Category: Appearances

2020 Worldcon (CoNZealand) is just around the corner! They’ve had some scheduling and related issues, but it looks like most of those issues have gotten sorted out, through lots of behind-the-scenes help from the Hugo finalist crew and other volunteers. Here’s my final lineup!

• Escape Artists fan event
  CDT Tue 6/28 4pm = NZST Weds 7/29 9am

This event belongs to Alasdair and Marguerite, co-owners of Escape Artists, but I’ll show up for sure to say hi to Escape Pod fans!

• Panel: Cyborgs and Society
  CDT Tue 7/28 6pm = NZST Weds 7/29 11am

Brain-machine interfaces are currently in early clinical trials, and they’ve proven the ability to let a human brain control a robotic limb. Sometime in the coming years, this technology will move from the laboratory to the public. How might society respond to the option of becoming a cyborg, and the presence of cyborgs among us? Many factors will influence this, including media, fiction, aesthetics, and what kinds of organizations drive the rollout. What responses do we expect, and how will these  responses vary in different cultures and communities?

Panelists: Benjamin C. Kinney (M), SL Huang, SB Divya, Errick Nunnally

• Literary Beer / Kaffeeklatsch
  CDT Tue 7/28 9pm = NZST Weds 7/29 2pm  (may be rescheduled)

Coffee time for New Zealand’s timezone, beer for me in the US. Have any questions about Escape Pod, or want to discuss a bit of neuroscience for your fiction and/or curioisity? Come hang out!

• Academic Panel: Is Capitalism Stifling Research?
  CDT Thu 7/30 7pm = NZST Fri 7/31 12pm

Is corporate control of research and the drive for short-term profit crippling scientific innovation and basic research? Do established companies always feel threatened by new technology and lobby for legislation to restrict it?

Panelists: Benjamin C. Kinney (M), Raymond Sheh, Keith Kato, Diane Kelly

• Panel: Universal Rights in the Age of AI
  CDT Thu 7/30 11pm = NZST Fri 7/31 4pm

Human rights are a contentious issue – while many nations signed the UN Declaration on Human Rights, that consensus only formed because the Declaration doesn’t specify where rights come from. How can the definition and origin of “universal” rights grapple with the rise of general artificial intelligence? What rights are inherent to people made of small, sub-sentient devices scattered across an asteroid belt, or to algorithms of commercial origin? Will the AIs think we deserve rights, or will they resent slow meatbrained humans passing judgment on them?

Panelists: Dr. Hirotaka Osawa, L.J. Kendall, Barbara Howe, Mikko Rauhala (M), Benjamin C. Kinney

• Panel: Thalience and Sentience
  CDT Sat 7/31 8pm = NZST Sun 8/2 1pm

Thalience and sentience. Is there really a difference? How do we tease it out?

Panelists: Karl Schroeder (M), Benjamin C. Kinney, Eli K.P. William, SB Divya

In-person conventions may be canceled this year, but the community has prepared all kinds of remote options for you to enjoy. Fourth Street Fantasy is one of my favorite conventions, known for its tight-knit community and high-level discussions. This year, 4th Street is bringing those discussions straight to you in four panels, presented in podcast form (with transcripts).

This year’s panels are:

• “In Which We Consider the Role of Hospitality in Stories”
• “The Fantasy Feast, or the Same Old Immediate Road Stew”
• “This is Fine: Making Art While the World Burns”
• “Systems of Communication”

I’m especially excited about that last one, because you can hear Yours Truly on it, in discussion with Django Wexler, John Appel, Arkady Martine, and Sherwood Smith!

2020 4th Street Programming – Podcast Edition

 

In sad-but-necessary news, FenCon XVII has been postponed from 2020 to 2021.

If you were looking forward to my appearance as Science Guest of Honor (like I was), fear not: I plan to be there in Dallas/Fort Worth next year  (September 17-19 2021), alongside all the rest of the excellent GoH list!

