brain coral

Since the pandemic, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) has provided a robust online experience for the Nebula conference. It was fully online during 2020 and then resumed in 2022. Since then, there has been a commitment to offering a full (if not always perfectly integrated) online experience during the Nebula Conference. This year, SFWA is trying something new: an online only professional development conference. We’re calling it Quasar.

If you already paid for attendance to either the face-to-face or online Nebula conference, you’re eligible to register for Quasar at no expense. Otherwise, it’s only $50. Register before September 15 to receive the panel participation forms and office-hour surveys.

It will be a weekend of seminars, office hours, and flexible event scheduling with a keynote by the Nebula Grand Master Nicola Griffith.

It should be interesting, informative, and a lot of fun. Anyone interested in writing speculative fiction should strongly consider attending to learn more about the craft and business of writing and to network with your peers. Join us!

widely posted meme contrasting the social media experience one some networks as compared with Mastodon

Today, I shared one of my Mastodon posts with friends, one of whom commented, “Weirdos posting stuff to social media 😂” So I took a few minutes to explain to them why I like Mastodon.

I do like Mastodon. I get more and higher quality engagement with what I share on Mastodon than anyplace else these days. But, more than that, I really just like it. It’s peaceful and relaxing. And a few months ago, I realized why: It reminds me of Usenet.

Usenet was a kind of terminal-based messaging system that scientists and technologists used in the earliest days of the Internet and the before times (i.e. when it was still “NSFNet“). It was an amazingly interesting and useful community of people having high-level discussions of topics both academic and non-academic.

My brother, who was an Unix systems-engineer at the time, had told me about Usenet. Honestly, the main reason I decided to go back to graduate school, was so I could gain access to it. Even at my university, it wasn’t easy. The campus IT group didn’t make it available to the general university community, so I had to request a guest account from the computer science department. As a doctoral student, my request was honored and I used that as my primary computer account, and email address, the whole time I was a graduate student. That was also why I started learning Unix, which became a key factor in landing the job that became my career.

As a student, I used Usenet professionally to further my academic career and research. I had high-level conversations about science education and life science. I used it to recruit subjects for my doctoral research, developing a model of expert performance in phylogenetic tree construction. But that wasn’t all I used it for. I also lived in soc.culture.esperanto, the newsgroup for Esperanto speakers, where I could have conversations with samideanoj from all over the world. This was a genuine novelty at the time, where you otherwise might have to sign up with a penpal service to exchange paper letters with people to have similar contacts. (I did this, in fact, and had interesting correspondence, but it often took many weeks to get responses whereas Usenet allowed you to have conversations in just days — or sometimes even just hours!)

Usenet began to die when AOL came online and there was a constant influx of new non-academic people. People called it “eternal September“. The Usenet community worked for busy academics and professionals because most people respected the conventions. You could use it for high-level discussions because it was high signal and low noise. Once those conventions broke down, the really interesting people mostly abandoned it because it wasn’t worth trying to wade through all of the irrelevant crap that novices tended to post. It was very sad.

Thirty years later, I was surprised to join Mastodon and discover that it reminded me so much of Usenet. It has the same high-quality engagement by interesting, thoughtful people. And it has social conventions that make the environment functional and useful. But then I realized that Mastodon didn’t just remind me of Usenet: It’s literally the same people. There’s Gene Spafford. And Steve Bellovin. And many, many others.

A whole bunch of the old, interesting people I remember from Usenet are here! We are pretty old, too. Most of us are retirement age, if not retired. But it’s been wonderful to reconnect with so many of these folks after so many years.

It’s not just that it has many of the same people, though. It’s the thoughtful design of the software environment. And the social conventions that favor high-quality engagement and reduce both the “copypasta” and the viral “oh, snap!” types of engagement that have come to characterize most social media. It’s always a pleasure to immerse myself in a thoughtful community of people engaged in creative pursuits, whether it’s taking pictures of mosses and lichens or sharing story fragments or responding to prompts about writing pursuits.

It’s not for everyone. But I like it a lot.

lichens and moss on bark

Two of the writing prompts I follow on Mastodon ask, “How was this month for you, writing-wise?” It was pretty good.

