Friday, July 18, 2025, 3:00 PM
Solo Reading: Gillian Daniels
Envision / Enliven, Duration: 30 mins
Saturday, July 19, 2025, 2:00 PM
Optimism in Horror
Salon I/J, Duration: 60 mins
F. Brett Cox, Gillian Daniels (moderator), Joey Zone, John Wiswell, Kit Mayquist
Conventional wisdom would presume that horror and optimism rarely if ever blend, but does this prove true in practice? Don't many major works of horror have happy—or, well, happy-ish—endings? Is survival enough of an uplifting conclusion, or does a happy ending require the triumph of the protagonist? Even when evil appears set to return for the sequel? What role does optimism play in underscoring but not undermining the unease that horror supplies?
Saturday, July 19, 2025, 6:00 PM
Erotica, Horror, and the Fear of Visceral Fiction
Salon G/H, Duration: 60 mins
Catherine Lundoff, Cecilia Tan, Gillian Daniels (moderator), Ian Muneshwar, Laura Antoniou
Erotica and horror: two genres guaranteed to make certain moms mad when they find the book hidden in your bedroom. Two genres that every other has tried (at least at times) to put down as shlock or trash. Why? What is it about literature that evokes strong visceral physical reactions from the reader that garners such opposition? (And is "paranormal romance" their love child?)
Sunday, July 20, 2025, 12:00 PM
Content Warnings: Pros, Cons, and Purposes
Salon G/H, Duration: 60 mins
Claire Houck/Nina Waters, Gillian Daniels (moderator), Gwynne Garfinkle, Melissa Bobe, Romie Stott
Many romance novels have started including content notes or warnings, which advise readers of potentially sensitive plot elements or themes, such as grief, murder, and self-harm. Content notes appear far less frequently in SFF novels, whereas some venues for speculative short fiction have been including them for years. Panelists will share examples of particularly effective—or ineffective—content notes, while surveying the reasons for their rise in romance and the potential applicability of those reasons to long-form speculative fiction.
Sunday, July 20, 2025, 1:00 PM
Harry Potter and the Undeath of the Author
Create / Collaborate, Duration: 60 mins
Cecilia Tan, Gillian Daniels (moderator), Natalie Luhrs, Rob Cameron, William Alexander
"The death of the author" is a well-worn concept about who, author or audience, owns the meaning of an author's work. Such arguments take on a different valance, however, when the author is not only alive and well but using the funds and power accumulated by their creation as leverage to take extremely public and reactionary political action. When the price of engagement with a work is empowering its living author to publicly abuse others, how can we plausibly claim that the author is dead and our engagement is ours alone?
