LeakyCon 2013 Recap
Hmmm...do you ever get those days (or weeks) when you completely forget that you had a plan for keeping up on all the little (and big) things in life? This has been one of those weeks (or two or three) when all I wanted to do was plan tons of game nights, make dinner and dessert and bread and all manner of delicious things and not put myself to task for not writing up my LeakyCon experience and not even beginning to pack for my two years in El Salvador in less than two days. I probably should have kept a journal during LeakyCon, because it was a circus from 7 am until at least midnight every day for the entire conference, and possibly the fastest four days of my life. I am unendingly grateful that we got lit passes for the conference, because those were far and away the most hilarious and insightful panels I attended.
Note: Some of these have no description because I didn't write them right after I attended and by the time I got around to finishing the post I couldn't write a good description.
For reference, the panels I attended were...
18+ meetup: actually was supposed to be 18 and under, but they printed it wrong and ended up with way higher attendance than expected, chatting about how the Harry Potter books changed our generation and how we were introduced to the books and who we convinced to read them, etc etc
Slash: not my thing at all - it basically ended up being a shout-out session of all of the pairings people liked. WolfStar, Sirius and Lupin, was by far the most popular
Disney singalong: absolutely packed a conference room with absolutely hilarious duets acted out by some of the girls, but far too much Beauty & the Beast and Little Mermaid
What Are You Reading: a session where anyone who wanted came up to talk about the three books they were currently reading or recommended. It gave me some great book ideas
Opening Ceremony: All kinds of epic. Joey Richter started us off with a parody of I Can Go The Distance and it just got better from there. All the guests had a whole skit planned out, bringing together pretty much every fandom imaginable - and Dylan Saunders was Sam (which is even funnier because Sean Astin impersonated Dylan a number of times) and Maureen Johnson was Edward Cullen (glitter and sullenness and all) - that culminated in Anthony Rapp parodying La Vie Boheme
Comedy Jam: fairly awkward except for Joe Moses, who was absolutely fantastic and definitely not G, or even PG or PG-13 rated in his perfectly timed jokes
Tribe Starkid: a panel put on by a college youth minister, who is often asked by churches how to increase their youth attendance, to which she responds, "Have you seen AVPM?" "How about Me And My Dick?" The church isn't providing a community for young people, tumblr and Harry Potter and Starkids are doing that. It was actually an extremely interesting lecture that made the case for Starkids as an urban tribe, and also how groups like Starkids and Nerdfighters, although not physical communities, act as a community and inspire action and service, a function the church traditionally held. Let's be honest though - how many people out of high school without kids of their own do you see at church?
*"This Isn't A Kissing Book, Is It?" What We Talk About When We Talk About Romance: (E Lockhart, Coe Booth, Andrea Cremer, David Levithan, Rainbow Rowell, moderator Maureen Johnson)
The Art of Making S*** Happen: I went to this primarily because it was Corey Lubowich and Julia Albain putting on the panel, but I wish I would have gone to the Authors Acting Badly panel. The two put on a very well-thought out presentation in which essentially they said you have three necessary resources - time, money and creativity - and only two you can ever use at once, so identify your resources and get shit done, but that was a realization I had already come to a few years ago. I get the feeling that was hugely helpful to the kids still in high school or just starting college.
*Is All Fiction Fan-Fiction?: (Lev Grossman, Barry Lyga, Rainbow Rowell, Cheryl Klein (editor), moderator Kate Schafer Testerman)
*How Books Saved Me: (Leigh Bardugo, Stephanie Perkins, Anthony Rapp, Laini Taylor, moderator Robin Wasserman)
Judas Redux panel: Julia showed a short set of clips from the original Michigan production of the Last Days of Judas Iscariot (with Darren! Yay!), then the Starkids talked about their plans for the reproduction, the production and creative process so far and the success of the kickstarter campaign, the casting decisions, then answered audience questions. I would absolutely love to see the production, but...Peace Corps.
*Leakylit Signing: all the authors let us get signatures and chat a tiny bit, so although I had none of their books with me I got them to sign my program. I should have brought my kindle. Authors are SO COOL in real life.
*The Lying Game: One of the funniest panels ever. Each author was given a statement that may or may not be true, and they had to defend the statement to the other team, then the team voted on whether they thought the author was telling the truth. It turns out Barry Lyga makes an extremely convincing liar.
