CoNZealand/WorldCon schedule

I've been meaning to write about what it's like to live in the wonderful yet weird zone of Level 1, a.k.a. total freedom from COVID. New Zealand achieved the holy grail that I hardly dared dream of back in lockdown: complete elimination of the virus within the borders. We're enjoying life as more-or-less normal, with schools and restaurants and ski areas and bars all open, no masks or distancing required, albeit with a lot fewer tourists and a lot more uncertainty over the future. But I know how fortunate we are here. It's a bizarre and almost guilty feeling to watch the news and see what troubles others are facing.

Who knows how long NZ's blessedly virus-free status will last? The borders remain closed to all but returning citizens and permanent residents, who must complete a 14-day mandatory quarantine under Ministry of Health supervision. Yet one slip-up in quarantine procedures could lead to a disastrous new outbreak like the one Australia is currently struggling to contain. I'm glad the NZ government has a plan for how they'll stamp out new flare-ups (hooray for competent leadership!), but as Kiwis get complacent and testing rates fall, I worry NZ won't be able to detect viral spread before it snowballs.

I can't control the future, but I can seize the day while it's here. We've been exploring and enjoying as much as we can. The first 3-day weekend after lockdown ended, we headed down to the Catlins, an area on NZ's wild and rugged southern coast full of gorgeous waterfalls and sea cliffs and wildlife.

Nugget Point

Purakaunui Falls

Then for my son's 2-week July holidays, we headed to the "north of the south": Abel Tasman National Park and the Marlborough Sounds, for some glorious winter sunshine and plenty of kayaking, boating, and trekking.

Abel Tasman NP (I can never get over the color of the water!)

Split Apple Rock

Kenepuru Sound

The fun's not over yet: next week, I head to Wellington, which is where the 78th World Science Fiction Convention, a.k.a. ConZealand, was originally supposed to take place. The convention is all virtual/online now, but since my Air NZ flights to Wellington weren't cancelled, I decided to still use them and turn the Wellington trip into a kind of writing retreat. (I'm so close to finally finishing the infamous Cara novella, The White Serpent!) Plus it'll be fun to get together with some of the Wellington-area SFF folks.

I'm interested to see how well ConZealand will work as a virtual convention. I know the conrunners have put a ton of work into making it happen, and I know from friends who attended the SFWA Nebula con that online cons can still be a really fun experience. So, I'm excited to try it out, and if you too are attending, I hope to see you there! Here's my schedule:

Panel: Can Living in a Small Space on Earth Prepare You for Living in Space? 
29 Jul 2020, Wednesday 16:00 - 16:50 New Zealand Time, Programme Room 3

Could you live in a self-contained space that must supply food, water, and protection from a hostile environment for days and weeks at a time?  Some people have done this on sea, others on land.  Can these experiences help us survive in space or on another planet?  How can off-earth living spaces be engineered based on what we learn from building and living in small spaces here?

Katrina Archer (M), M. Darusha Wehm, Courtney Schafer, David D. Levine

Panel: Juggling for Writers: Making Progress When You've Got a Million Responsibilities 
30 Jul 2020, Thursday 16:00 - 16:50 New Zealand Time, Programme Room 4

In addition to writing, many authors work a day job and/or have child or elder care responsibilities. Tips and tricks from people who have been there, and are there, on balancing multiple roles and finding your balance.

(Note: I'm moderating this one, and boy am I interested in hearing what the panelists have to say, since this is definitely something I've struggled with in the last years!)

Erin Wilcox, Jen Zink, Courtney Schafer (M), Holly Black, Sam Hawke

Panel: Access to Space 
31 Jul 2020, Friday 16:00 - 16:50 New Zealand Time, Programme Room 1

It's hard to go into space ... but it's getting easier. With reusable boosters, increasingly capable robots, better space suits and now the first steps toward asteroid mining, is the tomorrow of yesterday's sf finally just around the corner?