I had a couple of distractions: I went to Worldcon and Philip Brewer came to visit. Those each took about a week away from my writing. But otherwise, I got a lot done.

I wrote a bunch of blog posts, including about The Mary Stories now at TheoReads, my Scarlet-A idea, several about Worldcon, writing affirmations, my birthday, and my teaching. But I was also productive in my fiction writing.

I’ve just about finished writing a new novelette called Bearly Believable. For several years, I’ve been writing little story fragments about a bear who acts as the fire-safety coordinator at a park. They’ve been among my most popular story fragments (which isn’t saying much, honestly). I think this is the very first one:

Post by @stevendbrewer@wandering.shop
View on Mastodon

I wrote dozens of little scenarios about the bear as I fleshed him out in my mind. He changed a bit along the way and developed a backstory, which is what this story is really all about. Along the way, he was joined by a owl named Forrest who terrorizes litterbugs. And a little girl named Brunhilde who asks him thoughtful questions.

There’s a lot of world building embedded in the story. It has bits about the ecology of terraforming, lifestyles in a replicator-based society, and issues of freedom for non-human biological androids. At the same time, as with all of my writing, it’s silly fluff. I really don’t write anything to be deep.

It’s been fun to write. I just have a few bits to polish off over the next day or two. I would like to get it finished before the semester begins on Tuesday. If I quit writing this post and start working on that, there’s a good chance I’ll make it and finish writing for the month in style.

extreme closeup of boxer dog

I have selected my theme for my writing course for the fall of 2025. Each semester I’ve taught the class since 2002, I’ve tried to pick a different theme for my students to research and write about. I can’t say that I’ve never repeated themes, but I always try to think up something different. This semester, I intend for my students to study the biology of Canis familiaris, the dog.

I’ve always tried to select something I don’t know much about. It allows the students to be the experts. And it prevents me from becoming too directive (which happens all too often when I already too much about the subject). It also keeps the course fresh for me and has let me learn a vast amount of biology over the years.

Some themes have worked better than others. Students tend to be strongly biased toward animals, so although I’ve been very pleased with the semesters we studied plants or fungi, students were often less satisfied. I’ve generally shied away from vertebrates, simply because there are a lot of practical and regulatory complications for conducting research on them. So we’ve studied planarians, tardigrades, terrestrial gastropods, worms, millipedes, wood lice, spiders, and many types of insects, which has usually made students happy. (They didn’t like the semester we studied cockroaches, tho. Go figure.) But dogs will be something new.

My thinking was undoubtedly influenced by the excellent panel on dogs I participated on at Worldcon. There’s a wonderfully rich literature about dogs that students can dig into. The real question will be, what kinds of research projects can students propose and conduct? My course asks students to write a proposal — preferably about something they could actually do — and then to select a proposal to actually undertake as a research project.

I encourage students to follow their interests. If they’re genuinely interested in some topic that we can’t actually do, they’re welcome to write it up as a proposal. I often use the example of studying the biology of Mars. We don’t have the resources or time to visit Mars to conduct a project. But that shouldn’t stop them from proposing that, if that’s really what they want to do. It’s typically more fun to pitch something we can actually do. And it’s fun when your idea gets chosen by the class for a whole course research project.

I don’t require that the whole course pick just one project. Each group can choose to do their own proposal or any of the other proposals. Or something different altogether, if something more interesting has occurred to them. But it does sometimes happen organically, that one proposal rises to the top and everyone coordinates to conduct 8 or 9 projects all centered around a single proposal.

I wonder what kinds of projects the students will propose. I think there’s a lot we can do. We could observe dogs at local dog parks. Or simply by walking downtown. Some students will undoubtedly have pets. Or we could look for evidence of dogs in the environment.

Before we write proposals, I have the students perform a “METHODS Project” where they make a multi-panel figure that relates to the theme to get them thinking about the kinds of data they might collect. This year, I’ll ask them to collect photographic evidence of the presence of a dog in the local environment. The challenge for this project is how to collect data that is replicable: Can they think of something to photograph that another student can reliably also document? I can think of a few ideas, but it’s tricky. I’ll enjoy seeing what they come up with.