Actors Autographs: I love Team Starkid, and meeting the ladies of Starkid was stunning (that's the best way I can describe it). It is a weird experience because I feel like I know so much about their lives, but they know nothing about me. I am just another face in the crowd, and they don't know the impact their work has had on every individual life. They were just as awesome in the signing line as they are on youtube, making a point of trying to talk to every person and not rushing through the signatures as just another chore. Jaime looked every single person in the face, and I could think of nothing to say she hasn't heard a million times before. How could I express the joy of meeting her, the exhilaration of hearing her belt out every song, the admiration and respect I have for her and all the Starkids? I froze, mumbled something probably unintelligible, and continued on the line, all the while thinking she talked to me, she smiled at me. The same general idea held for Anthony Rapp as well. I know every single word to RENT, I read his memoir in high school, and I never in a million year thought I would hear him talk about being a Hufflepuff and get to ask him questions. How do you express to someone that their work helped define you? I don't usually like our obsession with celebrities, but LeakyCon just brought together so many people I hold in such high esteem. It was more than seeing someone famous on the street and greedily wanting to show the world that I saw someone famous. It was listening to the authors and actors thoughtfully respond to panel questions, watching them interact with each other, seeing them as real people and realizing that I like them as the people behind their work, which just makes their work that much more special. It wasn't the autograph as much as the opportunity to see behind the acting and the writing. If Tamora Pierce had been there, I may have just keeled over on the spot.
Mina Lima: Making Magic Real: Incredible panel with the people behind the graphic design of the Harry Potter movies. The maurader's map designs were the coolest of everything, but they talked about the research behind the look of each aspect of the wizarding world (lots of Soviet propaganda was used as reference material), the secrets in the Daily Prophet (look for all the articles on the Ginger Witch), the fonts they created for the books, letters and newspapers (all the letters to Harry in the first film had to be hand-addressed), the ideas for items in Weasley's Wizard Wheezes (simple and fast but brilliantly colored), and much more. The two designers were flown in separately, then decided to come together to form a company for the films, and look at the magic they created.
HP-Arab Uprising: This was a panel put on by two young ladies who talked about how Harry Potter and the Ministry of Magic could be compared to the oppression that led to the Arab uprising.
City of Bones Preview and Cassandra Clare Interview: Maureen Johnson interviewed Cassandra Clare and we saw the trailer for City of Bones. The casting was all wrong, so I don't know if I'll watch the movie. We all know that Adam Lambert is Magnus Bane in the flesh, and Alex Pettyfer (although I know he would never do the movie) is the perfect Jace.
*Publishing 101: This was actually a super interesting panel with Cheryl Klein and some of the authors about the process of getting a book published.
*I Was a Teenage Writer: Authors read some of their teenage works (hilarious) and talked about how they got started and how they broke into the business.
*Author House Cup: Authors divided into their houses and ran obstacle courses and played trivia. I laughed until I cried.
Guinness World Record: The line went around the bottom and top floor of the convention center, but we all wanted a part in setting the record for most people wearing false mustaches.
A Very Starkid Event III: At LeakyCon, the Starkids are superstars, but in grand scheme of things they can walk down the street and no one will even notice. That would be the best kind of stardom.
Esther Earl Rocking Charity Ball: So much dancing and so much fun. We made new friends and even danced for a moment with the Starkids before all the dumb tweens mobbed them.
Book Club Will Grayson Will Grayson: Everyone read the book and discussed. I hadn't finished, so it wasn't the best session for me to attend.
The Giant Team Starkid Panel: I love anything Starkid, and this was just one big Q&A session with all the Startkids. Loved it.
Quidditch Open Play: Quidditch was happening in the conference center all the time and I played a bit and watched a bit. We have fun.
Dr. Horrible Singalong: Neil Patrick Harris and Nathan Fillion in all their glory. If you haven't seen it, watch it and learn the songs.
Closing ceremony: An end to a wonderful event, packed with unending wonderfulness.
Upon arrival we were loaded with a LeakyCon book bag filled with passes and stickers and flyers and a BOOK of the four days of programming. Everyone received a house sticker, and with some persistent trading on my sister's part (since I gave her my Slytherin) I ended up with Ravenclaw by the end of the day. We attended panels on everything from slash to book recommendations to advice from editors on getting published to authors reading their teenage works to Team Starkid to MinaLima graphic design to huge Disney and Dr. Horrible sing-alongs. The sing-alongs were great fun, though they played altogether too much Beauty and the Beast. It was Team Starkid and the authors, however, that made the conference.
