LTUE Report
Remember how I posted about LTUE a couple of weeks ago? It was freaking awesome! Of course, I’ve never been to a convention before, so maybe I’m just naive and inexperienced.
But I figured you just might be interested in some of the things I learned at the three-day FREE convention—excuse me, conference—er, symposium? Their official material calls it a symposium. Whatever that’s supposed to be. Please enlighten me, because I’m too desperate to get this post finished to spend time looking it up. Did I mention it was FREE?
The caliber of the panelists was pretty impressive for a free event. Brandon Sanderson was the guest of honor—not really surprising considering he teaches at BYU where LTUE is hosted. I knew some of the other panelists, including L.E. Modesitt, Brandon Mull, Howard Tayler, Dan Wells, John D. Brown, and Robert Defendi. There were a lot of other panelists including several romance and horror writers. Past guests of honor have included Kevin J. Anderson, Orson Scott Card, Barbara Hambly, Katherine Kurtz, Roger Zelazny, Lois McMaster Bujold, Patricia A. McKillip, Dave Wolverton (David Farland), and Elizabeth Moon. Pretty impressive, eh?
Most of the panels I attended had between one and two hundred people in attendance, although some had significantly less. One reading I attended only had about a dozen people in attendance, but it was awesome and gave me a new book I need to buy (Servant of a Dark God by John D. Brown). Pretty much every event Brandon Sanderson attended was packed solid. Several events had standing room only if you didn’t get there early.
The authors and panelists were very accessible, and I saw many of them chatting with attendees out in the hallways. Brandon Sanderson hung out in the registration room for several hours each day just to chat and answer questions. He was accompanied by throngs of ravenous fans everywhere he went.
The events themselves were pretty diverse. Panels ranged from subjects like “A Guy’s Take on Romance” and “Worldbuilding Religion” to “What Does an Editor Do, Anyway?” A number of academic papers were presented, things like “The Position of Fair Tale Adaptations” and “A Thousand Words for Sand.” There were some presentations on art and film, too, including a short 3D sci-fi film made by some BYU students.
Over the next few days/weeks, however long it takes, I’m going to report in more detail on some of the things I learned and reporting in general on some of the panels I thought were particularly cool. So stick around and check back for more.
Remember how I posted about LTUE a couple of weeks ago? It was freaking awesome! Of course, I’ve never been to a convention before, so maybe I’m just naive and inexperienced.
But I figured you just might be interested in some of the things I learned at the three-day FREE convention—excuse me, conference—er, symposium? Their official material calls it a symposium. Whatever that’s supposed to be. Please enlighten me, because I’m too desperate to get this post finished to spend time looking it up. Did I mention it was FREE?
The caliber of the panelists was pretty impressive for a free event. Brandon Sanderson was the guest of honor—not really surprising considering he teaches at BYU where LTUE is hosted. I knew some of the other panelists, including L.E. Modesitt, Brandon Mull, Howard Tayler, Dan Wells, John D. Brown, and Robert Defendi. There were a lot of other panelists including several romance and horror writers. Past guests of honor have included Kevin J. Anderson, Orson Scott Card, Barbara Hambly, Katherine Kurtz, Roger Zelazny, Lois McMaster Bujold, Patricia A. McKillip, Dave Wolverton (David Farland), and Elizabeth Moon. Pretty impressive, eh?
Most of the panels I attended had between one and two hundred people in attendance, although some had significantly less. One reading I attended only had about a dozen people in attendance, but it was awesome and gave me a new book I need to buy (Servant of a Dark God by John D. Brown). Pretty much every event Brandon Sanderson attended was packed solid. Several events had standing room only if you didn’t get there early.
The authors and panelists were very accessible, and I saw many of them chatting with attendees out in the hallways. Brandon Sanderson hung out in the registration room for several hours each day just to chat and answer questions. He was accompanied by throngs of ravenous fans everywhere he went.
The events themselves were pretty diverse. Panels ranged from subjects like “A Guy’s Take on Romance” and “Worldbuilding Religion” to “What Does an Editor Do, Anyway?” A number of academic papers were presented, things like “The Position of Fair Tale Adaptations” and “A Thousand Words for Sand.” There were some presentations on art and film, too, including a short 3D sci-fi film made by some BYU students.
Over the next few days/weeks, however long it takes, I’m going to report in more detail on some of the things I learned and reporting in general on some of the panels I thought were particularly cool. So stick around and check back for more.
Cool. Reminds me of some of the best aspects of academic conferences. As far as the conference/symposium thing goes, they’re pretty well synonyms; depends on what kind of cachet they want to give themselves. From what I’ve seen, a symposium is usually built around discussion on a certain theme (thence all the panelists and readings to choose from) and more likely to be open to all comers, while a conference is usually built around membership in some particular group or profession.
The symposium idea goes all the way back to ancient Athens; people like Socrates and his cronies would get together in parties to eat, drink wine, and pose philosophical questions to one another, and that was what they called their gatherings. Basically, Plato’s _Symposium_ is all about one of Socrates’ dinner conversations.
What does LTUE stand for, again?
I think I might have wandered through part of one of those back in the day (this would’ve been the early 90s, I think); no idea why I was on the BYU campus in the first place, but I remember a big cafeteria/ballroom type place (the Wilkinson bldg or some such) full of posters about authors and comics and presentations; there was a scattering of people dressed up like Spock and various other sci-fi/fantasy characters, and nerdy-looking people were everywhere.
It was kind of bizarre. I probably looked like I fit right in, but I had no idea why those people were there or what they were talking about.
LTUE stands for Life, the Universe, and Everything. I had heard some comments that made me think there would be people dressed up, but there weren’t. I was a little disappointed. It made me feel less geeky.