L to R: Jane Fancher, Ann Wilkes, Toby Bishop (aka Louise Marley), Kij Johnson, MJ Engh.
The panel was a blast. I learned before going in that it was born from a typo. Someone misspelled parapsychology as parapiscology, and after a 12 hour programming meeting, the said, "why not?" and added it to the slate. The four of us, Mark Ferrari, Deby Fredricks, Jeff Knutson and I, had the task of creating a story during our hour-long panel involving a paranormal fish. We tried for around twenty-five minutes before things started to break down. The tangents, however still involved the creative process, which was the real point of the panel – to show the creative process in action.
In the end, if nothing else, the panelists and audience alike learned one thing: three writers and one illustrator can not a story make. We had some lovely ideas that perhaps all could work. It would be fun to continue to run with it and see what we come up with as individuals after what was essential a brainstorming session. So what do you think of a mind reading fish who can communicate with a mute boy via telepathy? And then what? What can a fish with special powers possibly accomplish? Well, for one thing, if he also happened to be your pet, you could fly him to Loch Ness and he can tell you if Nessie really exists. Why not? We were fifteen minutes in before we decided what kind of fish he/she was. It never even occurred to us to assign the fish a gender, let alone a name.
Saturday evening they showed Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-Long Blog (Joss Whedon). You have heard of it right? Seeing it on the big screen with someone who had never seen it was still more fun. Will it rival Rocky Horror?
I left at the crack of dawn on Sunday and had breakfast with my daughter, son and daughter-in-law who live in the East Bay before heading back home just in time to turn around and go back out for the monthly RWC (Redwood Writers' Club) meeting.
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