My Readercon Schedule

Just to whet your appetite, here's my events at Readercon, July 14-17 in Burlington MA; looks like there will be some entertaining fun (as usual):



 Thursday July 14



8:00 PM    G    We All Produce, We All Consume. Paul Di Filippo, Gemma Files, Robert Killheffer, K.A. Laity (leader), Jamie Todd Rubin. In a 2008 blog post, Leah Bobet connected the dots of increasing media interactivity and increasing independent authorship. Both trends have only escalated in the years since. When every blogger is an author, every commenter is a reviewer, and every work is assumed to be the start of a conversation, how does that change the experience and culture of reading? Was it ever possible to be a passive reader, or are we simply bringing our marginalia and book-flinging out into the light? 



Friday July 15



9:00 PM    NH    BroadUniverse group reading. Suzy Charnas, Gwendolyn Clare, Helen Collins, M.C.A. Hogarth, Elaine Isaak, K.A. Laity, Jennifer Pelland. Members of BroadUniverse read selections from their work. 



Saturday July 16



11:00 AM    G    Are We Not Men?: Human Women and Beast-Men in Paranormal Romance. Stacy Hague-Hill, Victoria Janssen (leader), K.A. Laity, Delia Sherman, Ann Tonsor Zeddies. In a 2009 blog post, Victoria Janssen wrote: "Paranormal romance almost always features the hero as a paranormal being and the heroine as an ordinary human. How does this resonate with gender relations and power relationships in our society? And is it emblematic of women seeing men as Other?" In addition, many of these stories feature women who metaphorically or literally tame men who have non-human aspects, turning them from bestial creatures driven by base urges into civilized, socially acceptable mates. We examine the social context of this narrative and its appeal to paranormal romance readers of various genders.



2:00 PM    ME    Tin Foil Hat Open Mike. Rose Fox (moderator), K.A. Laity, Shira Lipkin, David Malki !, Charles Platt, Eric M. Van, Harold Torger Vedeler. Bring your wildest and wackiest ideas to this open mike session. Each speaker gets five minutes, ruthlessly enforced, to try to convince the audience of an unprovable (and ideally undisprovable) theory related to speculative fiction. The viewers are free to applaud or heckle as they see fit. No handouts, no visual aids, no multimedia, no Q&As, no spitballs, and please, no politics or religion.





I have no idea how that last one will go: some wag suggested it, I was amused enough to float my name for it. I figure it's my chance to channel EL Wisty or Arthur Grole. We shall see. Meanwhile I'm adjusting to being back, which mostly means moping, whinging and sighing at the huge piles of work I need to face. I was a bit perturbed to get to my office and find I had no computer. So much for good intentions, eh? But all it took was a phone call to get it delivered, so I had to try to work anyway. Sigh.