I’m always happy when I come up with an idea that I’m excited about and that I think the students will also enjoy. I think this is going to be a winner. Now I just need to come up with one more idea for next semester, which will be the very last time I ever teach this class.

a small wooden box

I don’t generally pay much attention to birthdays. But this year, my friends and family got together and made my birthday very special. It’s wonderful to have supportive family and friends.

The last time I had a special birthday was a dozen years ago when my friend Buzz Hoagland offered to throw me a party for my 50th birthday. He brewed some special beer to toast me and we invited all of my friends, family, and colleagues to come to his house for a party on the lawn. It was wonderful and I still have fond recollections many years later. In the interim, Buzz passed away and my life is much smaller and poorer for his passing.

Buzz was, in many ways, the center of my social life. He was outgoing and gregarious — and maintained a large circle of friends that I felt lucky to be a part of. He was always the one to send out messages to bring everyone together for a party or a dinner or a trip to the brewery. After he passed away, I tried to step into his shoes and set up a signal group to stay in touch with friends.

I called my group the Manly Men. This is a joke because we are probably among the least manly men in existence. We regularly share supportive messages and funny links and organize, occasionally, to get together to hang out and drink beer.

One of us, the Z-Man, is going through a rough time right now and, by coincidence, messaged me the night before my birthday to talk about getting together. (See left…)

He did message the Manly Men and they all agreed to stop by to wish me a happy birthday. The Z-Man came first and we sat out in the tent to chat with my brother, his wife, and my mom. The Ol’ Sprackler came by while the Z-Man was still there and we chatted some more. Then, after the Z-Man left, Bug Rodger called me on the phone and we put him on speaker and chatted for a bit. Daniel came out after a while and joined us. Finally, after the Sprackler left, we went to the Berkshire Brewery for pizza and beer, and then the Sifaka stopped by to chat for an hour or more

It was wonderful to spend pretty much the whole day visiting with friends and family. By the end of the day, I was exhausted. Since the pandemic, I hardly ever see people. I generally stay isolated to avoid exposure to respiratory viruses and, except for when people come to hang out in the tent, I don’t much socialize. But I really value having friends, which have always been an important part of my life.

One of my colleagues at UMass once joked, “I used to have these things called friends…” when talking about the isolation of being a faculty member. Faculty, because they evaluate one another, have a tendency to be unwilling to show weakness or vulnerability. As a faculty member, you feel a lot of pressure to present a carefully curated perspective on your life to other faculty. You can talk about the grants you’re applying for. Or how much work your teaching is and how it takes away from your research. But sometimes, years and years after having met a colleague, you discover that they play a musical instrument in a band. Or do oil painting or watercolors. They don’t share these facets of their lives with their colleagues because they don’t want to be perceived as having “free time” that they’re not dedicating to their research. It’s very sad.

I had a great birthday — one that I will remember for the rest of my days.

a handmade box that contained a delicious mexican sweet.

Today, the #WritersCoffeeClub prompt at Mastodon asked contributors to “Talk about an affirming experience you’ve had among your writing peers.” This was really difficult, only because it was so difficult to choose. There are so many people and groups that I value and appreciate. After some consideration, I decided to write about Wandering Shop Stories:

Post by @stevendbrewer@wandering.shop
View on Mastodon

I realized that after my recent unfortunate interaction with another author at Worldcon, it was good for me to think about all of the positive interactions I’ve had within the writing community.

I really appreciate my brother, Philip M. Brewer, and my younger son, who serve as alpha readers of my fiction. When I write my initial draft, it’s really useful to have a few eyes to look it over and help me think about story structure and pacing. My brother is particularly good at coming up with ideas to strengthen the story and heighten the drama. And Daniel likes to mock the weak points, in a friendly and supportive way. His raillery always leaves rolling on the floor in hysterics. I am filled with gratitude for their support

In addition to #wss366, which I organize and manage, many other Mastodon writing communities are wonderful and supportive. They include #WritersCoffeeClub, #WordWeavers, #PennedPossibilities, #ScribesAndMakers, #LesFicFri, #WIPSnips, and others. It’s interesting to reflect on the questions, to read the responses that others write, and to receive positive reactions from the community.

