I attended Worldcon 76 with my husband and had a wonderful time, as always — this was my fourth Worldcon. It was a five day celebration with more than 5,500 of my best friends.

If you’ve never heard of Worldcon, it’s an annual event held in a different place each year that brings together fans of science fiction and fantasy, along with writers, editors, artists, musicians, costumers, scientists, and other creative folk. It’s also where the Hugo Awards are presented.

It’s been described as a gathering of family, a network of friends: old, new, and potential friends. And because we are all in one way or another creative — it is an active fandom — we can cross-fertilize with other countries, other genres, and other ideas. Creativity of all sorts is honored.

Since each Worldcon is in a different location, a lot of its organization depends on the local committee and the venue. Still, each Worldcon typically features opening and closing ceremonies, an art show, a costume contest called the Masquerade, concerts, music, a dealers’ area selling everything from books and games to jewelry and swords, history and science exhibits, films and videos, and dances. Children have their own programming track.

Events such as autograph sessions and literary beers or kaffeeklatsches give fans a chance to meet their favorite writers, artists, and editors. During the day, panels cover topics such as “Introduction to Korean Science Fiction for English Speakers,” “The Art and Craft of Anthology Creation,” and “Philip K. Dick and Reality.”

In the evening, parties of all sorts are held, usually in hotel rooms and suites. At any moment, anywhere, you might walk past someone dressed as an elf or stormtrooper. If all this sounds a bit mind-boggling, it is.

And the whole thing, from top to bottom, beginning to end, is run by passionate volunteers.

Here’s my report about how I had fun at Worldcon 76.

Thursday, August 16

A slight haze veiled the hills around Santa Clara Valley as our airplane from Chicago descended into the San Jose Airport. California has a fire problem, and a little smoke and ash had drifted to the area, also known as Silicon Valley. I’d spent the flight reading Rogue Protocol, the third novella in the Murderbot Diaries series by Martha Wells. The first novella in the series, All Systems Red, was up for a Hugo at Worldcon 76, which was already underway at the San Jose Convention Center downtown.

My husband and I met some other convention-goers as we took a bus and then light rail to downtown. We checked into our hotel, the Fairmont; I convinced it not to charge me $13.95 a day for internet connection (the swimming pool is free, but not the internet?). We went to the Convention Center two blocks away and waited an hour in line to get our credentials.

By then opening ceremonies were about to start, but I went to the Publications Office because I had volunteered to help with the convention newsletter, The Tower. I did some proofreading, then left with a stack for distribution. That job took me to the Exhibition Hall containing the art show, dealers, gamers, and more. It was an impressive space.

Then I met up with my husband, and we wandered back to our hotel for parties, and a couple of hours later, suddenly it was time to go to bed.

Friday, August 17

The next morning I attended the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America meeting, hoping to get some breakfast there, but by the time I arrived at 8:05 a.m., five minutes after it opened, all that was left was oatmeal, yummy oatmeal. I learned that SFWA was having a good year full of activities. At 10 a.m., I was assigned an hour in the autographs area in the Exhibition Hall and met some fans and signed some books. I was awed to meet them. They liked my book enough to seek me out!

At noon, at a panel, some authors who were part of the Mexicanx Initiative read their works in Spanish. Artist Guest of Honor John Picacio had organized a fundraising drive to sponsor 50 authors, artists, filmmakers, and fans from Mexico to attend the convention. I came to the reading to enjoy the music of the language of Cervantes, and I found an author I want to read more of.

Next I heard Jo Walton read from her next book, Lent, which apparently contains lots of scary demons and sounded worth reading. Then I checked in at the newsletter office and was assigned to distribute more newsletters. I attended some panels, and at 5 p.m. moderated “Exploring a Wider Universe: Beyond the World of Anglophone SF/F.” We had panelists from China, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Mexico, and Spain (me). It ended with a story by the Saudi publisher about how he and his author battled censors over the fantasy/magic content of a book.

I attended another panel, got some food at the Art Show opening, and looked at all the exhibits (lots of cats and kittens in the art), then attended room parties at the Fairmont Hotel. Many of the parties were a bit overcrowded. I think that might be because the Fairmont lobby bar had a band playing with its speakers set to 11. Talking was impossible, and we had all come to meet and talk, so we had no alternative social space besides the parties.

Saturday, August 18

I helped proofread and distribute the morning edition of the newsletter, then went to panels. A couple of times, the ones I hoped to attend were full, which was how I found myself in “The Magic of Plotting” presented by Kay Kenyon , which I hadn’t meant to attend, but her ideas helped me enormously with the novel I’m trying to write now.

