Narrativity – a review

One week ago today, I was in Minneapolis (or close enough) for the start of the very first Narrativity Conference. Let me be perfectly honest, I went to Narrativity for pure fan-girl reasons. Steven Brust was one of the organizers, and I learned about the conference from him via his facebook page. I have been reading Brust’s books since I was in high school. That means he has been one of my favorite authors for over 25 years.

Since moving to the Seattle area, I have been very blessed with having the opportunity to attend readings and signings with many of my favorite authors, Gaiman, Gibson, Modesitt, and Megan Lindholm (Robin Hobb), among them. But Brust has never been out Seattle way. And here was this opportunity to attend a conference that he was organizing. A small conference, the very first instance of it, so that in the future, I can say “Oh yes, I was at the first Narrativity.” Fan-girl. Pure and total. And worth it.

This year, the conference started late in the day on Friday, and was originally supposed to end in late afternoon on Sunday. I booked my flights to arrive Thursday night and return home Sunday night. For future reference, I could easily fly in on Friday morning, but I should not leave until Monday.

For those of you wondering, no, I did not spend the entire conference just following Brust around. It was a tempting thought, and I could have done it, but it probably would have seemed creepy. Instead, I spent most of my time not in the panels making new friends among the small crowd of readers and writers at the convention. In addition, one of my long time writing friends now lives nearby and was able to join me for Friday and Saturday.

The panels themselves were always interesting. For the most part, the panelists were not big names. The exceptions there being Steven Brust, Emma Bull, and Will Shetterly. But since a lot of the people who came to the conference were locals and friends of those three, it never really felt like what they had to say was deemed more important than what the panelists or the audience members were saying. In truth, every panel was more of a conversation encompassing everyone in the room.

One of my favorite bits about the conference was that we kept a list of almost all the books that were referenced during the specific conversations. That list is now available on the site. I have no desire to read every book or author that was mentioned, and not every book or author was mentioned for exemplary reasons, but it certainly is a list to refer to when I want something new to read, that will help create a better shared understanding for next year. At one point, there was a suggestion that next year, a short list of recommended reading be put forth to attendees so that there could be a an actual shared knowledge pool for some of the ideas that were being talked about.

Another thing I loved was the plan for the final panel of the conference. It was call “A Different Panel”. That was a reference to all the times it happens during a conference when a panel starts to get off track and the moderator has to say “That’s a really interesting thought, but that’s a different panel.” For all the times that was called out, the idea was written up, and at the end, the conference attendees voted on which of those ideas they wanted to discuss. The rest were recorded for ideas for panels for next year. Sadly, I was unable to stay for the final panel (which ended up being on villains), so as not to miss my flight.

I also want to specifically call out the Con Suite. Every bit of this new, small conference was well done, but the Con Suite was superb. The selection of food wasn’t just junk food. There were bagels and sandwich fixings, veggies and hummus all to go along with the chips and the homemade cookies. My biggest failing at the conference was not to take my own picture of the sugar cookies (decorated to be swords, dragons, books, etc), and now I can’t find a picture to post for you. Let me just say, seeing those in the con suite at the start of the conference set high expectations that were definitely met.
EDIT: The wonderful Sara from the comment section has provided me with pictures of the cookies to share!

Any time you attend a conference, you hope to leave it invigorated and renewed, filled with ideas for how to move forward. Narrativity absolutely did that for me. But even more importantly, I left this conference with new friends whose influence will last long after the conference is over. And my goal is to attend again next year, this time with my novella/short novel completed. And maybe that will give me the courage to sign up to be a panelist myself.

Thank you to everyone at Narrativity for such an amazing weekend. I look forward to seeing you all next year.