mariness

As I've previously mentioned, the ICFA conference is, in theory, a conference where academics and writers involved in the arts of the fantastic mingle and engage in scholarly conversation, readings, and paper presentations. I say "in theory" because my part of this is to hang out at the bar or the pool and discuss, in rather less academic fashion, such Important Matters as Hard Cider, the Perfect Party Dress (with pockets!), and why the Blurays for Game of Thrones remain priced so high even for academics and writers involved in the arts of the fantastic and will HBO EVER open its HBO Go service to non-cable subscribers?

This year was no different. The only real difference was that I spent Thursday and Friday nights at the IAFA hotel (kinda ruing this when I was sick Friday and Saturday mornings, which kinda felt like a total waste of spending money on a hotel) and that I ate a lot more cheese. (Cheese is good.) So I felt a bit more like I was part of the conference, even though I did even less of it than I usually do, and though I was pretty certainly the only person at the conference also following a golf tournament. (In actual fact most of the other attendees didn't even know about the golf tournament.) Various highlights, in no particular order, especially not in the order of events:

( Neil Gaiman's Whiskey! Shoes! Gators! Tornados! )