My First New York Comic Con Panel.

I had an amazing time last weekend at New York Comic Con.

I have attended before as a fan, but never as part of the programming. I still got to be a fan, of course, exploring the floor and fighting my way through beautiful crowds and seeing some amazing cosplay, and running into awesome friends, and meeting heroes like Bob Camp, co-creator of Ren & Stimpy, who my husband and I got to thank personally for all the joy and trauma he brought into our lives.

But I was there to work. And they didn’t ease me into it, for my first panel – I was honored and terrified to be part of a panel with brilliant writers Marlon James, Julie Kagawa, Tochi Onyebuchi, Maura Milan, and moderator Ali T. Kokmen, discussing #OwnVoices: How Writers Build Authenticity Into Diverse Worlds. We were in a very big room, that was very very crowded.

Luckily, my terror was unnecessary. I had a great time, and it was an incredibly stimulating conversation. With a lot of laughter, and a lot of wisdom.

BUT YOU DON’T HAVE TO TAKE MY WORD FOR IT. Unbound Worlds included it in this awesome listing of “Best SFF Panels You Might Have Missed at New York Comic Con 2018,” and Tor.com did a fantastic write-up of the panel, which you can read here. They even mentioned me a couple times! Here’s my favorite part:

Asked what it was like to see their book covers come to life, the authors absolutely lit up. Maura, having already spoken about her desire to see herself on the cover of a book, talked about how excited her publisher was to work with her, and how they cast Maura’s friend Jessica in the role of the character. Seeing her friend at the photo shoot, dressed in the armor Maura described was an incredible experience. Tochi and Marlon both mentioned that there are standard fonts and images that are usually used for “African books” and how pleased they were that their publishers didn’t try to take that tack with them, but instead listened to the authors’ vision and brought that to life. Julie agreed, talking of how pleased she was with the silver fox mask and the authentic Japanese architecture on her book. And Sam? Well, Sam’s book cover glows in the dark. He also gave out temporary tattoos his publicist had made that matched the tattoo Sam himself got in honor of the book coming out.

Publisher’s Weekly included this awesome photo of us, in their round-up of #NYCC2018 highlights.

Also, video of the full panel exists! And you can watch it! Right here:

 

Posted on: October 9, 2018, by : Sam J. M.
File under: Blog, Event