Courtney Schafer, Bill Higgins, Dr. L. Suzanne Casement (M), Dave Taylor, Dr Stephen Dedman

Meetup: SpecFicNZ Get to Know Us
31 Jul 2020, Friday 19:00-19:50 New Zealand Time

Are you a Kiwi or Pasifika writer interested in meeting other SFF writers from the region? SpecFicNZ is the association for creators, writers and editors of speculative fiction (science fiction, fantasy and horror) in or from New Zealand. If you're not yet a member, come find out what resources and opportunities we have to offer. If you're already a member, come hang out with friends both old and new.

Reading: Courtney Schafer 
2 Aug 2020, Sunday 11:00 - 11:25 New Zealand Time, Reading Room 1

If you've been wondering what the heck I've been up to writing-wise these last few years, now's your chance to find out. I plan to read a short bit from The White Serpent (the Cara novella) and another short bit from my brand-new fantasy novel, The Dreaming Sea. 

Anyway, hope to see some of you next week at CoNZealand, and if you want to do some virtual travel by looking at more pics of our NZ adventures, I've been posting some on Twitter.

State of the Schafer: 2019 in Review (Picture Edition)

Happy New Year, everyone. We just got back from spending Christmas with family in Sydney, Australia, where thanks to the worst bushfire season in living memory, the sky mostly looked like this:

My little cell phone camera doesn't do the eerie colors justice. The sky was orange, the sun crimson.

We were lucky during our visit. Our arrival before Christmas coincided with a cool front that pushed smoke away from Sydney and allowed firefighters in the Blue Mountains the chance for vital defensive work. But the day we left, on New Years Eve, conditions worsened again as high winds fanned the flames. Homes are burning, people have died, thousands are stuck without power or safe exit routes--and the only thing capable of stopping the fires for good is heavy rain, which forecasters say likely won't arrive until February.

But Australia has always had fires in summer, some people protest. Yes, they have. But thanks to the changing climate, this year's fire season is far longer, hotter, and drier than in years past. Nor are controlled burns the solution--as this well-researched article explains, the situation is complicated. Plus, during extreme heat and wind, the amount of available fuel makes only a small difference to a fire's intensity; the primary driver is weather.

Even 2000km away in New Zealand, we're feeling the effects. I woke up this morning to a sky so yellowy-orange I thought for a second we were still back in Sydney. Nope. It's just Australian smoke pouring across the Tasman Sea to blanket us.

View from our house this morning. Again, the camera doesn't do the color justice.

Nor is this the only sign of changing climate we've faced here in NZ. While Australia is predicted to get hotter and drier, NZ's South Island is predicted to get warmer and wetter. We had a taste of what that might be like this spring, with epic amounts of rain leading to flooding that destroyed bridges and roads and briefly cut off the entire lower half of the South Island from the rest of the country. We're okay here in Hawea, where the town is on a hill well above lake level, but Wanaka isn't so lucky. 

Flooding in Wanaka in early December

At least the government in New Zealand is trying hard to anticipate climate impacts and address them, as well as reduce the country's emissions, with all political parties coming together to vote for the Zero Carbon bill despite disagreements. 

The most depressing part about the Australian fires is that this terrible season isn't a surprise; scientists have been sounding alarm bells for years. But the Australian government, like the current US government, has prioritized short term economic gain over everything else. Even now, the prime minister insists he won't change policies. The New South Wales government has at least agreed to compensate volunteer firefighters for their loss of earnings while fighting fires in dangerous conditions for weeks on end with no finish yet in sight. Hopefully other regions of Australia will follow that lead.

On a larger scale, I guess paying the cost is all we can do, if governments continue refusing to address the root cause. But governments are put in power by people, and I hope with all my heart that in 2020 more people will understand the stakes we face and vote accordingly. It's too late to stop the climate from changing, but it's not too late to limit the worst effects.

Perhaps it's both the blessing and the curse of humanity that we're so good at focusing on the here and now. There is always light amid the darkness, and savoring the small joys of everyday life is what keeps hope alive.

The fires and smoke didn't stop my in-laws from throwing a lovely Christmas party

Having a great lunch with my husband

With the help of my sister-in-law and one of our nieces, we solved the Wizard's Quest escape room at Escape Hunt in Sydney. 

