It’s still subject to change, but I’m so excited about the items I’m currently signed up to do at Readercon that I wanted to post them right away! *muppetflail*
Readercon is July 11-14 in Burlington, MA (just north of Boston).
I missed Readercon last year because I was spending that weekend in robes at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter for a special event and Potter convention, so I’m really excited to be back.
I’m currently assigned to three panels (with kaffeeklatsch/autographing still TBD):
Details below the cut!
Friday July 12
7:00 PM ME
Writing (Hot and Heavy) Action.
Elizabeth Bear, Nicholas Kaufmann (leader), Margo Lanagan, John Shirley, Cecilia Tan.
Good action scenes and good sex scenes have a surprising amount in common. This panel will discuss the best ways of approaching both. Expect the discussion to get raunchy and specific.
Saturday July 13
1:00 PM F
Architects and Gardeners.
Dale Bailey, Greer Gilman, Stacy Hill, James Patrick Kelly (moderator), Cecilia Tan, Gregory A. Wilson, Trent Zelazny.
In a 2011 interview in the Sydney Morning Herald, George R. R. Martin declared there were two types of writers: architects, whose stories come from meticulous plotting and planning, and gardeners, who take an idea and allow it to grow into shape, uninhibited. “I am definitely more of a gardener,” he said, adding, “In my Hollywood years when everything does work on outlines, I had to put on my architect’s clothes and pretend to be an architect.” Aside from fitting into a broader creative culture, what other benefits might there be (for new or established writers) to deliberately go against one’s natural tendencies? Which types of stories are best developed with an architectural or gardening approach? And how does the writer’s approach affect the reader’s experience of the work?
Sunday July 14
1:00 PM G
Crowdfunding: The Glory and the Peril.
Mike Allen (leader), Kevin E.F. Clark, Matthew Kressel, Ken Schneyer, Cecilia Tan.
In this troubled market, small publishers, authors, and editors are all turning to crowdfunding to get the backing for their cherished projects. Novelists, anthology editors, and magazine publishers are asking for funds on Kickstarter, Indiegogo, and other sites, and some are coming away triumphant. If you want to try it for yourself, how do you make it work? What do you avoid? What unexpected problems lurk? Author, editor, and publisher Mike Allen, veteran of a $10,000 campaign to fund the anthology Clockwork Phoenix 4, will lead a discussion of what works, what doesn’t, and what successful campaigners wish they’d done differently.
