Now, Jamie may be on the adventure of a lifetime but that doesn’t mean that I can’t take my own tiny adventures (you see what I did there?) throughout the summer as well. A few months back, my friend Lisa Cohen posted on Google Plus that she’d be presenting this year at ReaderCon. Having never heard of it, a quick Google search revealed it to be a Science Fiction and Fantasy convention – without the costumes and shenanigans. $60 for a weekend packed with meeting some of my online writer friends, listening to some amazing presentations and panels, and staying with my sister and hanging out with her puppy and my cutie pie nephew? Sounds like a plan!
Lunch with the delightful Lisa Cohen!
While I mostly write non fiction online (primarily articles for tech websites), I have a couple of fantasy novels bopping about in my brain that I will someday commit to paper. Some of the workshops I attended helped motivate that inner fiction writer so hopefully soon I can make some progress toward actually publishing something in “dead tree” form. I think one opportunity I hadn’t named before is the chance to use fantasy to propose a better world – to challenge stereotypes and push the envelope and actually describe something more than what we have now.
Some of the workshops I attended included:
Characters who Break the Binary
Race as a Social Construct in Speculative Fiction
Agency and Gender
Formatting for E-Books
Sociolinguistics and Sci Fi
Relationship of Reality and Fantasy
Teaching Utopia
Women’s Bodes, Women’s Power
Framing the Fantastic
Writing for Younger Reader
While not for everyone, if you are a writer or reader of science fiction or fantasy – adult or young adult – this conference is a fabulous chance to talk with other readers and writers of SF/F and get inspired.
In this photo, I think I was making my pirate face (don’t ask)
Tiny House Adventures 