That afternoon, a group of self-described “patriots” held a rally in front of the convention to protest … something, I’m not sure what, and some of the groups that promised to participate had a worrisome history of violence. So when the rally was underway, I went to a window to see what was happening. “Just a dozen guys are out there,” a man who’d been watching for a while told me, “and I think some of them might actually be waiting for the bus.” We had worried over nothing.

Because I’m bilingual, I was chosen to moderate “Beyond the Border II: Borders, Crossings, and the Lands Beyond.” This was a Spanish-language discussion about the future of Mexican SF. I had little to do besides open the discussion and direct things now and then. The panel had a lot to say, especially about subverting Mexican publishers’ narrow expectations.

At another panel, “Houston, We Have a Problem,” I saw astronaut Kjell Lindgren and other people in the space program describe how they plan for problems. “Failure is not an option, it’s a necessity,” Lindgren said. Things will go wrong, so they rehearse solutions to all kinds of trouble before the mission begins.

Next I took part in the Broad Universe Rapid-Fire Reading, and I read a little essay about describing how if I were a plant, I would rule the Earth. Broad Universe is an organization that promotes the work of women writers, and often at conventions it hosts a reading featuring a series of authors, in this case 15. Most of us read from one of our books, but I read about a theme related to my book. It was meant to be funny, and people laughed, so I think it worked.

That evening, my agent hosted a dinner for her clients and their guests. She tries to get us to know each other, so it was a dinner of friends.

After that, my husband and I toured a few parties.

Sunday, August 19

After a satisfying breakfast of bagels and lox in the Con Suite, where the convention offers free food, I helped with proofreading and delivery of the morning newsletter, then participated in the Science Fiction and Fantasy Association poetry reading, celebrating the association’s 40th anniversary. Then I attended other panels. At “Why Do Writers Kill Characters?” Ada Palmer said a wise thing: It’s not the death of a character that affects the readers, it’s the mourning for that character in the story.

My literary agency sponsored an afternoon reception at a local brewpub — San Jose has lots of them — so I went, and we all did our best to help spend the budget. The beer was good, and the company delightful.

Then everyone got ready for the Hugo Awards. The line to get into the Grand Ballroom was long, but my husband and I headed for the Callahan’s Place bar area of the Exhibition Hall, where the ceremony would be livecast and food and drinks were available. A lot of people had that idea, so chairs from other parts of the hall were commandeered.

The ceremony went well, but halfway through I left to go to the newsletter office. There, behind a locked door, the team was preparing a special Hugo edition listing the winners. I helped with proofreading — and I checked, All Systems Red (Murderbot) had won the novella category. In the other categories, I was satisfied by the winners, but it had been a strong ballot, so my satisfaction was guaranteed. The newsletter was printed, and I was dispatched with copies to distribute when the ceremony was over. As I waited in the Grand Ballroom, papers clutched tight against wandering eyes, I saw Martha Wells try not to cry as she said thank you, and N.K. Jemisin describe how hard she had labored to bring her writing to the world.

I handed out newsletters as people left the auditorium, and they seemed glad to receive them. When those had been distributed, my husband and I had intended to go to a dance, but it was cancelled, so we went instead to parties at the hotel. The Brony Boys (male fans of the My Little Pony television series) turned out to be young men who were fired up by the idea that the world would be a nicer place if we would all just be kind to one another. Hard to argue with that. At another party, I said I had a sore throat, and a San Jose local said that might be due to the smoke in the air.

Monday, August 20

Alas, it was not due to smoke, and I woke up with the start of a “con crud” cold the next morning. The newsletter office wasn’t open, so after more bagels and lox in the Con Suite, I had time for one panel before leaving, “Computer History” by Christopher J. Garcia. I was more interested in seeing Chris Garcia than I was in computer history. He’s a curator at the Computer History Museum and has a famously exuberant personality. His talk was an entertaining hour, at times a little technical, but I understood why some of the jokes were funny.

Then it was time to go to the airport. On the plane, I read a book I got at a freebie table at the convention, Yaqteenya, by Yassar Bahjatt, Saudi Arabian science fiction and an interesting tale of alternate history. I had lots of time for reading. A storm delayed our arrival by five hours. Eventually we landed in sodden Chicago, and at 2 a.m. I was in bed.

It had been a five-day celebration with more than five thousand best friends. It was intense. And fun. Next year: Dublin, Ireland.

People who had read my novel, Semiosis, recommended this book to me, so I bought it, and they were right, it’s a good book. Later I learned that Adrian Tchaikovsky had provided the extremely favorable cover blurb for the British edition of my novel. I owe him one for that.

