Ward 1 is currently represented by Dai Thao. He was endorsed by the DFL at the convention. On the ballot:
Dai Thao
Abu Nayeem “Frogtown Crusader”
Liz De La Torre
Anika Bowie
Election 2019: St. Paul City Council, Ward 1
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Election 2019: St. Paul trash referendum
I have been having a really hard time motivating myself to do these writeups this year — no idea why. I mean, I’ve done the basic necessary research for the races on my actual ballot, but sitting down and actually researching the rest feels overwhelming, which is sort of odd given that there aren’t all that many races to do. I think it’s probably a sense of perfectionism, like I can’t possibly weigh in unless I’ve watched all the forums (video is hard, it’s just a lot more time-consuming and you can’t skim).
Anyway, I’m going to note before I do my trash referendum write-up that if you value my work and would like to help me feel more motivated, I’ve got two options for you this year. I have a novel coming out in November, CATFISHING ON CATNET, which you can pre-order. Also, you may remember that last year I linked people to a couple of fundraisers on DonorsChoose for Minneapolis teachers — there was one, in particular, who was raising money to take fifth-grade students at Green Central Park School to Wolf Ridge Environmental Center. My readers really came through for her, and her students were able to make the trip, which is amazing. She has another class of fifth graders, and is fundraising again for another trip. It would make me very happy if my readers supported this project. Even if you disagree with me on everything and you drop by to find out who not to vote for, I’m clearly useful to you, so donate to let a bunch of kids go to Wolf Ridge, people.
SO HEY, ON TO TRASH. Here’s the question on the ballet:
CITY QUESTION 1 (St. Paul)
Referendum on whether Ordinance ORD 18-39 should remain in effect.
Should Ordinance ROD 18-39, entitled “Residential Coordinated Collection”, remain in effect for residential trash collection in St. Paul? Ordinance 18-39 creates new rules for the collection and disposal of trash and payment for trash service; and requires that certain residential dwellings have trash collected by a designated trash hauler. A “yes” vote is a vote in favor of keeping Ordinance ORD 18-39. A “No” vote is a vote to get rid of Ordinance ORD 18-39.
If you’d like to read the actual ordinance as written, it’s here (or, hey, the anti’s have it on their site in PDF form.)
Short answer: I’m voting yes.
Election 2019: St. Paul School Board
It’s election season! But only in St. Paul — Minneapolis is not voting on anything. Here in St. Paul, we’ve got the following:
- Saint Paul School Board (vote for 4)
- Saint Paul City Council
- Garbage pickup referendum
This means {heavy sigh} that I’m going to have to actually write about the trash pickup issue. Spoiler: I come from Minneapolis, always thought it was ridiculous that St. Paul didn’t have municipal pickup, and have minimal amounts of sympathy for people who don’t think they should have to pay for a municipal service just because they use less of it; that way lies “why should I pay for libraries when I don’t read.”
Anyway, I do feel like I need some information that I still need to research before I can do a truly comprehensive write-up on that one, so in the meantime, I’ll take a whack at the school board race. Here’s who’s running:
Charlie Castro
Omar Syed
Jennifer McPherson
Elijah Norris-Holliday
Jessica Kopp
Tiffany Fearing
Steve Marchese
Zuki Ellis
Ryan Williams
Chauntyll Allen
You get to vote for four. This vote is not ranked. It’s a non-partisan race, but the DFL City Convention endorsed three candidates (Zuki, Steve, and Chauntyll) and then couldn’t settle on a fourth.
CATFISHING ON CATNET coming November 19th
My technothriller YA (young adult) novel about friendship, online community, AIs (artificial intelligences), robots, hacking, sex ed, and road trips, is coming out on November 19th.
If you would like to pre-order it, you can do that on the usual big behemoth sites OR you can preorder from Uncle Hugo’s Science Fiction Bookstore — which will allow you to get a signed copy even if you’re not local. You should also be able to pre-order it from anywhere that you’d normally buy books. It will also be available as an audiobook.
I will be doing several book-related events the week it comes out! On November 21st, I’ll be at local bookstore Magers & Quinn along with Marissa Lingen and Sue Burke. On November 22nd, I’ll be at the Loft Literary Center with Kelly Barnhill. On November 23rd, I’ll be signing at Uncle Hugo’s. (If I add other stuff, I will edit this post.)
You can also read an excerpt from it right now over at the Tor Teen blog! You can also read the (starred!) reviews from Kirkus Reviews and Publisher’s Weekly. Finally, you could go read the short story that started it all, Cat Pictures Please. (The AI narrator of the short story is also one of the viewpoint characters in the novel.)
Trip Report III: Iceland
I actually know a lot of people who’ve been to Iceland and yet not one of them has ever told me how incredibly weird Iceland is. Like, you walk around this island and you’ll think “is that smoke?” and the answer will be “no, it’s steam pouring out of the earth from a vent in some person’s back yard.”
We stayed in Hveragerði, which is about an hour from the airport and has a whole lot of hot springs, making it possibly even weirder than the rest of Iceland.
Trip Report II: Dublin 2019, An Irish WorldCon
I tend to really resist writing convention reports because if I try to name-check everyone I met, I will inevitably forget someone and then they might swear enmity against me for life and that would make me sad. So I’m just going to say up front that I’m not going to try to name everyone I met.
