And all the stars were crashing round

[sovay]

I made an apple pie tonight. I threw in a handful of dried cherries and had various pieces of Sweeney Todd stuck in my head all the time it was baking. I've had to resort to weird punk to clear it out. Oddly, it isn't helping much.

In less cookery-related news, my poem "The Gambler," dedicated to ericmvan and the exploding comet, has been accepted by Strange Horizons. I also now have a finalized schedule for Arisia:

Non-Genre Films that Fans Love
Fri 6:00 PM
Julia Tenney, John Black, Eric M. Van (m), Adam Lipkin, Sonya Taaffe

There's nothing fantastic about Memento, but it somehow feels like science fiction. What other realist movies are especially attractive to fans of SF and fantasy? What are the qualities that make them feel like genre?

Myth and Folklore in Fantasy
Fri 7:00 PM
Greer Gilman, Susan Hanniford Crowley, Shira Lipkin, Catt Kingsgrave, Christopher Weuve (m), Sonya Taaffe

How do writers use myth in their stories? What are the most common myth cycles drawn from? Has traditional folklore been run out of town by urban legends? Why is the appeal of these stories so strong after millennia?

Retelling Fairytales
Sat 6:00 PM
Rebecca L. Kletnieks, Greer Gilman, Mary Catelli, Brent Heyning, Sonya Taaffe

Folk and fairytales offer some of the richest sources for story telling. How have people adapted them into novels and films? What are great sources of these tales? Why do they resonate so with readers?

Parents in SF and Fantasy
Mon 11:00 AM
Stephen C. Fisher, Pauline (P.M.) Griffin, Greer Gilman, Elaine Isaak, Sonya Taaffe

Characters frequently appear to have none, and they often aren't ones themselves. What pitfalls make parents and parenthood so rare in fiction? What uses do they serve in the stories where they appear?

I'm a little sorry I didn't make it onto either of my first-choice panels—Obscure Folklore and Yiddish Science Fiction—but I plan to enjoy these regardless. This will be my first Arisia. Anyone else planning to be there?

Comments

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

Congratulations on the acceptance!

Looks like an interesting set of panels. I much doubt I'll be there--I've only ever been once at a con, and that was years ago--but I find myself rather wishing I could make it.

Pity about the ones you wanted, though--they sound very interesting indeed. I've thought about trying to do some work on the subject of why Irish SF is so scarce and largely so bad, but it would mean having to spend far too much time with various unpleasantly depressing books, so I'll probably not.

[sovay]

Congratulations on the acceptance!

Thank you!

I've thought about trying to do some work on the subject of why Irish SF is so scarce and largely so bad, but it would mean having to spend far too much time with various unpleasantly depressing books, so I'll probably not.

Irish-language science fiction?

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

Irish-language science fiction?

Irish science fiction in English, for the most part. There's not very much, and a lot of what there is seems to be both dark and unpleasant, at least in the case of writers from the Republic--I find James White, Bob Shaw, and Ian MacDonald more palatable, although neither thrills me*. Then again, most of what I've found by authors from the Republic seems to be mainstream writers attempting science fiction; the most notable example being Éiliís Ní Dhuibhne's _The Bray House_, which has the entire island, apparently, covered in a thick layer of radioactive ash due to a nuclear power plant exploding in Ballylumford, Co. Antrim. (And no explanation for what all was caught in the blast to make all that fallout, or why the plant exploded instead of melting down or something else more power-plantish.)

There's scarcely any science fiction in Irish--all I've seen listed is a couple of children's novels of which I've never found copies--for some reason, but it would almost have to be better.

*Not because they're from the North, mind.