no desire on her part to do it, Mur graciously agreed to moderate the discussion.  Here's how the con's program book described the panel:

Being able to communicate with your fans in near real-time over the internet is a new challenge for authors, even those who write about speculative worlds. Prominent science-fiction authors discuss what the internet has brought to publishing, if they’re embracing it or fearing it, and how the net has changed their relationship with their fans.

What we actually discussed was a little bit of that, a little bit of the economics of ebook publishing, a little bit of self-publishing, a little bit about publishing in general, and so on. Mur steered the conversation well; I'd be happy with her moderating all my panels.  She, Dave, and Richard had plenty of intelligent things to say, and I tried not to embarrass myself too much.

I wore my EFF anniversary shirt in recognition of the geek nature of the con, but if anyone noticed, no one said anything.

After the panel ended, a group of us strolled into Durham's lovely CenterFest in search of lunch.  The show proved to be quite cool, and I hope to spend more time wandering it after tomorrow's panel. 

While looking for lunch, we stumbled across the booth of Mikel Robinson, an artist whose work I think is wonderful.  Sure enough, a piece spoke so loudly to me that I had to buy it and take it home.  If you don't know his art and you're in the Triangle area, the trip to Durham is worth it just to see everything he has on display--and from what I saw, CenterFest features many, many more artists worthy of your attention as well.

So we talked about art, and I took some home with me.  That's a pretty good day.