Hugo House

When I teach a writing workshop I haven't taught before, I'm always slightly nervous: How will it go? Will the students feel it was worth while? The weekend workshop at Hugo House in Seattle went, I think, very well, although after six and a half hours of intense work in a heat wave, everyone looked pretty used up. Including me. Seattle is not big on air conditioning, since most of the time they don't need it. But this weekend the temperature was well above 80, and we all sweated as we composed.

Leslie Howle, director of Clarion West, gave a party Saturday night. Among the writers present were Ted Chiang, Matt Ruff, Jack Skillingstead, Blunt Jackson (blujack), John Aegar, and Cory Doctorow. Cory was in the States for a book tour connected with his new YA, Big Brother. He was also showing pictures of his adorable four-month-old daughter, whose name is (I am not making this up) "Posy Emmeline Fibonacci Nautilus Doctorow-Taylor." The "Emmeline" is for sufragette Emmeline Pankhurst, the "Fibonacci" for the number sequence, and the "Nautilus" for Twenty Thousane Leagues Under the Sea. At the party there was some discussion of writing, but it paled next to this baby's moniker. They call her "Po."