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Archive Site: Millennium Philcon Programming Division Meeting - December 30, 2000

People Attending: Diane Turnshek, Ann Cecil, Christina Schulman, Mary Tabasko, John Schmid, Monica Cellio, Dani Zweig, Jim and Laurie Mann.

We reviewed some of the recent happenings in Philly (extremely preliminary room allocation from Smofcon, et.c). There will be a PARSEC brainstorming for MilPhil (and now, most likely for the next Confluence!) on Saturday, March 10.

Christina volunteers to stress-test the Palm Pilot version of the final con schedule. She further volunteers to help explore sponsorships. Christina has done a good job at getting thousands of dollars from local companies for Geek nights in Pittsburgh (including a $2,500 grant from IBM). She says companies are often willing to donate money given the following conditions:

  • It can be written off as a recruiting expense (since several thousand high tech professionals are going to be attending, this shouldn't be too much of a problem)
  • Specific sums for targeted projects are proposed, not overly general proposals (for example, the grant I've suggested we request of the Sci Fi Channel so that Greg Bear can do a sattelite interview of Arthur C. Clarke during the con).

At this week's Philly meeting, see if it's too late for Ann to change one of the announced books in the progress report. If it is, this can be fixed next time, and at the Programming Web site.

Talk to John Syms about recruiting Lightning Press to have a book (Print on demand folks)

Diane Turnshek needs a volunteer or two to help manage the ISAAC Interviews (added to Help Wanted page).

Diane got substantial feedback on her draft of the "letter to parents" and promises to massively revise it so we can present it at the meeting in Philly.

Ideas

Why aren't there historical fiction cons?

"The Collaborators Game" (think "Newlyweds Game" but with collaborators)

What Else Beside Rome Fell?

"A Canticle for Martha Stewart" (Rebuilding civilization stylishly)

The Death of the Magazine Serial

Filk Songs that Aliens Might Write About Humans

See if Animal X will come and do something (maybe something on costume presentations?). http://www.animalx.com

Luciene Driver is the other half of Spectrum Literary Agency with Eleanor Wood. She is organizing workshops for SFWA Jr. members. Panel on SFWA junior members with their mentors. "What Can We Learn From Young Writers?" HWA is also doing mentoring. Developing Mentoring. "What Are You Getting Into If You Decide to Mentor a Young Writer?"

Workshop: Astronomers talking to fantasy writers about how to integrate astronomy into fantasy. Lunar alignment in fantasy novels tends to ... <explitive removed>

Name That Book - teams of people try to guess based on quotes (with identifying names removed) what's a real novel and what's a phony quote. Maybe have audience members read the quotes.

Frightening trends - hardback Druscilla and Spike novel.

Signs that the anti-Christ is here (beyond ... <political commentary removed>)

My Taste in Crappy Literature. Memoirs of a Crap Pusher

Neepery Panel

Planned Obsolesence: LPs --> 45s -> 8-tracks -> tapes -> CDs/DVDs

Bad Curd Jokes

Small Canadian and British magazines (Challenging Destiny and Spectrum)

An hour with X (publisher - Tor/Bantam)

Will big SF magazine still exist in 10 years? Gardner, Charles Brown, Stanley Schmidt, David Hartwell

SF magazine telemarketers

How can we turn around magazine circulation? Do we need booth bimbos?

Different thoughts on Print on Demand.

Inkspot.com --> Debbie R. has evaluated print-on-demand companies and liked ex-libris.com. Has a music group, Urban Tapestry, based in Toronto. ex-libris publishes E-books, paperbacks and hardbacks. Katie Fine from ex-libris has bought inkspot.com and lives near Philly.

How many ex-dot.com people does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

Renaissance of small press

Fan Funds

Upcoming Meetings

  • Program Division Meeting, Saturday, March 3, 2pm, Laurie & Jim Mann's
  • PARSEC Meeting, March 10, 2pm, Brainstorming