There’s a lot to love about Children of Time. Tchaikovsky probably doesn’t know it, but in the Kindle edition, at the 99% mark (that is, at the very end) this sentence has been highlighted by 686 readers: “Life is not perfect, individuals will always be flawed, but empathy — the sheer inability to see those around them as anything other than people too — conquers all, in the end.”

This assertion is the rocket fuel that propels the book to science fiction’s heights. Our better natures triumph.

Here’s the official description:

“Winner of the 30th anniversary Arthur C. Clarke Award for Best Novel

“Adrian Tchaikovsky’s critically acclaimed, stand-alone novel Children of Time, is the epic story of humanity’s battle for survival on a terraformed planet.

“Who will inherit this new Earth?

“The last remnants of the human race left a dying Earth, desperate to find a new home among the stars. Following in the footsteps of their ancestors, they discover the greatest treasure of the past age — a world terraformed and prepared for human life.

“But all is not right in this new Eden. In the long years since the planet was abandoned, the work of its architects has borne disastrous fruit. The planet is not waiting for them, pristine and unoccupied. New masters have turned it from a refuge into mankind’s worst nightmare.

“Now two civilizations are on a collision course, both testing the boundaries of what they will do to survive. As the fate of humanity hangs in the balance, who are the true heirs of this new Earth?”

Just as I had been told, the book touches on some of the same themes as mine: human beings attempting to colonize other planets, first contact with non-human life forms, and the sad certainty that humans will make at least a few foolish choices. Tchaikovsky approaches those questions from an entirely different angle, though, one that produces a different but very satisfying story.

He also uses some wise storytelling techniques. The narration alternates between the stories of humans and uplifted spiders. He finds a way to follow the same human beings across a long period of time (600 pages and thousands of years). The new masters of humanity’s last refuge, the spiders, go through a great many generations (this is not a spoiler) but they keep the same names. All this helps the reader move easily through a complex and ambitious plot.

In the end, the humans and spiders enter into direct conflict, but they don’t share the same culture or technology, so they don’t want the same outcome from the conflict. This is the ending that inspired so many highlighters.

Permeating both his book and mine is this question: How would intelligence differ in different species? It’s a question with as many right answers as there are species. Tchaikovsky’s book considers what spiders would think if they could think. He works through that question with patience and logic and creates a fascinating alien civilization.

I have only one quibble. The ideal reader for this book would have arachnophobia. I do not, and now I wish I did so I would have enjoyed the book even more as I overcame my fears during the course of the story. Here on Earth, I admire the spiders I encounter, even the ones inside my house — they eat mosquitoes, so I consider them allies. What if we could go to the stars with these clever beings? This book makes me want to do that.

Every writer needs an editor. Another pair of experienced eyes can strengthen any written work. But there’s a right way and a wrong way to edit.

First, let me clarify that there are several kinds of editing, generally falling into these three categories:

• Developmental, substantive, or structural editing helps give overall shape to the piece: what to include or exclude, how to control the pacing, and how to make sure that the piece flows logically from beginning to end. This kind of editing should be done fairly early in the process, and it’s what a critique group ought to do. It’s “big picture.”

• Copyediting or line editing is what most people who aren’t trained as editors (yes, you can go to school for that) think of when they think of “editor.” Copyediting should fix grammar, usage, tangled syntax, and mistakes, and in general should polish the prose. This is what I’m going to be talking about because this is where wannabe editors get confused and abusive. Copyediting works at the paragraph and sentence level.

• Proofreading or mechanical editing checks for typos and makes sure that a style sheet is applied (whether you abbreviate months, spell out numbers, and so on). This is sometimes confused with copyediting by wannabe editors who are tasked to proofread but who get over-ambitious. Proofreading should look at the individual words and punctuation marks.

How do you copyedit correctly? Here is the rule: Only suggest changes to correct an objective error or problem. “Objective” means you should be able to explain the precise reason for the change: “In this sentence, the antecedent is separated from its pronoun.” “There might be too many short sentences in a row in this passage.” “The reader would be helped if the attribution were moved up in the quote.” “This paragraph isn’t in chronological order and is confusing.” “Bullet points and parallel construction could work well here.”

Any piece of writing can be changed in an almost infinite number of ways, however. Just because something can be changed, that doesn’t mean it should be changed. You are not a good editor because you can see all the possible changes. You are a good editor because you can see all the necessary changes. If the meaning is easy to understand, the writing won’t need much changing at all.

Bad editors want to change things that don’t need to be changed. They tip their hand in their explanation for their edits because they can cite no objective reason. They say something like, “I made it sound better.” “It reads smoother.” Why? “It just does.”