I love serving on the Board of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA). The organization is such a positive force in support of the genre writing community. The Board is really excellent. It’s the best non-profit Board I’ve ever served with, composed of deeply committed people who are both talented and dedicated to supporting the community. When I joined the Board, SFWA was in a crisis with a loss of leadership and staff. Now, we have great leadership and are fully staffed with truly outstanding people. The organization is really hitting on all cylinders. Somewhat perversely, it’s much less work for us on the Board and truly wonderful things are happening all the time. Everywhere I turn, people are commenting how they like the direction SFWA is taking. It’s been incredibly rewarding service.

I also love the Straw Dog Writers Guild. I enjoy serving on the Program Committee and helping organize interesting workshops and presentations. I’ve been able to invite really excellent people to contribute to our programming. And I really treasure my small community at Straw Dog Writes. There are a handful of us that meet nearly every week on Wednesday evenings to write together via zoom and a number of others that drop in and out periodically. Everyone has been very supportive and friendly.

It’s so important to have community to fall back on when things are rough. I really value everyone’s support.

In 2022, I was hospitalized with pneumonia and learned that I have a chronic lung condition that puts me at heightened risk from respiratory infections. Even before, during the pandemic, my family was being very cautious due to my 90-year-old mother living with us. The net result has been that, for us, the pandemic never ended.

For several years, I only attended events where everyone was masked. I attended Arisia, Boskone, Readercon, and Worldon in Chicago, while masks were required. But, as events — one-by-one — dropped masking requirements, I have gradually begun attending events where masks aren’t required. This year, I attended Worldcon in Seattle.

I mask everyplace I go indoors, except for my own house. Or inside my own hotel room. It really kinda sucks. No dining in restaurants, no bars, no nothing. (Unless it’s outdoors.)

At Worldcon, a small percentage of people — perhaps 10% — were masked. The numbers were a bit higher in the science panels I attended. At SEATAC, perhaps as many as 5% of people were masked. At DFW, I saw thousands of people during our two-hour layover as we transited between terminals and only saw one other person wearing a mask.

Masks are really not that uncomfortable. They don’t interfere with your breathing at all. When you wear them for hours, however — especially when it’s hot and humid — the increased humidity on your face is irritating. And if I have to do any serious exertion, my mask will become soaked with sweat, which is even worse. It also causes my glasses to be less stable, especially if I’m looking down. I’ve had my glasses literally fall off my face. And don’t get me started about when I use the Portable Oxygen Concentrator (which I need in order to fly) and have to run the oxygen tubes behind my ears too.

Wearing a mask is stigmatizing. People can’t hear you as well and can’t see your facial expressions, which makes you more difficult to understand. It’s isolating because you can’t respond as effectively to social cues. It’s especially bad when you’re one of the only ones masking. It makes you stand out in a bad way.

The modern Summit Convention Center in Seattle has very high ceilings and, reportedly, very high quality air filtration. But I still masked everywhere.

Even masked, I avoided crowded events. If there were a lot of people in a room, I don’t go in. Or I got out.

One of the main reasons people go to Worldcon is to attend parties in hotel rooms and suites. These rooms generally have very poor ventilation. There were a lot of parties on the same floor as our hotel room. We could hear the sounds of merry making in our room every night. SFWA held two breakfasts in their suite. I attended the first for about 10 minutes, when the room completely filled up with unmasked people and so I left.

The net result is that I can only get about half of the experience of going to a convention.

When I returned home, I watched the #disease-self-reporting channel of the Worldcon Discord as reports of cases came in. On my publisher’s Discord, people who had worked in the dealer’s room began reporting positive results too. Every time I saw another report, I would have psychosomatic symptoms. Is my throat scratchy? Why did I just cough?

I finally ran a test this morning, four day after departing the convention. Negative.

