Current Mood:  nostalgic
Current Music: "Playboy Mommy", Tori Amos
I want to tell you all about the wonderful people I spent the last six weeks with. Names have been changed to protect fragile egos and to prevent prosecution.
First, I've mentioned a couple of people already.
Dr. Evil, our resident physician. She looked so sweet and innocent, but it was all just to conceal a heart as black as the depths of space. it takes evil to recognize evil, so I feel justified in this. Her stories were often very disturbing but always very interesting. And I'm sure the hobo killing jokes were just jokes...
Dr. Science, a physicist working on really hinky, really cool stuff that will hopefully help make the world a better place. Plus, he's from Minnesota, so he must be cool. He often seemed to lack confidence in his writing, and this kind of annoyed me because I thought his stories were brilliant. Plus, he clearly had the best names for his stories of anyone here. I'm veryu prolific, but I'd trade my speed for his skill. His comments on my manuscripts were insightful and very helpful.
The God of Mice is a man with a dark heart and a way of bringing and inevitable sense of doom to his stories that I envy. Plus, his knowledge of anime is incredible and enviable. He brought a very interesting sensability to his writing that was ruthless, bloodthirsty and unforgiving. Even his lighter pieces were black comedy, so I thought he had a lot to say that I found helpful for my own writing. Plus, it was cool meeting someone that makes me look like a pollyanna.
Now, other people I may not have mentioned before.
The Queen of Jazz. She certainly gave the impression that she was 'the quiet one' in group, but I knew this wasn't true. When you talked to her in more social settings, she was anything but quiet, and could be as wild and crazy as anything. Her stories often touched on painful, difficult things and usually revolved around 'alternate lifestyles'. I rarely write about this sort of thing myself, but when I do in the future, there's no question in my mind I'll think of the way she handled these subjects - tactfully, thoughtfully, but not at all gently. Plus, she wrote a story with human/lizard nookie in it, so there you go.
Our Faithful Guide. he was a student at MSU until last year, so it was great having him in the group because he could tell us where everything we waqnted to find in East Lansing was. he tipped us off to The Dairy Store, an MSU run ice cream shop that has some of the best ice cream I've ever had. I heartily recommend the Rasberry Fudge and Bannana Fudge if you ever get a chance to swing by. If we'd had nothing else from him, this would have made him a godsend. But we got very good stories and criticism from him as well. I wish I'd been as on the ball when I was his age. Yes, the Jazz Queen and I gave him a pretty hard time sometimes. We kid because we love. I wish he were my little brother, because I kind of feel he is anyway. I think he showed the most obvious progress ove rrthe six weeks.
The Snarky Oldtimer. Well, old isn't really all that fair, but he had the cynical spirit of a man at least twice his age. I like that in a man. His stories were very different than most of the others, as he and the next guy were kind of more in the magical realism/literary fiction school than the speculative fiction school. He had a way of analyzing stories for criticism that showed me things I would never have thought of, especially about my own stories. Plus, he was a blast to talk to or just hang out with. The world needs more men like him.
Dr. Shrinker, our psycologist in residence, was another man who was more in the magical realsim, etc school. His stories were often deceptive. They told a story on a surface level, but on a second reading there was more going on in them than you would have thought. He is a very recent arrival in the world of fiction, and says he only started writing fiction in the last year or two. Wow, that's hard to believe. He has such a sense of character arc and such a strong narratvie voice, you'd think he was an old hand. While I don't think quite as many of our stories were about penises as he did, his comments were often the most insightful in the circle for all our stories. Plus, he had a wicked, sry sense of humor that I really like.
The Zen Master. He kept to himself a lot more than most of us, and would often disappear after the morning crit session for most of the day. I think he was going to the library to write without distraction...a lesson I would have benefitted from follwoing I think. He had a very sure sense of what makes a story tick, and his comments were always useful, intelligent and worth listening to. He was the only one who came close to matching me for length of story, and I'm pretty sure he wrote the single longest story we read. He makes it look easy. When you talked to him, you always got the feeling there was a lot going on in his head, and whenever I talked to him or in conversations with him, he had very intelligent things to ad don almsot every subject.
The Arch Enemy. A proffesional computer guru and hated enemy of Dr. Science. Their rivarly will someday threaten to destroy the world, blacken the sky with the askes of those who stood between them, and shake the very foundations of speculative fiction. Really. Trust me. It's not an assumed pose between them at all. he was kind of like me in that he has a scatter shot approach to his writing. Rather than writing about things related by themes or ideas, he wrote stories that seemed like good ideas no matter what they were. he wrote at least three stories that made me say 'damn, I wish I'd thought of that'. I may shamelessly steal some of these ideas still (Cory says I can!). He has a plan, and a goal in mind, and seems to be pursuing that plan as hard as he can. Sometimes he makes the rest of us seem like we're just standing still. No one could ignore his comments in the circle, and he almost always had a unique perspective to bring to his writing adn criticism.
The Norweigan Giant is a man from Norway who writes in English as his second (or third or something) language, and while there are still some rough edges to sand down, hsi writing has a wonderful dreamlike quality to it that always made the stories a joy to read. he may well be the Joseph Conrad of modern science fiction. His background, wide travels and unique point of view brought something special to his stories, and I always enjoyed reading them. He's already accomplished more in his life than I think I ever will. Plus, he runs marathons. And works to bring real education to the third world. However, his fixation on dialouge and lesbain sex may undermine him in the long run (hehe).
The Refugee from Mormonland, a woman who has just gotten a job as a teacher at MSU. She's really sharp and knows more about stagecraft than most people will ever know about anything. Plus, she's got a wicked edge to her writing like a razorblade hidden in an apple. You don't even realized it's there until your mouth is bleeding. I just love that kind of thing (at least metaphorically, or course. No one should put real razors in real apples). She's exciting to talk to, and her enthusiasm about just about anything can't help but rub off on you when you're with her. Plus, she has no problem with opening minds with a crowbar. The students of MSU are lucky to have her, and the speculative fiction field will be richer for having her as well.
The Ninja of New Jersey proved her powers of deception, illusion and mind control by stealing many things from Dr. Science right out from under him, while we has watching. I'm still amazed he didn't wake up one morning to find his bed was gone. She could have probably taken his kidneys if she'd wanted to. Her stories and criticism were always good at their worst. Plus, she's the most imperialistic person I've ever met. She's the quintessential American in so many ways, it's deliciously ironic she's from Canada. If she's a 'typical' Canadian, I assure you, it would be a horrific mistake to underestimate the country. Clerarly, they are simply biding their time before they take over the world. I love her sense of humor, and her 'Mothra' story was one of the funniest and most action packed things I've read in ages. I wish I could be just like her when I grow up. If I were ever to have girl children, I'd try to teach them to be just like her - for then the world would bow before them.
I think that's everyone, and now it's time for me to finish packing. My flight home tomnorrow is at 'Oh My God That's Early' o'clock, so I need to have everything I can think of done before I get up in the morning. | 
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
theevilcub's journal
busy
shocked
depressed
impressed
envious
creative
cranky