I get excited about Starkid because they are cool young people working on cool projects. They were college kids having fun who stumbled onto unexpected success and ran with it. It is indicative of the culture that we all call ourselves starkids, as do they. We are huge fans, but not merely fans. The University of Michigan Starkid crew grew out of a love for Harry Potter (among other things) that inspired a creative response. The Starkids themselves invite the fans along for the ride, and now inspire creative projects with their own work. I like that they are a group of friends, that they are just as big fans and nerds as the rest of us, that they enjoy their work and do it for the fun of it and take risks, rather than always searching for profit. It was hugely exciting to meet Jaime Lyn Beatty, Lauren Lopez, Devin Lytle, Julia Albain, and Corey Lubowich in person, despite my complete inability to think of intelligent conversation topics. Listening to their thoughtful presentations on panels about "The Art of Getting **** Done" and "Judas Redux" (their next production, The Last Days of Judas Iscariot by Stephen Adley Gurguis) made me remember why I liked them in the first place. It is not only that they put on hugely amusing parody musicals, but also that they were college kids like me, coming up with crazy ideas and making them real.
The author panels were the highlight of my LeakyCon experience. I did some crazy reading pre-conference after finding out that I knew the works of none of the authors attending (I guess I have been out of the YA reading group for a while, what with intense college classes and thesis and backpacking sucking away my time), and I found I enjoyed all of them. One of the reasons I continue to churn through YA novels is because the range of work is so broad. The overarching theme that seems to tie them all together is the young protagonist, but the stories range from high fantasy to realistic fiction to supernatural to teen romance, with elements blending all over the place. YA is a genre where practically anything goes (which, incidentally, was the main topic of conversation during the romance panel) and it's like candy; it leaves a good taste in my mouth and as soon as I finish I want more, until I completely overload and need to detox with some non-fiction or mysteries.
The authors who attended LeakyCon 2013:
Maureen Johnson
Robin Wasserman
Barry Lyga
Maggie Stiefvater
Rainbow Rowell
Andrea Cremer
Lev Grossman
Leigh Bardugo
E. Lockhart (Ravenclaw!!) (Emily Jenkins)
Coe Booth
David Levithan
Heather Brewer
Matt de la Peña
Lauren Myracle
Stephanie Perkins
Laini Taylor
Anthony Rapp (So incredible!)
Team Starkid
Lizzie Bennet Diaries
Harry Potter Cast
Warblers
Buffy Cast
One of the most epic and wonderful events I have ever been to, and in Portland to boot!
Note: Some of these have no description because I didn't write them right after I attended and by the time I got around to finishing the post I couldn't write a good description.
For reference, the panels I attended were...
18+ meetup: actually was supposed to be 18 and under, but they printed it wrong and ended up with way higher attendance than expected, chatting about how the Harry Potter books changed our generation and how we were introduced to the books and who we convinced to read them, etc etc
Slash: not my thing at all - it basically ended up being a shout-out session of all of the pairings people liked. WolfStar, Sirius and Lupin, was by far the most popular
Disney singalong: absolutely packed a conference room with absolutely hilarious duets acted out by some of the girls, but far too much Beauty & the Beast and Little Mermaid
What Are You Reading: a session where anyone who wanted came up to talk about the three books they were currently reading or recommended. It gave me some great book ideas
Opening Ceremony: All kinds of epic. Joey Richter started us off with a parody of I Can Go The Distance and it just got better from there. All the guests had a whole skit planned out, bringing together pretty much every fandom imaginable - and Dylan Saunders was Sam (which is even funnier because Sean Astin impersonated Dylan a number of times) and Maureen Johnson was Edward Cullen (glitter and sullenness and all) - that culminated in Anthony Rapp parodying La Vie Boheme
Comedy Jam: fairly awkward except for Joe Moses, who was absolutely fantastic and definitely not G, or even PG or PG-13 rated in his perfectly timed jokes
Tribe Starkid: a panel put on by a college youth minister, who is often asked by churches how to increase their youth attendance, to which she responds, "Have you seen AVPM?" "How about Me And My Dick?" The church isn't providing a community for young people, tumblr and Harry Potter and Starkids are doing that. It was actually an extremely interesting lecture that made the case for Starkids as an urban tribe, and also how groups like Starkids and Nerdfighters, although not physical communities, act as a community and inspire action and service, a function the church traditionally held. Let's be honest though - how many people out of high school without kids of their own do you see at church?
