DOYLE
Worldbuilding Within Epic Fantasy at the Dawn of a Modern Age
Format: Panel
14 Feb 2020, Friday 17:00 – 17:50, Marina 1 (Westin)
Fantasy is real, but so is scientific discovery. When an epic fantasy is set during the transition from a rural society to an emerging, world-transforming industrial age, how does the setting help define the parameters of the story? How does it affect the creation of characters? Is a Victorian-Era feeling inevitable? What other examples can be used as models? When magic is at play, how might it alter the evolution of an industrial revolution?
Reading: Debra Doyle and James Macdonald
Format: Reading
14 Feb 2020, Friday 20:00 – 20:25, Griffin (Westin)
The Future of Libraries
Format: Panel
15 Feb 2020, Saturday 10:00 – 10:50, Marina 4 (Westin)
The card catalog is already kaput. How long can stacks, carrels, and tome-laden tables last? How soon till the world’s One Big Library is seamlessly interconnected with everybody’s local, a collaborative sharing space with digital pipes to every seat and a helpful robotic assistant “manning” the “desk”? Any room left for the most systematically refined information storage technology of all: the book?
MACDONALD
Reading: Debra Doyle and James Macdonald
Format: Reading
14 Feb 2020, Friday 20:00 – 20:25, Griffin (Westin)
Editing from Agent, to Editor, to Publisher
Format: Panel
15 Feb 2020, Saturday 14:00 – 14:50, Marina 2 (Westin)
Writing is only half the work when crafting a story, novel, or article. Once the words are on the page, what happens next? Our panel discusses the review, revision, rewriting, and more needed at each stage of the process before the finished piece lands in the hands of a reader.
Seeing Through the Tech Hype
Format: Panel
15 Feb 2020, Saturday 16:00 – 16:50, Marina 3 (Westin)
With so many new innovations and discoveries, it’s easy to get carried away by the possibilities of what a shiny new technology can actually accomplish. What questions should you ask to see through the tech hype surrounding everything from driverless cars, gene editing, and artificial intelligence to VR gaming and 3-D printing? What’s really possible? How do fiction and entertainment media affect the writing, publication, and understanding of actual scientific and technological advances?
More Magic!
Format: Children – DragonsLair
16 Feb 2020, Sunday 11:00 – 11:50, Galleria – Dragonslair (Westin)
Jim Macdonald does stage magic.
When Is Death?
Format: Panel
16 Feb 2020, Sunday 14:00 – 14:50, Burroughs (Westin)
Death is as intrinsic to the human experience as life, but what does death really mean in fiction … or in reality? Do we pass on to another existence? Will we be written back into the sequel? Will we be uploaded into a quantum network to exist as long as the hardware doesn’t fail? How has our imagination affected our understanding of death over time?
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