Here's my panel schedule for Legendary Confusion, January 17-19, 2014. Rae will be there too.
What Can Literary Fiction Take From Us?
C. C. Finlay, Mike Carey, Stina Leicht, Jacqueline Carey, Brigid Collins
9am Saturday - Huron
Writers of speculative fiction are often asked what they can learn or borrow from more “literary” works, but rarely the other way around. Here we discuss some of our favorite aspects of speculative fiction - sense of wonder, optimism, magic swords and laser rifles - and how those things could add something to other genres.
If I Knew Then What I Know Now (Session One)
Lucy A. Snyder, Ron Collins, Jacqueline Carey, Tobias Buckell, C. C. Finlay, Ian Tregillis
10am Saturday - Michigan Room
Many of us would do things differently if we had the opportunity to go back and try again with what was learned later. We can’t do that for everything, but in this hour several publishing veterans will shed some light on some aspects of the writing life that they learned the hard way.
Everything I needed to know about writing I learned by reading slush
Ferrett Steinmetz, Sarah Gibbons, Elizabeth Shack, Nancy Fulda, Patrick Tomlinson, C. C. Finlay
1pm Saturday - Erie
One of the most instructive thing that an aspiring writer can do is read as wide a variety of other writing as possible. Generally this is done by voraciously consuming all the words one comes across, but there is another way. Slush readers weed out submissions for publication, and generally have a highly tuned grasp of what in writing patently DOES NOT WORK. Here are some of the lessons learned. Remember, they read them so you don’t have to.
What does rejection Mean?
Ian Tregillis, Elizabeth Shack, Mike Carey, Amy Sundberg, Nancy Fulda, C. C. Finlay
5pm Saturday - Rotunda
Rejections are a part of the business when writing, but few of us understand what a rejection is - beyond the soul crushing part. We discuss what a professional rejection is and isn’t, and try to help shed light on both the why? and the what now?
Faking History
Brigid Collins, Brian McClellan, Kameron Hurley, C.C. Finlay, Howard Andrew Jones
1pm Sunday - Erie
Legends generally take time. History has a weight that helps to propel the present and inform a culture. In building an epic backstory in fantasy or science fiction, how does one do that? Flat out stating “there is a legend of this thing with a badger” only serves to make an audience look for the badger, so how does one craftily insert these details without a reader taking conscious notice? Who does this well, and what can we learn from some others who have done it less well?