[personal profile] leahbobet
(Yes, this was up before. I jumped the gun a little on schedule finality, and that was bad of me, and I took it down. But now it's good.)

Apparently what I do is panel. Here's the schedule for this year:

Friday 11:00 AM, RI
What Writing Workshops Do and Don't Offer -- Leah Bobet, Michael J. DeLuca, Eileen Gunn, Barry B. Longyear, Geoff Ryman, Kenneth Schneyer (leader).
Clarion, Clarion West, Clarion South, and Odyssey all follow the so-called "Milford Method" of roundtable critique. Many graduates of these programs praise the benefits of this method, but it may not be right for everyone. This panel will discuss not only the things the Milford Method does teach, but the things it really cannot teach, and the sorts of personalities who are likely (or unlikely) to benefit from it.

Friday 12:30 PM, NH
Reading -- Leah Bobet.
Bobet reads from Above, a modern YA fantasy forthcoming from Arthur A. Levine Books.

Friday 2:00 PM, G
No Childhood Left Behind -- Leah Bobet, Chris Moriarty, Sonya Taaffe (leader), JoSelle Vanderhooft, Rick Wilber.
As YA publishing expands and the internet connects readers from tremendously different backgrounds, it's no longer possible to talk about a "classic" set of formative first reading. How does our collaborative discourse on texts change when we have little in common among our formative reading experiences? And how do we engage with the often problematic heritage of our childhood favorites when no one we want to discuss them with has read them?

Friday 5:00 PM, F
Feeling Very Post-Slipstream -- Leah Bobet, Chris N. Brown (leader), F. Brett Cox, Paul Di Filippo, Elizabeth Hand.
Bruce Sterling's definition of "slipstream" was based in the experience of living in the (late) 20th century. Now we're in the (early) 21st, and present/near-future-set works like Mira Grant's Feed and William Gibson's Pattern Recognition are starting to evoke a distinctly 21st-century sensibility with frank discussions of fear, anger, religion, security, and ever-present cameras. The only term we have for these books right now is "post-9/11." We can do better. What do we call books that leave you feeling angry, scared, and angry about being scared?

Friday 8:00 PM, G
Traditional Categories Are Melting -- Leah Bobet, Michael Dirda, Kit Reed, Delia Sherman (leader), Cecilia Tan, Vinnie Tesla.
Henry Jenkins has published a book called Convergence Culture, Gary Wolfe's most recent essay collection is titled Evaporating Genres, and Jim Woodring recently wrote that "we are living in a transitional period where traditional categories are melting, blending together. Boundaries everywhere are being dissolved.... The blurring of the line between the drawn image, the written word, the video and the game is disturbing, but nothing can stop it." Is the melting of categories a new phenomenon? What are the perils and pleasures of blurred lines? Who is threatened, and who benefits?

Saturday 1:00 PM, F
Urban (Fantasy) Renewal. Leah Bobet (leader), John Clute, Ellen Datlow, Craig Laurance Gidney, Toni L.P. Kelner.
The term "urban fantasy" has encompassed the work of Charles Williams, a contemporary of Tolkien who sometimes situated his fantasy in London or suburban settings as opposed to a pastoral secondary world; the novels and short stories of Charles de Lint, Emma Bull, or Robin Hobb (as Megan Lindholm); the phantasmagoric cities of China MiƩville or Jeff VanderMeer; and most recently, the magical noir of Jim Butcher and Charlaine Harris. Is it possible to reclaim "urban fantasy" as useful critical term? Rather than wring our hands at how it no longer means what it did, can we use it to examine what these very different writers have in common, and to what degree they reflect different eras' anxieties around and interests in the urban?

Saturday 3:00 PM, F
Cities, Real and Imaginary. Jedediah Berry (leader), Leah Bobet, Lila Garrott, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Anil Menon.
Great stories have been set in cities both real and imagined. Does a real city require different writing techniques from an imagined one? How well do you need to know (and research) an actual city? If you're making one up, how do you apply your knowledge of real cities? When can you "cheat"? When do you have to?

Sunday 11:00 AM, ME
Reconsidering Anthologies. Mike Allen, Leah Bobet, David Boop, Robert Killheffer, David Malki ! (leader).
Anthologies are incredibly popular for writers to submit to and proudly display their work in--but who reads them? Why don't they sell well? Is there some reason they occupy the same cultural mind-space as foreign films: culturally relevant, but rarely bothered with? David Malki !, editor of last year's bestselling anthology Machine of Death, leads a discussion group about this outcast art form.


I do hope people will make it out to the reading, even though it's at an odd time (over the lunch hour, on Friday). Due to the good graces of my editor, I will have an ARC to give away.

Elsewise, I will be in the bar/lobby/other people's readings and panels. Except for on Friday. Friday is a little mad.

Do I see you there?

Date: 2011-07-02 10:00 pm (UTC)
deakat: (Default)
From: [personal profile] deakat
You will not see me there, unless I can manage to get the hang of astral projection. New job where I once again don't feel like I should ask for vacation days before my probation period comes to an end. Sigh. At least I won't be plagued by too-many-panels-I-want-to-attend syndrome.

Date: 2011-07-03 05:40 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] leahbobet.livejournal.com
Aw foo. :(

Date: 2011-07-02 10:28 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] jennygadget.livejournal.com
oh, I wish. Those panel topics all sound really good. and I want that ARC. * pouts *

have fun!

Date: 2011-07-03 05:30 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] leahbobet.livejournal.com
Oh, Readercon panels are always the best. They're infamous for it. :)

(Thanks!)

Date: 2011-07-03 12:34 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] britmandelo.livejournal.com
Yes, I'll be there! Hope to run into you at some point.

Date: 2011-07-03 05:44 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] leahbobet.livejournal.com
Yay! We should hang out!

Date: 2011-07-03 06:54 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] britmandelo.livejournal.com
Absolutely.

Date: 2011-07-03 01:17 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] skogkatt.livejournal.com
I shall come to the reading! I enjoy being read to. I hope that you and Delia and the rest of your panelists will consider coming to the Interstitial Arts Exchange Party after your Friday evening panel lets out. It seems a particularly apt transition.

Date: 2011-07-03 05:41 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] leahbobet.livejournal.com
Oh, definitely -- I'm really looking forward to it. :)

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