Trip Report, Part 1: Cork & Killarney
I was up for a Hugo Award this year, which provided us with a stupendous excuse to take a family vacation in Ireland and Iceland. (Icelandair is both a budget airline and clearly an arm of the Icelandic Bureau of Tourism since they let you arrange a multi-day stopover in Iceland at no extra cost, and inundate you with on-board advertisements designed to sell you on the idea. HORSES! NORTHERN LIGHTS! SCENERY!)
We went over about a week before the convention started. Ed and I visited Ireland 20 years ago — before we had kids — and Dublin was our least favorite bit, so we wanted to get out of it as quickly as possible. We took a train to Cork, where we discovered that the guest house I’d booked thinking it was walking distance from the train station was not around the corner from the train station but straight up a cliff. (There were stairs! I do not recommend hauling a bunch of suitcases up four flights of stairs, in the rain, while massively jet-lagged and operating on almost no sleep. Just, I mean, if you were considering it.)
The rest of the trip went quite a bit better.
WorldCon 2019 Schedule
Next month I will be at Dublin 2019: an Irish WorldCon. If we know each other (either in person or online) and you’ll be in Dublin and you’d like to try to meet up, please let me know!
Here’s my official schedule:
Reading: Naomi Kritzer
16 Aug 2019, Friday 20:00 – 20:20, Liffey Room-3 (Readings) (CCD)
Kaffeeklatsch: Naomi Kritzer
Format: Kaffeeklatsch
17 Aug 2019, Saturday 12:00 – 12:50, Level 3 Foyer (KK/LB) (CCD)
The author as a fellow traveler on the hero’s journey
Format: Panel
18 Aug 2019, Sunday 10:30 – 11:20, Odeon 4 (Point Square Dublin)
18 Aug 2019, Sunday 10:30 – 11:20, Odeon 4 (Point Square Dublin)
Many authors, unsurprisingly, form a strong emotional bond with their characters, experiencing the joys and frustrations of the story along with them. How does this affect the writing process itself? What about the impact on the writer’s critical engagement with their own work? How much does an author’s engagement depend on their personality, their approach, or the type of story being written?
Dr Kristina Perez (M), Michael Swanwick, Karen Simpson Nikakis, Naomi Kritzer, Daryl Gregory
Gods, religion and atheism in the genre
Format: Panel
18 Aug 2019, Sunday 13:00 – 13:50, Wicklow Hall 2B (CCD)
Gods and religion are often an integral element of SFF worlds; they offer ways to build conflict and to explore alternative philosophical concepts. How have authors tackled the creation and inclusion of religion in their worldbuilding? Is it possible for atheism to exist in worlds where gods literally walk among the people?
Derwin Mak, Dominic Riemenschneider MA, Ehud Maimon, Naomi Kritzer (M), Meg MacDonald
More about China
Ed came with me on this trip, and we scheduled some time both before and after the convention to see stuff. We arrived on Wednesday evening, had Thursday and Friday to see things, the con was Saturday and Sunday, and then we did some more touring on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday before flying home on Thursday.
I went to a science fiction convention in Beijing
So remember when I went to China back in December? In April, I got invited to China again, this time to be a Guest of Honor at APSFCon (Another Planet Science Fiction Convention) in Beijing. This was the second APSFCon; there have been almost no SF conventions in China, although there’s an awards event held in Chengdu. The convention culture is incredibly different. I’m going to do a separate post about the awesome tourist stuff we did in China (I brought Ed along) and this post is just going to be about the SF convention.
I’ll note that unlike some of my friends, I have never been to a science fiction convention outside of the US. (I have barely been to any outside the midwest.) But I feel like I have a pretty good handle on what a science fiction convention looks like: you’re in a hotel (or occasionally a convention center), there are panels where people talk and an audience asks questions or offers “more of a comment than a question,” there are a few solo presentations. Fans meet up and hang out. There’s a consuite where you can get food and hang out. There’s a dealer’s room and an art show. All official events happen inside. Depending on the convention, there might or might not be costumes and gaming. Usually there are parties in the evening, frequently run out of hotel rooms but open to all members of the convention. If you’re looking for a writer, check the bar first. (Even if they’re not a drinker, they’re probably in the bar because they went there to find all their friends, who were in the bar. Hardly anyone is actually drinking very much unless there’s an editor there who’s buying.)
APSFCon ran over Saturday and Sunday of last week. Guests from outside of China included me, Allen Steele, Lawrence Schoen, Crystal Huff, Sean Stewart, and Michael Swanwick from the US; Derek Künsken and Kelly Robson from Canada; Samantha Murray from Australia; Kim Bo-young and Kim Juyoung from South Korea; David Sheldon-Hicks from the UK; and Taiyo Fujii from Japan. Most of these people are writers but Sean Stewart is more a VR developer and David Sheldon-Hicks is a visual effects designer for movies.
Invited guests from the China included Liu Cixin (author of The Three-Body Problem), Han Song (who’s similarly famous in China to Liu Cixin, but much less well known in the US because his work hasn’t been translated), one of the stars and one of the directors of The Wandering Earth (Chinese blockbuster SF movie, viewable on Netflix), and most of the writers I met at the Danzhai workshop.
The convention was held at a museum. One of the features of the museum was a detailed model of Beijing (this was only part of it):
Will Tell Stories For Food 