Are you stuck at home this weekend and looking for the experience of a science fiction convention? Come on over to Flights of Foundry, an online convention for people interested in the speculative arts! It’s run by Dream Foundry, the world’s only organization dedicated to supporting early-career creators in the speculative genres. If you’re interested in speculative writing, art, game writing, or anything else, this weekend is your chance to come learn from the best! Guests of Honor include Ken Liu, Liz Gorinsky, Suzanne Walker, Grace Fong, Andrea Phillips, and more.

Registration will be open through the weekend, but if you want to get in the lottery for limited-entry sessions, deadline is tonight (Wednesday May 13). Registration cost is pay-what-you-can, with recommended donation of $30.

I love what Dream Foundry does, and I’ll be all over the convention. Here are the programming items I’ll be on: a kaffeeklatsch (hangout), a reading, a neuroscience talk, and two panels.

UPDATE: Sunday 1-3pm will be the Escape Artists Room Party. It’s open to everyone, so please come hang out with a bunch of staff from Escape Pod and all the Escape Artists podcasts!

I hope to see you there!

 

Delighted to announce that I will be the Science Guest of Honor for FenCon XVII, September 19-21, 2020! Come on down to Dallas/Fort Worth, we’re gonna get science in your fiction and fiction in your science! I’ll be there with Adam-Troy Castro, Maurice Broaddus, and lots more awesome folks.

Fourth Street fantasy is this coming weekend, with a fantastic lineup of programming!

In a wonderful little convention packed with smart people & deep ideas, I’ll be on one panel. Since it’s a one-track con, you won’t miss it if you’re attending, but I still want to highlight it here for delight & for the record:

7:00 PM – When Gods Step In

Robyn Bennis, Pamela Dean, Benjamin C. Kinney, Scott Lynch (M), Jenn Lyons

In fantasy, it’s no surprise to see gods taking an active hand in the story—except sometimes, that fundamentally changes all the rules. With stories that can feature beings of unprecedented power, how do we manage stakes and agency? How can gods act as divine intervention without becoming narratively unsatisfying deus ex machina, how can characters do anything that matters if free will is negotiable or fate isn’t, and how do you depict their faith or understandings of magic in a nuanced way when gods are provably real? When we reference gods in our determinations of how the rules of fantasy worlds work, that affects what it means to challenge of any understanding of what has “always” been “true,” and it shades how we read stories about exercising freedom under systems we can’t comprehend or influence. This panel will discuss how we navigate the awesome potential for power and problems of gods literally and figuratively stepping into our stories.

I’m delighted to announce that I’ll be appearing at Readercon in Quincy MA on July 11-14! Here’s where you can find me:

Friday 6:00 PM
Concierge Lounge – Kaffeeklatsch
If you want to pick my brain about neuroscience stuff, here’s your chance to trap me with caffeine!

xFriday 8:00 PM
Sylvanus Thayer – Reading
Who needs dinner? Come hear me read something awesome! I’m thinking “A Breath of Salt,” the Writers of the Future finalist story I withdrew from the contest. An epic fantasy with religious sorcery pirates, faith journeys in a world of real-but-transcendent pantheistic gods, and a CW for suicidal ideation.

Saturday 7:00 PM
Salon B – The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of Bicameral Models
Ruthanna Emrys, Benjamin C. Kinney, John P. Murphy (mod), John O’Neil
Computer science and neuroscience may each be getting closer to the mysteries of cognition, but they do so from very different directions. How do they inform each other, and how do they get in each other’s way? Are their differences reconcilable? For that matter, is it even meaningful to think of them as being about the same thing? What do their cutting edges imply for our own deep dreams of fantastika?

Sunday 2:00 PM
Salon 4 – From Seed to Story: How to Escape the Slush Pile
Martin Cahill, Scott Edelman, James Patrick Kelly (mod), Benjamin C. Kinney, Kenneth Schneyer
As Ann Leckie explained in a 2013 blog post, even great writers will have stories rejected if they write 7,000 words around an underdeveloped idea. So what kind of research should go into a short story? How much plot and exposition are called for? What questions should the writer be asking and answering before they even start writing? Panelists will explore various methods by which a story seed can be nurtured into something publishable.