What (and How) to Read to Kids
Saturday 10:00 – 10:50
Reading aloud can be a memorable bonding experience — and big fun — for both adult and child. What genre stories work well when told to pre-readers? To 6-year olds? To 8-year-olds? We’ll discuss book selection and vocal presentation tips for both novice and experienced read-out-louders.
Bruce Coville (M), Bill Roper, Stacey Friedberg, Debra Doyle
Finish It! Completing Your Work
Saturday 11:00 – 11:50
Here you are with two half-completed novels, a handful of unfinished short stories, and a pile of great ideas gathering dust. Then there’s work, life, family, and cons. How do you maintain momentum with so many distractions? Panelists share their experiences as well as strategies to help keep you on track toward finishing the projects that only end when the manuscript is sent out!
Jeanne Cavelos (M), Jeffrey A. Carver, Felicitas Ivey, Fran Wilde , Debra Doyle
The Evolution of a Hero
Saturday 14:00 – 14:50
Heroes aren’t born. They’re made through a combination of choices and circumstances that mold them both internally as well as externally into someone powerful enough to represent a challenge to the story’s antagonist. Has the once well-defined transition from zero to hero changed with the introduction of modern social structures? What about modern female characters who chafe against preconceived notions of who a hero is, what it means to be a hero, and how a hero is made? Are there differences between the growth of a hero for men and women? And what does this all mean for the antagonist?
Jeffrey A. Carver (M), Jennifer Pelland, Craig Shaw Gardner, Debra Doyle, Greer Gilman
What Is Storytelling For?
Saturday 15:00 – 15:50
Why tell stories? What is the purpose of narrative fiction in culture? Are the world and characters a massive counterfactual conditional and the narrative an extended consequence … i.e., if things were thus, then this might happen? Or are we just telling lies?
Debra Doyle (M), Jo Walton, Ada Palmer, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Michael Swanwick
Autographing
Debra Doyle, James D. Macdonald & Darrell Schweitzer
Sunday 11:00 – 11:50
Reading
Debra Doyle & James D. Macdonald
Sunday 13:30 – 13:55
From Browncoats to Red Shirts
Sunday 14:00 – 14:50
“Millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced.” SF can be cavalier about the death of away-team expendables or the faceless multitudes of Alderaan. But lately, storytellers are starting to finish off our favorites. Cheap, hateful trick — or welcome return to reality? What are the benefits (and dangers) of a story where no one, not even your best-loved character, is ever truly safe?
Steven Popkes (M), Walter H. Hunt, Melinda Snodgrass, Debra Doyle
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