TGIF

Okay, my part in Clarion is over.  Over, that is, except for the Celebrating at the Beach, in which I will partake this evening.

Everyone has been very hospitable.  The students have been energetic, highly organized, and very talented, and they’ve made my job easier than I had any right to expect.

As they are not draped over the furniture in attitudes of despair, I feel that perhaps I haven’t done my job properly; but I guess I’ll have to leave that to Holly Black and Cassandra Clare, who follow me.

The highlight of the week, at least for the students, was when Carmen Machado, one of their number, sold her third-week Clarion story to Strange Horizons during the fourth week.  During class.  The screaming from one part of the room was hard to ignore.

The UCSD campus is full of interesting architectural oddities, one of which is seen in the above photo.  Do you know it from literature?

I knew it at once, without being told.  It’s the Geisel Library, which I recognized from the description in Vernor Vinge’s Rainbow’s End.

It’s named after another literary figure, whose bronze statue is found in a garden just below the structure.