I have my schedule for Readercon, which is in two and a half weeks! (July 12-15 in Quincy, Mass.) Here’s what I’ll be up to and where you can find me:
Defying the Pigeonhole Marissa Lingen (m), Stephanie Feldman, Chandler Klang Smith, Ellen Datlow, Michael Dirda. Thursday, 9:00 p.m., Blue Hills. This panel of readers will celebrate favorite authors who can’t be contained by a single genre—some exploring multiple genres within one work, some dipping in and out of them throughout their careers—and talk about the ways they break free of expectations to soar.
Rethinking the Dangerous Victim Marissa Lingen (m), Noah Beit-Aharon, Yanni Kuznia, Walt Williams, Tom Greene. Friday, 10:00 a.m., Salon 5. Many SF stories hinge on distress calls that turn out to be scams. In the real world, under 10% of felony reports are false; the number is even lower for false reports of general distress. Why do we return to the dangerous victim story—the story in which the person who claims to need help is not only lying but actively malicious—again and again? What exciting adventure stories can we tell about helping those who are genuinely in need?
Group Reading: Reckoning 2 Reckoning contributors including Jess Barber, Michael J. DeLuca, and Marissa Lingen. Friday, 3:00 p.m., Salon A. Contributors to Reckoning 2, the second annual nonprofit journal of creative writing on environmental justice, read from their work.
Nesbit and Eager: Works in Conversation Marissa Lingen (m), Lila Garrott, Nisi Shawl, Julia Rios, Veronica Schanoes. Friday, 6:00 p.m., Salon 6. Edward Eager deliberately modeled his work on MGOH E. Nesbit’s; to what extent did he perpetuate her politics, including her socialism? How do her early-20th-century English work and his mid-20th-century American work encapsulate and challenge the attitudes of their times and places?
Feminist Socialism in Fantastika Veronica Schanoes (m), Tamara Vardomskaya, Gwynne Garfinkle, Marissa Lingen, Robert Killheffer. Friday, 8:00 p.m., Salon 6. MGOH E. Nesbit was a noted feminist and socialist. In her honor, this panel will celebrate classic and recent speculative works that challenge readers to imagine worlds and futures of gender and class equality, and explore how those concepts have changed through the 20th and early 21st centuries.
Reading: Marissa Lingen Sunday, 10:30 a.m., Salon B.
Solarpunk for Everyone Michael J. DeLuca (m), Tom Greene, T.X. Watson, Marissa Lingen, Darcie Little Badger. Sunday, noon, Blue Hills. Solarpunk has become established as a progressive, proactive, optimistic, climate-aware, politically aware field of speculative fiction. As solarpunk authors imagine the future, how can they make sure that future includes everyone? How can solarpunk develop and showcase remedies not only the climatological errors of the present and past but the social flaws of oppression, bias, and exclusion?
Our Bodies, Our Elves: Sexual Awakening in Epic Fantasy Josh Jasper (m), Steve Berman, Marissa Lingen, Sonya Taaffe, Noah Beit-Aharon. Sunday, 1:00 p.m., Salon 6. Starting in the later 20th century, the bildungsromans of epic fantasy began to include sexual awakenings. Some are raunchy, some are awkward, and almost all are self-directed; the wise elders of the genre are mysteriously silent on this crucial topic. When authors can imagine elves and dragons, why is it so hard to also imagine decent fantastical sex ed? How do today’s writers and readers approach this aspect of adolescent self-discovery stories?