FRIDAY BIG ROOM
18.00 A Good Read
19.00 Return of the Robot
20.00 Time Travel and Teens
21.00 Ask a Scientist!
FRIDAY READING ROOM
18.00 //
19.00 Jo Walton: reading
20.00 Jon Singer and Teresa Nielsen Hayden discuss Medieval Recipes
21.00 Patrick and Teresa Nielsen Hayden, concert.
FRIDAY GAMES ROOM
18.00-20.00 Free gaming
20.00-22.00 LARP Inheritance
SATURDAY BIG ROOM
10.00 Good and Evil
11.00 The Future of English
12.00 The Scintillation Collection
LUNCH
14.00 Why you should be reading John M. Ford
15.00 Being a Gatekeeper
16.00 You write funny
17.00 What Makes the Steerswoman so Great?
DINNER
19.00 Writing a series
20.00 Reclaiming Cthulhu
21.00 So What's a Short Story Anyway?
SATURDAY READING ROOM
10.00 “Open Mic”
11.00 Marissa Lingen and Tim Boerger: Reading.
12.00 Ada Palmer: Reading.
LUNCH
14.00 The role of language and linguistics in science fiction and fantasy: Tamara Vardomskaya
15.00 Maya Chaabra: reading
15.30 Eugene Fischer: reading
16.00 A.E. Prevost: reading
16.30 Yves Meynard: reading
17.00 Fran Wilde and Max Gladstone: reading
DINNER
19.00 Premee Mohamed and Kate Heartfield: Gothics reading
20.00 Jim Cambias: reading
20.30 Alison Sinclair: reading
21.00 Lila Garrott: reading
21.30 Greer Gilman: reading
SATURDAY GAMES ROOM
10.00 Jim Cambias RPG, also Free Gaming
11.00 “
12.00 “
LUNCH
14.00 LARP: LYBER
15.00 “
16.00 “
17.00 FREE GAMING
DINNER
19.00 FREE GAMING
20.00 “
21.00 “
SATURDAY FUNCTION SPACE
19.00-20.30 Sassafrass Concert
20.30-23.00 Party
SUNDAY BIG ROOM
10.00 Names and Characters
11.00 Our Real Influences and Why We Lie
12.00 What kind of art are games?
LUNCH
14.00 What can we learn from Shakespeare?
15.00 Linguistic Worldbuilding
16.00 Where are the books like Pandemic?
17.00 Imagining the Future
SUNDAY READING ROOM
10.00 Joy of Reading
11.00 Emmet O'Brien interviews Jon Singer
12.00 Readings from Ursula Le Guin
LUNCH
14.00 Kari Maaren: reading
14.30 Sherwood Smith: reading
15.00 Rosemary Kirstein: reading
15.30 Ruthanna Emrys: reading
16.00 David Levine: reading
16.30 Debra Doyle: reading
17.00 Alter Reiss: Archaeological show and tell
SUNDAY GAMES ROOM
10.00 FREE GAMING,
11.00 “
12.00 “
LUNCH
14.00 Free Gaming
15.00 “
16.00 “
17.00 “
Program for program book
FRIDAY
18.00 A Good Read.
Four people each choose a book, the other three read them, and then discuss them all.
Tracy Callison (M), Jeff Heard, Doug Palmer, Maya Chaabra.
19.00 Return of the Robot
Robots have been with us for a long time, but this last year they've surged back into prominence after having been in a bit of an eclipse in recent years. With Sea of Rust and this year's Hugo nominated short fiction, it's clear they're back. Why? Why now? And why did they go away?
Caroline-Isabelle Caron (M), Teresa Nielsen Hayden, Paul Weimar, Rich Horton
20.00 Time Travel and Teens
Why do these things go together so well?
Jo Walton (M), Kari Maaren, Marissa Lingen, Suzanna Hersey.
21.00 Ask a Scientist!
This is your chance to ask anything you've always wanted to know.
Alison Sinclair (M), Diane Kelly, Michael Mellas, Avi Robinson-Moser, Cora Ames
SATURDAY BIG ROOM
10.00 Good and Evil
Ada Palmer has offered the thought experiment of a universe where the morally worst act ever was that somebody bought a flavour of ice cream they knew their friend didn't like. Conversely, the Vikings ask the theodicy question backwards: why is there good? Let's consider the space of good and evil and what interesting things we can do with them.