Looking back over 2019, despite all the horrifying developments in world politics and climate, I have a lot of good memories to savor. We visited a bunch of cool places in New Zealand I hadn't seen before, like the wild southern shores:

Windswept bluff near Gemstone Beach

and the busy, beautiful city of Wellington (SFF fans and authors, you definitely want to come down here for WorldCon in August!):

Wellington is gorgeous on a sunny day

Plus we visited the cozy homes of Hobbiton in Matamata:

I would totally live here if I were a hobbit

and Rotorua's steaming geothermal field:

Don't wander off the trail

and the lovely alpine scenery near Glenorchy and Kinloch:

View from Kinloch, at the head of Lake Wakatipu

not to mention the incredible Milford Sound in Fiordland:

Mitre Peak in Milford Sound

In late September, I took my son to visit family and friends in the US, where we saw Hogwarts Castle:

My son loved all the Harry Potter stuff at Universal Orlando (and yeah, I did too)

We played in a really cool water park (Universal's Volcano Bay):

Plus took a cruise in the Caribbean with my mom and brother:

I realize I need to plant about a million trees to make up for the environmental impact of this...or better yet, contribute to the development of a planetary sunshade. I think we're unfortunately past the point at which lifestyle changes are enough to make a difference. It's technology that will have to save us.

While in the US, we visited familiar, much-beloved haunts:

Boulder, Colorado...I do miss the Flatirons!

Wandering the Fiery Furnace in Arches National Park

Delicate Arch at sunset

And also enjoyed some new adventures:

The kiddo on a long rappel on the Rock of Ages route near Moab

Our guide helps him negotiate a downclimb in the slot section

Back in New Zealand, we spent plenty of days enjoying Lake Hawea, just steps from our front door.

Lake Hawea's beach is rocky rather than sandy, but the rocks sure are pretty

I never get tired of the view from the lakeshore walking track

The very best way to see the lake

 Although the ski season came very late this year (more reason to hate climate change, arrrgh), I still enjoyed some great ski days.

So did my son, who's good enough now to ski the infamous Motatapu Chutes with panache.

Celebrating a successful ski of a very steep chute

He also took up trampolining, and competed for the very first time, which is pretty darn cool. He's excited to progress further in 2020.

I, meanwhile, returned to figure skating--a lot more cautiously than I'd like, thanks to my aging back, but I've been delighted to find I can still jump and spin. I'm training for my first competition in over ten years, eeek! (The NZ Masters Games in Dunedin in February of 2020.)

Blurry pic, I know, but hey. It's hard taking pictures in a dimly lit rink.

But Courtney, what about writing? you may ask, assuming anybody's still reading this extremely long post. Where's your next book? 

All I can say is that I'm still working on it. Or rather, working on them, plural. I've still got The White Serpent novella and short stories in the works--Tales from Ninavel, I'm thinking I'll call the collection as a whole. Plus, I'm still plugging along on my new fantasy adventure, The Dreaming Sea. 

I'm bummed that I didn't publish anything in 2019, but I also don't want to put out anything less than the best I can write. I ran into a couple roadblocks toward the end of the year, on both projects, and realized that I need to correct course, which means revising and rewriting. But I've got a path forward, and I mean to use it. I may not be a fast writer, but I get there in the end. I definitely will attend WorldCon/CoNZealand in Wellington in August, so readers and fellow SFF fans, I hope to see you there. 

What else is ahead for me in 2020? Oh, I've got a few goals:

1) FINISH MY DRAFTS. FINISH MY DRAFTS. FINISH MY DRAFTS.

Really, that's the biggest one. But okay, I've got a few more plans and dreams:

2) Compete in Adult Gold figure skating at NZ Nationals, assuming my back holds out

3) Complete a coding project I've been working on: a fantasy book recommendation algorithm that uses book content/theme/style rather than sales information to produce results 

4) Formally open a consulting company here in NZ for my algorithm work

5) Find ways to contribute to climate change solutions

6) Keep exploring NZ's amazing landscapes with my son and husband

So, yeah. Busy year ahead. But exciting, too. Best wishes to all of you in 2020--let's hope this year becomes the start of a better future for everyone.