It appears I’ve dodged the bullets again. But that’s literally what it is: dodging the bullets. It’s constant and it’s exhausting.

an older man sitting on the garden terrace at the Seattle Worldcin

The 2025 Worldcon in Seattle was generally good. I served on a lot of panels, had a good reading, and (for me) met a lot of people. But I had one unpleasant experience that left a bad taste in my mouth and left me feeling rather mixed on the whole convention.

I had a reading. At first, I realized they had scheduled my reading for Sunday when would have already left. But they were graciously able to reschedule it earlier in the Con. It was, in fact, in the second reading slot for the convention. I worried that it might not get any attendees. After Boskone, I said I would be happy if my reading had any attendees. But there were six people, two of whom came specifically to see me. I joked afterward that it had a non-zero number of attendees and some of them were not even related to me by blood.

I also served on seven panels at Worldcon. Seven is rather a lot, but I like to be busy. I moderated one panel and was a panelist on the others. Many people came up afterward to praise my performance both as panelist and moderator — and to express interest in my books. And some even came to the dealer room later to find me and buy copies.

The panel I moderated, An Hour of the Strange, Unusual, Creepy, went very well. One of the participants had emailed everyone within a day or two of the panel being proposed to start organizing it and asked everyone to introduce themselves and describe what they wanted to do talk about. I responded to the email and then, a day or two, followed up gently with the email I normally sent to panels that I’m going to moderate that introduces me as the moderator with my usual information requests, that includes how to pronounce names and solicits questions that will allow each panelist to make the points they want to make about the topic. A few days before the panel, I sent the list of questions I’d come up with. Our presentation went well and I think everyone was able to participate well and say what they wanted to say. The guy who’d tried to take over as organizer apologized after the panel for jumping the gun. He said he’d served on another panel where the moderator never reached out or did anything (which has happened to me too). I said it was no problem. I was pleased that everyone seemed happy with the result.

Most of my other panels were about biology. On Life as we know it, I got to serve with Frank Wu again. We were on a similar panel at Boskone. In the lead up to the panel, I pointed out a couple of new unusual life forms that I had heard about that Frank hadn’t yet seen. He was super excited about them and I think I earned a lot of points with him. In both Can biological research ever be independant? and Human evolution and our influence on it were well-stocked with real expertise and I felt like I could play effectively off points other people were making to add useful information and nuance.

I was on two ‘non biology’ panels. One was about self-publishing for poets, which went well where I got to show off my Esperanto books and the ‘zines I’ve made. The other was about Makerspaces. One of the participants didn’t show up for that one and so it was a little thin. But we had a good time playing off the audience’s questions and letting them to contribute useful information.

My favorite panel was Biology and Evolution of the Dog that had a perfect mix of expertise and personalities. The moderator was a PhD Doctor of Veterinary Medicine who had been deeply involved with sequencing projects. There was an evolutionary biologist and a dog training expert. And me. Since everyone else could play to their expertise, I could just be the weird author and talk about boxer dogs and my story with a character who is a NeoBoxer.

The panel got off to a rough start when it turned out that there was no projector to share the slide presentation the moderator had constructed. I suggested that we could run a zoom session that the participants could join and the moderator could share the presentation that way. In the 15 minutes before the start, I set a zoom session, everyone joined, and it worked. (Mostly. The convention center was experiencing some network issues and the moderator got dropped from the zoom session a couple of times. But we rolled with it, reorganized a couple of the points, and got through everything.)

I also had several SFWA events. I attended a board meeting, served at the SFWA “fan table” a couple of times, and attended a breakfast (for a few minutes: it was tightly packed in a small, poorly ventilated room so I left once it got busy to reduce my exposure to COVID). They had a networking reception that I unfortunately couldn’t attend, because I was on a panel at the same time. But I got to introduce myself as the Secretary to a bunch of SFWA folks, including John Scalzi, while I was serving at the fan table and selling books.

I was too busy to spend a lot of time selling books in the dealer room, but I was there much of my free time. We had brought some books (my own and others from my publisher) and dropped them off before the dealer room opened. I managed to sell most of the books I’d brought and ended up bringing home only a handful. I didn’t manage to sell any of my Esperanto chapbooks, which kind of surprised me. But not that much.

