Happy New Year!

In a few weeks, I’m heading to ConFusion in Detroit, MI. It’ll be my first time at this convention and I’m excited for it! The literary programing team was kind enough to include me on some panels. I also have a reading with the fabulous Marissa Lingen and Izzy Wasserstein.

Here’s my schedule:

11am Saturday Charlevoix – Using Real Scientific History To Enhance Fantasy World-Building
Secondary-world fantasies often draw on an ahistoric view of the past, intermingling technological, scientific, and social advancements that span thousands of years in the real world. The effect is quasi-medieval societies that are in some ways anachronistically modern, but in many ways far less advanced than the real-world cultures on which they’re based. Let’s talk about the real science and technology of the world’s post-classical eras and how we can use the real history of science and technology to build deeper and more interesting worlds.

4pm Saturday Charlevoix – Reading
A. T. Greenblatt, Marissa Lingen, Izzy Wasserstein

5pm Saturday St. Clair – Autograph Session (5 PM)
Come meet your favorite authors, artists and musicians and have them sign things! (Please limit your signing requests to 3 items per person.)

12pm Sunday Interlochen – The Setting As Character
In Science Fiction and Fantasy, settings can literally come alive–be it via the talking flowers of Through The Looking Glass or the rage of Peter Quill’s creepy dad-planet in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2. In Ann Leckie’s Imperial Radch universe where ships have minds, main characters can be both people and places at the same time. Are living settings a science fiction/fantasy extension of the classic “Hero Vs. Nature” story? How do they exist in conversation with real-world beliefs about whether the world around us has a will of its own?

2pm Sunday Charlevoix – A Novel Look at the Short Story
Short stories require a different approach to pacing, character, world-building, exposition, and plot than longer works. Let’s explore the tools we use to convey important information to the reader when we have a lot fewer words to do it with.

If you’re coming to ConFusion this year, I hope you’ll stop by at one of these panels and/or the reading and say hello.