rinue | Readercon 25: My Panels (Reply)

Thursday July 10

9:00 PM G What Won't You Write? John Chu, Kameron Hurley, David Shaw (moderator), Romie Stott.
Charles Stross has said publicly that he won't write about children being harmed or exploited. Seanan McGuire refuses to write about female characters being raped. Many other writers have no-go topics. Panelists will discuss their personal choices for off-limits subject areas, and their reasons for the ban.

Friday July 11

12:00 PM CO Welcome to Readercon. Kip Manley, Graham Sleight, Romie Stott, Emily Wagner (moderator).
Tropes, "reading protocols," "the real year" of a book, "slipstream" fiction, "fantastika," "intrusion fantasy": Readercon panel blurbs (and hallway conversations) borrow vocabulary from a wide range of sources that new attendees may not have encountered. Veterans of other conventions may also be wondering where the costumes and filkers are. Readercon regulars and concom members provide a newcomer's guide to Readercon's written policies and well-worn habits as well as a rundown of our favorite critical… um... tropes.

1:00 PM ENL Dystopian Economies. Romie Stott.
Romie Stott's "Economic Systems Past and Present" talk at Readercon 24 provided an overview of the economic terms and tools available to writers. This stand-alone follow-up talk will focus on dystopian economies. Stott will discuss what corporate states could look like (essentially, what happens if current multinationals get even more powerful and/or develop space programs), as well as other un-free economies like prestige economies and the ways conspicuous consumption and patronage change power structures. The talk will wrap with theorized utopian economies and why they are not likely to sustain expansion to a global (or universal) level, and more odds-favored ways heroes might seek to limit dystopia.

3:00 PM ENL Speculative Poetry Workshop. Romie Stott.
Romie Stott leads a speculative poetry workshop for poets of all levels. Writing prompts will be provided, and poets are welcome to request feedback and collaboration from other participants.

5:00 PM F Retroactive Genre and Literary Identity. Erik Amundsen, Matthew Cheney (leader), Jack Haringa, David Hartwell, Veronica Schanoes, Romie Stott.
Robert Jackson Bennett wrote in a blog post, "The constantly-changing opinions on genre bear a striking similarity to ongoing debates in psychology, sometimes, with opinions on, say, manic-depression slowly growing to be the dominant opinion; and, maybe, that opinion on who these people are, what they do, and how they feel, will change to become something else in five years. However, just because a psychological opinion changes does not mean the people being studied change with it, much like how birds are happily oblivious to any sea change in ornithology." Can books or authors be "happily oblivious" to shifts in the popular understanding or construction of genre? When we retroactively apply genre labels that didn't exist when a book was created, such as referring to Frankenstein as science fiction (or even as steampunk), how does that affect our reading of the work?

Saturday July 12

12:00 PM ENL Writing and the Visual Arts. Greer Gilman, Shira Lipkin, Eric Schaller, Romie Stott (leader), Diane Weinstein.
Writers who are also photographers and visual artists may find that the two fields influence each other in surprising ways, whether by bringing narrative to image-making or by writing from a camera-influenced viewpoint. Panelists will discuss this experience and the ways they find the written and visual media complimentary or antithetical. Does the camera never lie, or does it create fiction? Is a picture worth a thousand words or is a word worth a thousand pictures?