#WisCon schedule!

Okay, meant to do this ages ago, but here – for those interested – is what I’m slated to be doing at WisCon this weekend. I am excited about every single one of these panels.

A few notes first:

• I lovelovelove how WisCon has official hashtags for the panels. It makes me all TtW14-happy. I really hope people use them for some great discussion. I’ll certainly be trying to do so when I can. In fact, during the panel on cyborgs that I’m moderating, I would love to be able to take questions from Twitter. So if you have any, shoot them my way. WisCon, maybe consider the option of formally having hashtag mods?
• I will have one or two copies of Line and Orbit to give away, and I’ll be putting one into the Tiptree Auction for sure.
• I am incredibly bad with retention of both faces and names. So if you come up to me and we’ve met but I don’t recognize you, please don’t take it personally. It’s just a brain thing that I deal with.
• In general, I still have a hard time approaching people socially, but I love meeting and talking to people. I just have a lot of trouble making the first move. I’m working on it and I think I’m better than I was, but if you want to just come up and say hi, please don’t hesitate to do so. Especially at the parties, where I’m easily overwhelmed and often looking for something specific to focus on as an anchor.

Secret fanfiction writer identities are like ani, Watson. Everyone has one. | Sat, 12:00–1:15 am | Senate A |  #FanficSecretIdentities

Panelists: M: Cecilia Tan. Sunny Moraine, Samantha Haney Press

You may not know it, but some of your favorite pro writers may have secretly or not-so-secretly written fanfiction before they got their first publishing deal and may even have continued writing it after. The list includes such luminaries as Naomi Novik, Lois McMaster Bujold, Seanan McGuire, Martha Wells, Sarah Rees Brennan, Una McCormack, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, and one of this year’s Guests of Honor, N. K. Jemisin. SHOCKING. On this panel authors and publishing professionals who happily exist in both worlds will talk about how fanfiction influenced and continues to influence their work or author brains and how they approach the writing/editing process.

 

Ghosts in the Machine: Anonymity, Autonymity and Social Construction of (Internet) Reality | Sat, 8:30–9:45 am  | Assembly | #OnlineAnon

Panelists: M: Heidi Waterhouse. Alan Bostick, Renee Ismail, Sunny Moraine

It’s easier to notice online that how we perceive each other is something we collectively create. What are the pleasures and pitfalls in constructing online identities? How is the internet version of the identities people create different from identities constructed in meatspace? What’s in a name, anyway, when services like Google+ try to enforce which names are ‘real’?

 

Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History, The Panel | Sat, 1:00–2:15 pm | Conference 1 | #LongHidden

Panelists: Lisa Bolekaja, S Lynn, Sunny Moraine, Daniel José Older

The anthology Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History comes out from Crossed Genres Publications the same month as Wiscon. A selected group of Long Hidden authors and one of the editors speak about process, craft, and what it means to dig into the margins of history to find inspiration for speculative storytelling.

 

Cyborg Identities 2: The Cyborgs Return! | Sun, 8:30–9:45 am | Caucus | #CyborgIdentities

Panelists: M: Sunny Moraine. Michelle Heeg, Jim Lutz, Paul Rehac, Ariel Wetzel

At WisCon 37, a bunch of us got together and talked cyborgs, bodies, identity, and what it all means when you squoosh it together. That was awesome, so this year we’re doing it again. We’ll be discussing the significance and potentials of the cyborg in fiction, the intersections between that fiction and our daily experience, the enmeshing of the organic and the technological, the boundaries between human and nonhuman, the possibilities of the cyborg for resistance and revolution, and a mess of other things besides.

 

Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History – The Reading | Sun, 10:00–11:15 am | Conference 2 | #LongHiddenReading

Panelists: Kemba Banton, Lisa Bolekaja, L.S. Johnson, S Lynn, Sunny Moraine

The anthology Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History comes out from Crossed Genres Publications the same month as Wiscon. A selected group of Long Hidden authors reads from their work. Hosted by editor Daniel José Older.

 

The SignOut | Mon, 11:30 am–12:45 pm | Capitol/Wisconsin | #SignOut

Participants: Sandra Ulbrich Almazan, Stacie L Arellano, Eleanor A. Arnason, Greg Bechtel, F.J. Bergmann, Susan Simensky Bietila, Alex Bledsoe, Gwenda Bond, K. Tempest Bradford, Chesya Burke, Wesley Chu, Julia Dvorin, Rhea Ewing, Hiromi Goto, Eileen Gunn, Andrea D. Hairston, Dorothy Hearst, Liz Henry, Lauren Jankowski, N. K. Jemisin, Emily Jiang, Vylar Kaftan, Keffy R. M. Kehrli, Mary Robinette Kowal, Ellen Kushner, Ann Leckie, Kimberley Long-Ewing, Heather McDougal, Allison Moon, Katrinka Moore, Nancy Jane Moore, Sunny Moraine, Pat Murphy, Debbie Notkin, Melissa F. Olson, Samantha Haney Press, Mary Rickert, James P. Roberts, Madeleine E. Robins, Catherine M. Schaff-Stump, Nisi Shawl, Delia Sherman, Cecilia Tan, Sheree Renée Thomas, LaShawn M. Wanak

Really looking forward to seeing old friends and making new ones. OMG WISCON