My Readercon 2014 Schedule:
Thursday July 10
8:30 PM ENV Reading: Adrienne J. Odasso
Friday July 11
12:00 PM F The Past Is a Terrible Place. K. Tempest Bradford (leader), Christopher Cevasco, John Chu, Adrienne J. Odasso, Walt Williams. Compared to the present day, the past was filthy, bigoted, stratified, polluted, violent, and crude-whether thousands of years ago or yesterday. What possible appeal could travel into the past have? How does it vary based on your current socioeconomic status, or on the status you have (or can acquire) in the past with your knowledge of history, technology, and sociology? We'll discuss various depictions of travel into the past, including Octavia Butler's Kindred, Connie Willis's Doomsday Book, and Eric Flint's Ring of Fire series.
6:00 PM CO A Fondness for Fanfic. Catt Kingsgrave, Adrienne J. Odasso, Margaret Ronald, Kenneth Schneyer (leader), Cecilia Tan. Our panelists readily admit that they still write fanfic while making pro sales, and talk about why the two types of writing scratch different itches. What are the risks of admitting to a history of writing fanfic? What about current adventures in other people's universes-is there a point at which your fanfic needs have to go unmet?
Saturday July 12
1:00 PM E Autographs: Adrienne J. Odasso, Tom Purdom
6:00 PM CO The Works of Mary Shelley. F. Brett Cox (leader), Gwynne Garfinkle, Adrienne J. Odasso, Diane Weinstein. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797-1851) was the daughter of the philosopher and novelist William Godwin and the feminist and educationist Mary Wollstonecraft. She married the poet Percy Shelley in 1816, and together with him and the poet Lord Byron and the doctor John Polidori, spent much of the summer of 1816 at the Villa Diodati on Lake Geneva. At Byron's suggestion, one evening each of the group told ghost stories that they had written; by far the most famous of these is Mary Shelley's Frankenstein; Or, the Modern Prometheus (1818). Frankenstein is often viewed as the first science fiction novel, turning the Gothic tradition into a form distinctively responsive to the modern age. It has inspired countless successors-as well, of course, as translations into other media. Mary Shelley wrote many other works, including the SF tale The Last Man (1826), several Gothic stories, biographies, and travel narratives. This panel will primarily focus on her speculative writing.
Sunday July 13
10:00 AM F Variations on the Theme of Unreliable Narrators. Peter Dubé, Theodora Goss (leader), Eileen Gunn, Shira Lipkin, Adrienne J. Odasso. What can you do with an "Unreliable Narrator?" Following last year's unreliable narrator discussion, the panelists came up with a large catalog of differently unreliable narrators. This year's panel will explore these unreliable narrators and the discuss the many things that authors can do with them.
1:00 PM CL Kaffeeklatsch: Rosemary Kirstein, Adrienne J. Odasso