Readercon 29

It’s almost time for Readercon, my first and favorite con! I’m especially excited because this is my first year on programming.

Readercon is July 12-15 in Quincy, and programming on Thursday night is free. For more info, visit their website, Twitter, and Facebook, and if you want to join me… here’s my little schedule! In between I will be wandering, socializing, and trying not to buy All The Books.

Friday

7:00 PM – From What Mad Universe to Radiance: The Livable Solar System
Andrea Corbin, Jeff Hecht, Kathy Kitts, Sioban Krzywicki, Catherynne M. Valente
The notion of the other planets in the solar system being habitable by humans and/or inhabited by aliens held appeal long after it was known that this wasn’t the case. How do we tell these stories and why? Is reimagining the physics and reality of our own solar system easier than FTL? Or is there a romance about it that is lost in the reality of our universe?

Saturday

8:00 PM – Come find me at the Speculative Boston party! There will be snacks.

Sunday

12:00 PM - It Takes a Village to Raise a Protagonist
Andrea Corbin, Scott Lynch, Nisi Shawl, Graham Sleight, John Wiswell
Conflicts in speculative fiction often tend toward hyperindividualist solutions, but there are other ways to build those stories. Gene Roddenberry and Ray Bradbury both often wrote stories of cooperation in which the community is the protagonist. In Cory Doctorow’s books, long sequences are devoted to the process of achieving consensus. What other stories center collaboration and cooperation, and what are some best practices for writers who want to explore these types of stories?

 

Boskone 2018

Winter is busy!

In a few weeks, I’ll be at Boskone, New England’s longest running science fiction and fantasy convention. Boskone is Feb. 16-18, and I’ll be there for most of it. For more info, visit The Boskone Blog, Twitter, and Facebook, and if you want to join me, register here!

Friday – 2/16
8:00pm – Fresh Fantasy Worlds
Gerald L. Coleman, Andrea Corbin, John R. Douglas (M), Marshall Ryan Maresca, Patrick Nielsen Hayden
“High” fantasies in much of western speculative literature lean heavily on the European Middle Ages for inspiration. Pastoral landscapes, Camelottian castles, noble knights, distressed damsels. All much loved — all done to death. (Or killed off by George R. R. Martin.) Why do we still cling to them so? What’s it take to create a fresh fantasy world? Besides European models, what other options are there? And how do you enliven tropes, settings, and situations that have become old hat?

Saturday – 2/17
10:00am – Feminist Fairy Tales
Jane Yolen, Victoria Sandbrook, Andrea Corbin, Julia Rios, E.J. Stevens
Women frequently serve as the main characters of fairy tales. (Why, by the way?) It’s hard not to notice they’re often presented as victims, or the subjects of a lesson learned. Do any tales instead offer strong female role models? What can modern feminist perspectives contribute when considering stories from so long ago and/or far away?

4:30pm – Reading by Andrea Corbin
Andrea Corbin
Me! Reading to you! I don’t know what to read yet!

Arisia 2018 schedule

Oh my goodness, it’s almost time! Once again, I’m going to be at Arisia in Boston, and that’s this weekend! How the time flies. I’ll be around Sunday and Monday, and can’t wait! Here’s where you can find me:

Sunday, January 14
11:30am – You Got Your Science in My Magic
Ken Gale (moderator), Victoria Sandbrook, Andrea Corbin, Roy Kilgard, Gwendolyn Clare
We often talk about science fiction, realism, and fantasy as separate things, but the genre borders are awfully fuzzy. In stories, what does magic look like in a modern setting? We’ll explore what happens when science collides with magic, especially when that magic isn’t rule-based, and books or movies where magic and non-handwavy science work together.

5:30pm – Mystery and Supernatural Reading
Andrea Corbin, Debra Doyle, Hildy Silverman
Authors will be reading their own original tales of mystery and the supernatural.

Monday, January 15
2:30pm – Houses of the Dead: Haunted Houses in Fiction
Andrea Corbin (moderator), Gordon Linzner, Leigh Perry, Lauren M. Roy, Morgan Crooks
Many popular genre staples, such as Shirley Jackson’s Haunting of Hill House, Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves, and many of Stephen King’s works, feature haunted houses. What is it about a confined haunted space draws us in and keeps us hooked? And what can this tell us about ourselves?