Chicagoans, Rise Up. You have Nothing to Lose But…

… well, I guess, a few hours of your life that you’ll never get back.  And the price of a bus ticket if you don’t live within walking distance of the Oak Park Public Library.  Oh, and parking if you drive.  And gas.  However much all that costs.  You have that to lose as well.

On the other hand, think of all there is  to gain:  you can hang out with both of Chicago’s Starfish fans, and critique the hell out of that book during the Chicago Speculative Fiction Community’s 3rd-anniversay meeting!  How cool is that?

I’ve been approached by the good folks at chicago-sf.org to spread the word, and I’m happy to.  They have a small-but feisty website; an online forum; a FAQ containing the backlist of titles dissected in the past, for which I’m told “Watchmen” remains The One To Beat in terms of total attendance.  Far as I’m concerned, if we can drum up anything in the double digits I’ll be happy.

At the moment we’re talking August 15 (although that date may change, to provide more breathing space after Worldcon):  main branch of the  Oak Park Public Library (834 Lake Street), 2 pm.  If you want to get in touch with the organizers and the above links don’t do it for you, you can email them at council@chicago-sf.org.   I’ll be answering questions¹ in and around the event, via e-mail and possibly  on the forum (assuming my presence there doesn’t cause participants to censor themselves for fear of hurting my feelings).

So if you live in Chicago and you’re free that night, why not give it a shot?  It’s bound to be more fun than, say, doing a marathon run for Phlegm Cancer Research.  (Although granted, those guys could probably use all the profile they can get…)

¹By which I mean relevant questions.  I will not be addressing the impact of the Gates debacle on race relations in America, nor anything to do with the skinny chick in the Green Room at last  March’s Ad Astra convention.



This entry was posted on Saturday, July 25th, 2009 at 2:07 pm and is filed under public interface. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
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Sheila
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Sheila
14 years ago

I don’t we’d be able to hurt your feelings with questions about the book, but I suppose I could try.

Sheila
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Sheila
14 years ago

think. I don’t.

Jason M. Robertson
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Jason M. Robertson
14 years ago

Just the slightest and most minor of corrections: chicago-sf.org, aka the Chicago Speculative Fiction Community is actually older than three years old. Our reading group however, will be turning three at the Starfish event. Literacy: it always lags behind!

I’m really excited about this, and very glad to have this announcement in the crawl. I hope it turns out that there are Chicago Watts fans I don’t know and haven’t met.

I’m an organizer of the group, and I’ll also be ‘leading’ the discussion come August 15. We meet in Oak Park so that suburbanites can find reasonably priced parking, while for city folks such as myself, our location is still directly on the CTA lines.

Join us, and let us know you’re coming!

Mark
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Mark
14 years ago

Shit! The one weekend of the summer that I’m not in Chicago, and this has to go and happen…

Keippernicus
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14 years ago

Well dammit now I want to know what the deal is with the skinny girl from Ad Astra. Such a tease.

Jason M. Robertson
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Jason M. Robertson
14 years ago

@Mark: You can still drop by to discuss the book on the forum. You could also come by our event on Tuesday August 4 when we’ll be meeting at Dave & Buster’s… we’re all free to discuss whatever we want there, and as I recently finished my re-read of Starfish I’m perfectly capable of discussing it in meatspace.

Sheila
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Sheila
14 years ago

I’ve opened a thread on the ‘close reading’ forum.

http://www.chicago-sf.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=2657

Tom Tobin
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14 years ago

Gah! I find this post after I finally realize that Peter’s feed stopped updating awhile back (because he switched to WordPress, it turns out), and it happened right after I moved out of Oak Park (albeit just into Chicago proper, although on the far north side). Oh well … maybe I’ll check out this chicago-sf group … gah, they had their September meeting *yesterday*. I can’t win. ^_^