My WisCon schedule
For a bunch of years, I’ve wanted to go to WisCon but didn’t because of schedule conflicts. This weekend, I’m actually going, along with a bunch writers from my Clarion class. It’s been about five years since our Clarion and this WisCon is, as Leah Thomas puts it, our Clareunion.
Also, I’m part of a reading and am on two panels:
Saturday, May 23
Your Title Sucks! 10:30pm-11:45pm, Conference 1
A bunch of us from Clarion 2010 are going read excerpts from our work. I’m probably going to read the first scene from “勢孤取和 (Influence Isolated, Make Peace)”, my story that will be published in Queers Destroy Science Fiction in June.
Sunday, May 24
Towards More Realistic Fictional Diasporas 10:00am-11:15am, Conference 1
Many diasporic cultures in SFF are written shallowly. This is not how diasporas grow and change in our world’s actual history. Some diasporans freeze their moment of leaving in amber and stay with that; others remain connected with their homeland; still others make creoles and assimilate to one degree or another. There are fraught issues here from every side of the question, but one thing that doesn’t happen is just a whole spaceship of [insert nationality here] three centuries in the future that look exactly like writing a modern book with those people in it, set now. How can diasporas be written sensitively and well, instead of just being a specimen ethnicity in a bell jar?
Extraterrestrial Languages 2:30pm-3:45pm, Capital B
There is a huge breadth of spoken languages and grammars on Earth, but in science fiction it’s often one planet, one language (and three dialects). Let’s talk about examples of non-English and/or non-Earth languages in SF/F—what works, what feels realistic, and which authors don’t even try? How are our concepts of language tied into Homo sapiens’ physical abilities and limitations? And when authors conceptualize different abilities and limitations (like the aliens in China Mieville’s Embassytown), how does that change the narrative? How “alien” might humans sound after millennia on other planets or in space?