Everything went very well with one exception. One of the other authors with my publisher decided to try to chastise me on two separate occasions for things they misunderstood about what I was doing. In both cases, I felt that they were very aggressive and kind of an asshole about it. I reported the conflicts to my publisher and said that, as things stand, I will not work with this person going forward. But it made me somewhat upset and rather colored the whole Worldcon experience for me.

I should recognize my son Daniel for coming along with me. He was a boon companion and made sure I got at least one good meal each day. Plus he helped me schlep the books all the way there. I really enjoy having him come along with me for many reasons but also because, honestly, I don’t quite trust myself to manage all of the travel details anymore, and so having second set of eyes on everything is reassuring.

We checked out of the hotel around 6am Sunday morning and spent the whole day traveling home: light rail to the airport then two 3-4 hour flights with a long layover in DFW. We finally got home around 1am. I’m rather glad I’m not traveling again until November for LOSCon.

ribbons attached to name badge

My son, Daniel, and I brought ~90lbs of books (two full checked-bags) for Water Dragon Publishing to sell in the Dealer Room at Worldcon in Seattle. So we took the books to the Dealer Room during the set-up time to drop the books off. There was a little old man wearing a convention center staff uniform standing at the door to prevent unauthorized entry.

He peered at our badges and said, “You’re ‘members.’ Members aren’t allowed in until 2pm when the Dealer Room opens.”

We had been listed as dealer-room staff by Water Dragon, so we should have been able to get into the Dealer Room but, due to a snafu, we ended up with “member” badges that didn’t list our role as dealers.

While we were standing there another person came up and then another with the same issue. The guard kept saying the same thing, “Your badge has to say ‘artist’ or ‘dealer.’ I can’t let anyone in unless their badge says ‘artist’ or ‘dealer.'”

One woman was quite irate, “Can I speak to Amy? Can you get Amy? I need to drop off these books.”

He replied, “Your badge says ‘member’. Members aren’t allowed in until 2pm when the Dealer room opens.”

The woman became nearly apoplectic with rage when Amy happened to come by. She listened to us and then promptly directed us to bring in our stuff and drop it off.

When I was leaving, I thanked the guard for his service. He said, “I just can only let people in if their badge says ‘artist’ or ‘dealer.'”

“Yep. It’s waaaay above your pay grade,” I said. “Thanks again.”

Privately, Daniel commented to me, “I’ve never seen someone go full NPC before.”

I commented that he didn’t have much experience with the military because that’s what they train you do to: follow orders.

Later, I was on a panel where someone with a dealer badge said, “Where do you get those name placards?”

“They’re in your participant packet,” someone said.

“Participant packet?”

“Yeah. That white envelope you got when you got your badge.”

“I didn’t get one!”

When I got my badge, I just said my name and gave them my ID and assumed they had everything cross correlated regarding the various roles people had. But evidently their system only tracked one role. So you were either a member or artist or dealer. That’s just my hypothesis.

Later in that day, I was able to get a dealer ribbon that now gives me access to the dealer room during set-up time. So it’s all good.

a Scarlet A graphic for allies to show opposition to payment processors restricting access to legal adult content.

Mastercard and other payment processors, under pressure from right-wing groups and the government, are forcing vendors to remove works with a wide variety of perfectly legal, but in some way sexually explicit content, from their listings. This neo-Puritanism results in Authors and Artists being branded with a new kind of Scarlet A. To recognize and respond to this, I’ve created a Scarlet A graphic you can use to show that you’re an Ally and oppose having the neo-Puritans restrict what legal content you can access.

You can get the image three ways [PNG] [PDF] [SVG].

Put it on your website! Share it via social media. And please link it to this page so people will know what it means.

Other things you can do:

Sign the ACLU petition. The ACLU is collecting signatures to show that the issue matters.

Call Mastercard. They began these actions in response to a well-organized campaign by a small pressure group. We need to show them there are more of us.

Call your congresspersons. This is just one skirmish in a larger war by neo-Puritans to restrict everyone’s access to adult materials in the guise of “protecting children”. Congress has been proposing one ill-considered measure after another. Push back!