Friday, July 19, 2013

Words Collide

I realized today that it's just two weeks 'til When Words Collide in Calgary, so I thought I ought to post my schedule. Here's where I'm going to be:

Friday August 9


1 PM Suite 1062 Reading with Ed Willett and Susan Forest

4 PM Suite 1057 Workshop: "Show, Don't Tell" (sign-up required)

You've probably heard that piece of writing advice a hundred times -- but what do "show" and "tell" mean, exactly? How can you turn telling into showing, and when is it better to tell than to show? This workshop will cover techniques for turning narration into action, tips on when and how to do narration successfully, and a writing exercise in turning a "told" story into a "shown" one.  

9 PM Surrey Panel: The Issue is the Issue with Neil Godbout, Amanda Sun, Nina Munteanu and Peter Halasz   Racism. Genocide. Sexism. Homophobia. How can genre fiction tackle these concepts without trivializing them but without turning into political lectures?    


Saturday August 10  

11 AM Yorkshire 3 Panel: Transhumanism: Where Do We as Homo Sapiens Go From Here? with Ed Willett, Nina Munteanu and Ron Friedman   Western society is rapidly moving toward a time when many dreams of the transhumanism movement, such as advanced genetic engineering, prosthetics, organ/neuro-implants, and age retardation/reversal will become reality. The question is how society - including speculative fiction writers - will respond to this evolutionary change in human beings.  

12 PM Surrey Panel: Making the Everyday Fantastic with Ronald Hore, Melodie Campbell, Jodi McIsaac, Nina Munteanu and Nola Sarina   Authors discuss how they take a normal, everyday situation and add magic or mystery or mayhem to build a compelling story.

3 PM Surrey Panel: Our Exotic Home: Putting Canadian Settings on the World Stage with Jodi McIsaac, E. R. Brown and Adrienne Kerr

What gives Canadian characters and locations an international appeal? Is there a penalty? How do we overcome it and capitalize on the Canadian appeal?

5PM Suite 1057 SFWA Regional Meeting
All SFWA members are invited to attend to receive updates about and discuss SFWA business. Coffee and light refreshments will be served.

9PM Yorkshire 3 Making Up Religions with Barb Galler-Smith, Ann Marston, Lynda Williams and Anna Bortolotto

Religion often plays a minor or even major role in fiction. Be it characters of faith, real-life issues examined through wholly made up belief systems, or evil portrayed through (hopefully) non-existent cults, the reader must be able to suspend their disbelief in order to enjoy the tale. Authors who apply‘unfamiliar’ religion to their fiction discuss how they get away with it.

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