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.