*"This Isn't A Kissing Book, Is It?" What We Talk About When We Talk About Romance: (E Lockhart, Coe Booth, Andrea Cremer, David Levithan, Rainbow Rowell, moderator Maureen Johnson)
The Art of Making S*** Happen: I went to this primarily because it was Corey Lubowich and Julia Albain putting on the panel, but I wish I would have gone to the Authors Acting Badly panel. The two put on a very well-thought out presentation in which essentially they said you have three necessary resources - time, money and creativity - and only two you can ever use at once, so identify your resources and get shit done, but that was a realization I had already come to a few years ago. I get the feeling that was hugely helpful to the kids still in high school or just starting college.
*Is All Fiction Fan-Fiction?: (Lev Grossman, Barry Lyga, Rainbow Rowell, Cheryl Klein (editor), moderator Kate Schafer Testerman)
*How Books Saved Me: (Leigh Bardugo, Stephanie Perkins, Anthony Rapp, Laini Taylor, moderator Robin Wasserman)
Judas Redux panel: Julia showed a short set of clips from the original Michigan production of the Last Days of Judas Iscariot (with Darren! Yay!), then the Starkids talked about their plans for the reproduction, the production and creative process so far and the success of the kickstarter campaign, the casting decisions, then answered audience questions. I would absolutely love to see the production, but...Peace Corps.
*Leakylit Signing: all the authors let us get signatures and chat a tiny bit, so although I had none of their books with me I got them to sign my program. I should have brought my kindle. Authors are SO COOL in real life.
*The Lying Game: One of the funniest panels ever. Each author was given a statement that may or may not be true, and they had to defend the statement to the other team, then the team voted on whether they thought the author was telling the truth. It turns out Barry Lyga makes an extremely convincing liar.
Actors Autographs: I love Team Starkid, and meeting the ladies of Starkid was stunning (that's the best way I can describe it). It is a weird experience because I feel like I know so much about their lives, but they know nothing about me. I am just another face in the crowd, and they don't know the impact their work has had on every individual life. They were just as awesome in the signing line as they are on youtube, making a point of trying to talk to every person and not rushing through the signatures as just another chore. Jaime looked every single person in the face, and I could think of nothing to say she hasn't heard a million times before. How could I express the joy of meeting her, the exhilaration of hearing her belt out every song, the admiration and respect I have for her and all the Starkids? I froze, mumbled something probably unintelligible, and continued on the line, all the while thinking she talked to me, she smiled at me. The same general idea held for Anthony Rapp as well. I know every single word to RENT, I read his memoir in high school, and I never in a million year thought I would hear him talk about being a Hufflepuff and get to ask him questions. How do you express to someone that their work helped define you? I don't usually like our obsession with celebrities, but LeakyCon just brought together so many people I hold in such high esteem. It was more than seeing someone famous on the street and greedily wanting to show the world that I saw someone famous. It was listening to the authors and actors thoughtfully respond to panel questions, watching them interact with each other, seeing them as real people and realizing that I like them as the people behind their work, which just makes their work that much more special. It wasn't the autograph as much as the opportunity to see behind the acting and the writing. If Tamora Pierce had been there, I may have just keeled over on the spot.
Mina Lima: Making Magic Real: Incredible panel with the people behind the graphic design of the Harry Potter movies. The maurader's map designs were the coolest of everything, but they talked about the research behind the look of each aspect of the wizarding world (lots of Soviet propaganda was used as reference material), the secrets in the Daily Prophet (look for all the articles on the Ginger Witch), the fonts they created for the books, letters and newspapers (all the letters to Harry in the first film had to be hand-addressed), the ideas for items in Weasley's Wizard Wheezes (simple and fast but brilliantly colored), and much more. The two designers were flown in separately, then decided to come together to form a company for the films, and look at the magic they created.
HP-Arab Uprising: This was a panel put on by two young ladies who talked about how Harry Potter and the Ministry of Magic could be compared to the oppression that led to the Arab uprising.
City of Bones Preview and Cassandra Clare Interview: Maureen Johnson interviewed Cassandra Clare and we saw the trailer for City of Bones. The casting was all wrong, so I don't know if I'll watch the movie. We all know that Adam Lambert is Magnus Bane in the flesh, and Alex Pettyfer (although I know he would never do the movie) is the perfect Jace.
*Publishing 101: This was actually a super interesting panel with Cheryl Klein and some of the authors about the process of getting a book published.