Yves Meynard (M), Ada Palmer, Maria Farrell, Jo Walton, Marissa Lingen
11.00 The Future of English
Teresa Nielsen Hayden has said that in the future everyone will think they're speaking English. How is English changing right now, and how is it likely to change in future under pressure of the internet and being everyone's second language?
Emmet O'Brien (M), Teresa Nielsen Hayden, Gretchen McCulloch, Tamara Vardomskaya, Cenk Gokce.
12.00 The Scintillation Collection
Remember the collection of short stories we put together for the Kickstarter? We've all read it, let's talk about it!
Caroline-Isabelle Caron (M), Tom Womack, Jonathan Crowe, Gillian Speace,
14.00 Why you should be reading John M. Ford
World Fantasy award winning author of The Dragon Waiting, Growing Up Weightless, and many other stories and poems and gaming material.
Marissa Lingen (M), Emmet O'Brien, Andrew Plotkin, Lila Garrott, Sarah Emrys
15.00 Being a Gatekeeper
Editors, reviewers, anthologists, librarians – how do people become gatekeepers? Do they really have the power we think they have? And how do they feel about their role?
Lila Garrott (M), Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Rich Horton, Gillian Speace, Paul Weimar
16.00 You Write Funny
Everyone else's writing methods are bizarre: let's compare our own perfectly normal methods.
Jo Walton (M), Max Gladstone, Kari Maaren, , Greer Gilman, Kate Heartfield
17.00 What Makes the Steerswoman so Great?
An in depth look at Rosemary Kirstein's Steerswoman novels.
Jo Walton (M) Liza Furr, Cenk Gokce, Alison Sinclair, Rosemary Kirstein.
19.00 Writing a series
A series is as different from a single novel as a novel is from a short story. What are the advantages, disadvantages, pitfalls and triumphs of the series form?
Ruthanna Emrys (M), Rosemary Kirstein, Debra Doyle, Sherwood Smith, Fran Wilde
20.00 Reclaiming Cthulhu
Where is this passion to remake Lovecraft's universe coming from?
Max Gladstone (M), Alter Reiss, Ruthanna Emrys, Premee Mohamed
21.00 So what's a short story anyway?
It's different from a novel, and not just because it's shorter.
Alter Reiss (M), Rich Horton, David Levine, Fran Wilde, Eugene Fischer
SUNDAY BIG ROOM
10.00 Names and Characters
Characters have to have names, and names are part of worldbuilding, and deeply imbedded in culture. How do we decide on names for our characters that work within our worlds and also for our readers in this world?
A.E. Prevost (M), Debra Doyle, Sherwood Smith, Kate Heartfield, Jim Cambias, David Levine
11.00 Our real influences and why we lie
People are always asking us what our influences are, and we all have answers. But it's a very difficult question to answer truthfully, from several different kinds of fear. Let's be honest here.
Jo Walton (M), Ada Palmer, Max Gladstone, Eugene Fischer, Sherwood Smith
12.00 What Kind of Art Are Games?
Their own kind. Games have things in common with many other kinds of art, while being their own thing. What makes them different and special, what kinds of things can they do that other arts can not, what do we want them to do, and how do we use them to do those things?
Max Gladstone (M), Jim Cambias, Kristen Hendricks, Andrew Plotkin, Diana Sherman
14.00 What Can We Learn From Shakespeare
You know, technically.
Jo Walton (M), Ada Palmer, Greer Gilman, Lila Garrott, Patrick Nielsen Hayden
15.00 Linguistic Worldbuilding
Language does a lot of the subtle work of worldbuilding in fantasy and science fiction, both repurposing ordinary words and making up words. These kinds of things can make worlds feel more lived in and more concrete. How do we do this, who's doing it well, and how can we do it better?
A.E. Prevost (M), Ada Palmer, Tamara Vardomskaya, Gretchen McCulloch, Greer Gilman
16.00 Where are the books like Pandemic?
Pandemic is a game where the players co-operate to cure diseases and save lives, it's often nail-bitingly tense and there are no villains. Are there books about people cooperating and succeeding against the odds?
Jo Walton (M), Rosemary Kirstein, Alison Sinclair, Eugene Fischer, Ruthanna Emrys
17.00 Imagining the Future
How can we write science fiction when it's so difficult to imagine the future?
Yves Meynard, Dennis Clark, Ada Palmer, Maria Farrell, Marissa Lingen (M), Jim Cambias