Whew! I’ll be making my Guest of Honor run at Readercon this coming weekend in Burlington, MA! It’s me and P. Djeli Clark in the GoH seats, with legions of super-smart sf/f writers and editors on the program, including Max Gladstone, Rob Cameron, Catherine Lundoff, John Chu, Laura Antoniou, Erin Roberts, Sarah Pinsker, Shariann Lewitt and many many more.
As expected, my schedule will be PACKED. Of note: I added a second autographing slot because of concerns that the first one happens soooo early. I will not have a table selling books: you can get them in the bookshop from Sally at Larry Smith Booksellers and some will also be on the Broad Universe table.
And yes, there will be some copies of the new shiny beautiful Magic University Collectors Edition hardcover. (And if you ordered a copy via Kickstarter, check your email for an update about picking up the book in person if you want to! Or just come to a party!)
FRIDAY
2:00 PM Bisexuals in Science Fiction: Still Hip After All These Years?
3:00 PM Autograph Session #1
4:00 PM Cecilia Tan GOH Reading
7:00 PM Moving from Traditional Publishing to Self-Publishing
9:00 PM Levels of Interiority (in Narrative)
SATURDAY
12:00 Noon The Works of Cecilia Tan (I’m not on this, I’ll just be listening!)
1:00 PM Divination in the Writing Process
4:00 PM Guest of Honor Interview: Cecilia Tan by Charlie Jane Anders
6:00 PM Erotica, Horror, and the Fear of Visceral Fiction
9:00 PM Patrons & Kickstarter Supporters Get-Together
SUNDAY
12:00 PM Noon Beyond the Bio: Weird Jobs & the Worlds They Inspired
1:00 PM Harry Potter and the Undeath of the Author
2:00 PM Autographing Session #2
See the full descriptions in my personalized schedule on the readercon site.
Some descriptions:
Bisexuals in Science Fiction: Still Hip After All These Years?
with Andrea Hairston (M), Charlie Jane Anders, Vandana Singh, RWW Greene, Cecilia Tan
Bisexuality has been associated with futurism in both the U.S. and U.K. for over a 100 years, with each generation since the 1920s going through a phase where bisexuality was considered the “new, hip” sexual identity—and bis were accused of only doing it to be avant garde. Bi characters have been an SF trope since at least the 1940s, so is bisexuality still “trendy,” or can we finally lay that idea to rest and have representation for its own sake, not to indicate society “moving forward”? Who’s doing that best?
Levels of Interiority
Cecilia Tan, Erin Roberts, Max Gladstone, T.X. Watson, Will McMahon (M)
There’s been a discussion lately about bad books being written so “cinematicallly” that they have no interiority at all, giving the reader no more understanding of character motivations than if they were viewed on a screen. Is it possible to write a good book with no character interiority, such as a deeply withholding first person narrator? How have expected levels of interiority, or ways of signaling interiority, changed over time or across genres? And what stories could be improved by less interiority?
Divination in the Writing Process
Cecilia Tan, Jedediah Berry, Mur Lafferty, Stephanie Feldman (M),Stephanie Wytovich
Tarot, dice, tea leaves—regardless of your feelings about divination in the non-fictional world, they’re always as applicable as you want them to be in worlds you control. How do authors use divination tools or other forms of mysticism to guide or inform their writing practices? What kinds of effects do you get from different methods?
Harry Potter and the Undeath of the Author
Cecilia Tan, Gillian Daniels (M), 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?