*I Was a Teenage Writer: Authors read some of their teenage works (hilarious) and talked about how they got started and how they broke into the business.
*Author House Cup: Authors divided into their houses and ran obstacle courses and played trivia. I laughed until I cried.
Guinness World Record: The line went around the bottom and top floor of the convention center, but we all wanted a part in setting the record for most people wearing false mustaches.
A Very Starkid Event III: At LeakyCon, the Starkids are superstars, but in grand scheme of things they can walk down the street and no one will even notice. That would be the best kind of stardom.
Esther Earl Rocking Charity Ball: So much dancing and so much fun. We made new friends and even danced for a moment with the Starkids before all the dumb tweens mobbed them.
Book Club Will Grayson Will Grayson: Everyone read the book and discussed. I hadn't finished, so it wasn't the best session for me to attend.
The Giant Team Starkid Panel: I love anything Starkid, and this was just one big Q&A session with all the Startkids. Loved it.
Quidditch Open Play: Quidditch was happening in the conference center all the time and I played a bit and watched a bit. We have fun.
Dr. Horrible Singalong: Neil Patrick Harris and Nathan Fillion in all their glory. If you haven't seen it, watch it and learn the songs.
Closing ceremony: An end to a wonderful event, packed with unending wonderfulness.
Upon arrival we were loaded with a LeakyCon book bag filled with passes and stickers and flyers and a BOOK of the four days of programming. Everyone received a house sticker, and with some persistent trading on my sister's part (since I gave her my Slytherin) I ended up with Ravenclaw by the end of the day. We attended panels on everything from slash to book recommendations to advice from editors on getting published to authors reading their teenage works to Team Starkid to MinaLima graphic design to huge Disney and Dr. Horrible sing-alongs. The sing-alongs were great fun, though they played altogether too much Beauty and the Beast. It was Team Starkid and the authors, however, that made the conference.
I get excited about Starkid because they are cool young people working on cool projects. They were college kids having fun who stumbled onto unexpected success and ran with it. It is indicative of the culture that we all call ourselves starkids, as do they. We are huge fans, but not merely fans. The University of Michigan Starkid crew grew out of a love for Harry Potter (among other things) that inspired a creative response. The Starkids themselves invite the fans along for the ride, and now inspire creative projects with their own work. I like that they are a group of friends, that they are just as big fans and nerds as the rest of us, that they enjoy their work and do it for the fun of it and take risks, rather than always searching for profit. It was hugely exciting to meet Jaime Lyn Beatty, Lauren Lopez, Devin Lytle, Julia Albain, and Corey Lubowich in person, despite my complete inability to think of intelligent conversation topics. Listening to their thoughtful presentations on panels about "The Art of Getting **** Done" and "Judas Redux" (their next production, The Last Days of Judas Iscariot by Stephen Adley Gurguis) made me remember why I liked them in the first place. It is not only that they put on hugely amusing parody musicals, but also that they were college kids like me, coming up with crazy ideas and making them real.
The author panels were the highlight of my LeakyCon experience. I did some crazy reading pre-conference after finding out that I knew the works of none of the authors attending (I guess I have been out of the YA reading group for a while, what with intense college classes and thesis and backpacking sucking away my time), and I found I enjoyed all of them. One of the reasons I continue to churn through YA novels is because the range of work is so broad. The overarching theme that seems to tie them all together is the young protagonist, but the stories range from high fantasy to realistic fiction to supernatural to teen romance, with elements blending all over the place. YA is a genre where practically anything goes (which, incidentally, was the main topic of conversation during the romance panel) and it's like candy; it leaves a good taste in my mouth and as soon as I finish I want more, until I completely overload and need to detox with some non-fiction or mysteries.
The authors who attended LeakyCon 2013:
Maureen Johnson
Robin Wasserman
Barry Lyga
Maggie Stiefvater
Rainbow Rowell
Andrea Cremer
Lev Grossman
Leigh Bardugo
E. Lockhart (Ravenclaw!!) (Emily Jenkins)
Coe Booth
David Levithan
Heather Brewer
Matt de la Peña
Lauren Myracle
Stephanie Perkins
Laini Taylor
Anthony Rapp (So incredible!)
Team Starkid
Lizzie Bennet Diaries
Harry Potter Cast
Warblers
Buffy Cast
One of the most epic and wonderful events I have ever been to, and in Portland to boot!
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