The Readercon program schedule is up! And I'm doing five panels and a reading! Because I believe in signing up for all the things.
Come up and see me this coming weekend!
Thursday, July 7th
Friday, July 8th
12:00 PM C The Works of Catherynne M. Valente. Jonathan Crowe, Gillian
Daniels, Liz Gorinsky (leader), Kathleen Howard. Catherynne Valente has been a
professional fortune teller, telemarketer, private tutor, librarian, waitress, bartender,
actress, and statistician, but she is best known as a novelist and poet, having published
over two dozen novels and poetry collections. She has been nominated for or won every
major award in science fiction and fantasy: the Hugo (2010, 2012, 2013, 2014), the
Nebula (2013, 2014), Locus (2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014), and the World Fantasy
Award (2007, 2009, 2011, 2014). In the Night Garden (2006) won the James Tiptree Jr.
Award; The Orphan's Tales (2006-2007) won the Mythopoeic Award; "The Seven Devils
of Central California" won the Rhysling Award (2008); Palimpsest won the Lambda
Award (2010). In 2010, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own
Making became the first self-published work to win a major literary award, winning the
Andre Norton Award. The sequel, The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the
Revels There, was listed by Time Magazine and NPR as one of the ten best books of
2012. The New York Times has called her "an incandescent young star." Join our
panelists in a discussion of her work.
6:00 PM 5 Author Trademark or Personal Cliché?. F. Brett Cox, Gillian Daniels,
Karen Heuler (leader), Alex Jablokow, Bud Sparhawk. Most writers occasionally suspect
that they are writing the same type of story over and over again. Some writers set out to
do so. Is this a good thing or bad? Our panelists will examine which writers persistently
revisit the same images, themes, characters, or situations, and discuss when and for
whom this revisiting works and when and for whom it does not. The panelists will
discuss how they handle this situation, when they realize the story they're writing seems
too familiar. Should the story be discarded because it's already been written, or should a
writer continue and try to discover the source of the weird power it holds for them?
Panelists will discuss which writers they admire, and what distinctive features make them
exceptional and unique. Panelists will also come up with a few strategies to help audience
members (and perhaps each other) see their work in a new light, using everything from
literary influences to music and movies to dreams and the unconscious.
7:00 PM 6 Sensuality and Exploitation. Gillian Daniels (moderator), Ben
Francisco, Elaine Isaak, Nick Kaufmann, Vinnie Tesla. Sex in fiction, as in real life, is
often fraught with questions. Our panelists will discuss sex in science fiction and fantasy
and what they consider representative or exploitative. Where and when do you draw the
line? Is someone's trashy beach read someone else's master's thesis in 20th- and 21st century
courtship?
Saturday, July 9th
1:00 PM 5 If Thor Can Hang Out with Iron Man, Why Can't Harry Dresden Use
a Computer? . Gillian Daniels, Elaine Isaak, Andrea Phillips, Alex Shvartsman, E.J.
Stevens. In a series of tweets in 2015, Jared Axelrod pondered "the inherent weirdness of
a superhero universe... where magic and science hold hands, where monsters stride over
cities." This is only weird from the perspective of fantasy stories that set up magic and
technology as incompatible, an opposition that parallels Western cultural splits between
religion and science and between nature and industry. Harry Dresden's inability to touch
a computer without damaging it is a direct descendant of the Ents destroying the "pits and
forges" of Isengard, and a far cry from Thor, Iron Man, and the Scarlet Witch keeping
company. What are the story benefits of setting up magic/nature/religion and technology/industry/science as either conflicting or complementary? What cultural
anxieties are addressed by each choice? How are these elements handled in stories from
various cultures and eras?
Sunday, July 10th
1:00 PM A Reading: Gillian Daniels reads a short
story