Usually it doesn’t sound better or read smoother — at least, not objectively. “Sounds better” is a subjective judgement. The wannabe editors believe it sounds better because it does — to their ears. This is what these wannabe editors actually mean but don’t realize that they mean: “It sounds more like I wrote it.” Their changes sound better to their ears because we all love the sound of our own voice. My voice is uniquely beautiful to me. You have a voice, too. It’s not like mine, yet it should be respected.

When bad editors change your writing “to sound better,” they make it sound like their own voice, not like yours. In the process, they silence your voice. This may infuriate you, and it should.

You have a right to be yourself. Your writing ought to reflect your voice, and it should sound like you wrote it, not like someone else did. Good editors, if they fiddle with the voice at all, try to make the writing sound even more distinctively like the writer’s own unique, beautiful voice.

Good editors respect and celebrate the writer. They do not impose their own voice. They only change what needs to be changed. Writers love editors like that.

— Sue Burke

I’ll be at Worldcon 76, the World Science Fiction Convention, from August 16 to 20 in San Jose, California. Here’s my official schedule. I’ll also be working as staff of the Worldcon newsletter, The Tower.

Autographs, Friday, August 17, 10:00 to 11:00 a.m., in the Convention Center Autograph Area
Also signing during that hour will be Charlie Jane Anders, Annalee Newitz, Richard Hescox, G. David Nordley, and JY Yang. This is a good time to come say hi, no autograph request necessary. I don’t expect long lines.

Exploring a Wider Universe: Beyond the World of Anglophone SFF, a panel on Friday, August 17, 5:00 to 6:00 p.m., in 210B
A tremendous amount of high-quality science fiction and fantasy is being published around the world. In XB-1 in Czechia, in Nowa Fantastyka in Poland, in Hayakawa SF in Japan. In countries like Mexico, Spain, Nigeria, France, Italy, Hungary, South Korea, and many more. What is being published? Join us as we chart this universe of stories that English readers may not be familiar with, but should be!
I will be moderating. Panelists: Rani Graff, Yasser Bahjatt, Gerardo Horacio Porcayo, Crystal Huff, Yao Haijun.

Beyond The Border II: Borders, Crossings, and The Lands Beyond, a panel on Saturday, August 18, 2:00 to 3:00 p.m., in 210B
Some of the first SF books were written in Spanish. Some of the most prominent speculative films of the last few decades have a Mexican as a director. Speculative fiction has taken many shapes in Spanish throughout history, and now we want to talk beyond the past and the present and into the future. We want to think about the ways SF written in Spanish might be evolving and the routes it is taking. What have the borders done? What are the similarities and differences with English and between Spanish countries? Have geography and language created something different on the other side? Where do we imagine it may be going? Panelists will discuss in Spanish with an English translator for non-Spanish-speaking audience members.
I will be moderating and translating. Panelists: Gabriela Damián Miravete, Gerardo Horacio Porcayo, José Luis Zárate, Andrea Chapela Saavedra.

Broad Universe Rapid-Fire Reading, Saturday, August 19, 210G
Broad Universe is a nonprofit international organization of women and men dedicated to celebrating and promoting the work of women writers of science fiction, fantasy and horror. In our Rapid-Fire Reading, members will read a few minutes of their works: just enough to whet your appetite. Come see how many genres we can jam into one group reading. I’ll tell you what would happen if I were a plant.
Loren Rhoads moderator, and quite a few of us presenting scrupulously timed four-minute-max readings.

Poetry Reading, Sunday, August 19, 11:00 a.m. to Noon, 212C
The Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association (SFPA) was created in 1978 to bring together poets and readers interested in speculative poetry. Some of its members will share their favorite speculative poems in this reading.
G.O. Clark, moderator, Mary Soon Lee, John Philip Johnson, Sue Burke, Alan Stewart, Denise Clemons, Andrea Blythe.

HarperCollins has just published a paperback, ebook, and audiobook edition of Semiosis in Great Britain available today, August 9, and in Australia.

The cover art, similar to the American cover art, features the leaves of a sundew plant (Drosera). The dew-like drops on the hairs of its leaves are actually a kind of glue that attracts and traps insects. Then the hairs and tentacle wrap around the victim and excrete digestive fluid. The leaves are also sometimes referred to as “tentacles.” The idea of motile, flesh-eating tentacles on plants is creepy. I’m glad sundews are small, because they grow in many areas of the Earth, including the American Midwest, where I live.

The text hasn’t been adapted to British English, which disappoints me a bit. I would have enjoyed seeing the word “color” with an extra U.

British author Stephen Baxter was given an advance copy, and he said this: “Semiosis combines the world-building of Avatar with the alien wonder of Arrival, and the sheer humanity of Atwood. An essential work for our time.”

I am blushing.