Geek Girl Con – When Poets and Geeks Collide

We had unexpectedly beautiful weather for today’s appearances at Geek Girl Con. The sun shone, the temperature went all the way up to 64 degrees (it’s been in the fifties and rainy) and Mt Rainier came out and greeted us as we drove into the city.
Geek Girl Con was a lot of fun. I did a signing, sold a couple of books, the presentation went well, and I found a couple of really cool things – like Ada’s Bookstore and Tracy who runs the charmingly named Geektastic Pentameter. I also got to meet Wonder Woman comic writer Gail Simone, who was quoted in my first book’s poem “Women in Refrigerators.” The crowd was friendly, the conference was sold out and they were turning people away by noon, and in general people seemed to have a really good time. And now the University Bookstore carries both my books (in case you’re in Seattle looking for them..)
My real purpose in going to cons (this is my fourth) is to help bring poetry to audiences that might not know that there is poetry out there that might appeal to them. Call it “poetry evangelism.” And I like it! The intersection where poet meets geek!
Here are my funny stories – one person told me they really liked my costume (a black jacket, a pink sequin shirt, jeans, and pink Uggs.) Now, a lot of people dressed up as Leia, anime characters, etc…but I was only dressed as a poet!
The other funny story is when a gentleman taking video of the conference came up to me as I was doing my signing and asked if I was comic book and television writer (from such series as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly) Jane Espenson. This led me to realize 1. no one ever knows what writers look like and 2. I could claim to be a famous other writer person and no one would know! But when I admitted I was “just a poet” and told the videographer who I was, he decided to go ahead and film something from me about the conference anyway, which I did a hilariously bad job with. Glenn got a shot of this and you can see the camera in the picture above.
Then we snuck out to enjoy some of the sights of downtown Seattle in the sun. This is me at the famous “Black Hole Sun” and Glenn across the street at the Asian Art Museum: