Music spins inside of atoms

[sovay]

Okay, I got distracted by Amazing Mustache Productions' The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged), directed by aphrabehn. It was great. There are two more performances left! Tickets $10! Buy some and enjoy the weekend! Well, enjoy the weekend no matter what you do, but this show is a good way to do it.

My Readercon schedule! It is small this year, but contains some pretty cool things.

Thursday July 10

8:00 PM
Many Things Worry You, but Nothing Frightens You: Outgrowing Horror
Leah Bobet, Ellen Datlow, Elizabeth Hand (moderator), Kit Reed, Graham Sleight, Sonya Taaffe.

In the Nightmare Magazine essay "The H Word: The Failure of Fear," Dale Bailey wrote about enjoying horror despite no longer finding it horrifying. How does what scares us change as we age? How does horror written for children differ from horror written for adults? Can you outgrow horror, or are adults and children simply frightened by different things?

9:00 PM
Readercon Classic Fiction Book Club: Memoirs of a Spacewoman
Amal El-Mohtar, Lila Garrott (leader), Sonya Taaffe

Naomi Mitchison's 1962 exploration of a life lived nearly entirely in space has deep humanist themes. Mary's specialty in alien communication leads to a life and profession of embracing the Other, literally realized in her accidental pregnancy via a Martian. We'll discuss criticisms of the book's heteronormativity and biological determinism as well as the themes of Mary's immersion in alien cultures.

Friday July 11

3:00 PM
Speculative Fiction and World War I
John Clute, Felix Gilman, Victoria Janssen (leader), Jess Nevins, Graham Sleight, Sonya Taaffe

On 28 July 1914, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, and World War I began. Hugo Gernsback had not yet named science fiction at the time, but proto-SF stories inspired by the war exist, many early SF writers would draw inspiration from their experiences of the wartime era, and alternate history stories of WWI are numerous. WWI had a tremendous effect on fantasy and horror stories as well, with surrealist, expressionist, and apocalyptic modes flourishing alongside tales of lost arcadias. Looking back 100 years later, how did WWI shape the readers and writers of speculative fiction and the genre as a whole?

Saturday July 12

11:00 AM
Absent Friends
Michael Cisco, John Langan (leader), Sonya Taaffe, Gordon Van Gelder

In the past year, the field has lost many beloved writers, editors, artists, and fans. Come join us as we celebrate their lives and work.

12:00 PM
Interfictions Group Reading
Gwynne Garfinkle, Theodora Goss, Anil Menon, Sofia Samatar (leader), Sonya Taaffe

Contributors to the Interfictions online magazine read from their work.

8:00 PM
A Most Readerconnish Miscellany

Ada Palmer and Carl Engle-Laird emcee an extravagant evening of music, theater, and readings to benefit the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center and Operation Hammond. Bring cash or credit cards to make donations toward these very worthy organizations, all while being entertained by exquisite performers including Andrea Hairston and Pan Morigan, Daniel José Older, Liz Duffy Adams, Sonya Taaffe, Amal El-Mohtar, Ellen Kushner, C.S.E. Cooney and Caitlyn Paxson, and a capella group Sassafrass. Don't miss this unforgettable event.

Sunday July 13

11:00 AM
Readercon Recent Fiction Book Club: Ancillary Justice
Francesca Forrest, Adam Lipkin, Natalie Luhrs, Sarah Pinsker (leader), Sonya Taaffe

Ann Leckie's Ancillary Justice is gender-bending space opera with a thriller pace and sensibility. Critics are hailing Leckie's worldbuilding in the story of Breq, the remaining ancillary consciousness of a formerly great warship. We'll explore Leckie's themes of humanity and justice, as well as the way the book's use of nearly exclusively female pronouns shakes up or affirms our notions of a gender binary.

2:30 PM
Reading
Sonya Taaffe

Sonya Taaffe reads the short story "The Trinitite Golem" and assorted new poems.

Which usual and unusual suspects can I expect to see in Burlington this year?

Comments

[yhlee]

I'll be there, but final schedules have gone out??? I haven't seen mine...

[sovay]

I'll be there, but final schedules have gone out??? I haven't seen mine...

Hell. I just saw that the program had gone live and leapt to sign in and see my final schedule. Perhaps that was hasty. I don't know if I should take this post down or not!

[edit] See Twitter and Facebook.

[yhlee]

Oh, I believe you! But I always worry about my [expletive] email.

[sovay]

Oh, I believe you! But I always worry about my [expletive] email.

I don't think you've missed an e-mail; I don't think the mailing's gone out yet. I just assumed that if the schedule was final and public, I could winnow out and post the parts that were me.

(I always worry about my e-mail. Every now and then there's a complete communications breakdown, like not sending or receiving mail for days, and it doesn't even bother to tell me.)

[yhlee]

That's a perfectly logical assumption. I just personally suck at reading grids, so I wait for them to tell me which bits are mine. *is lazy*

[phi]

Check your spam filters? All my notifications about program have gone straight to spam in spite of diligently marking them not-spam, thank you google. Would that they filtered the crap from my alma mater begging for money instead.

[yhlee]

I've never been able to get freaking Thunderbird to spit up anything in its Search, which is massively infuriating after how everything was so easy to find in Mail.app (I'm on a Win7 PC now, unfortunately). I got the "final schedule check" on 6/22, but that one said it wasn't final and please don't post, etc. I haven't gotten anything since.

Hahaha, I still can't figure out how to get my email to stop sending me job postings for California from Stanford, nor how to get off the freaking mailing list, considering I neither teach anymore nor live anywhere near Cali.

[phi]

I went straight from using mh to using gmail's web interface, to mostly using the android gmail app. I think I missed out on a whole generation of crappy email clients there.

Hmm, now that I'm looking, I don't see an email about final schedules. But they've been tweeting about the schedule being final and public all day. http://readercon.org/program.htm#progsched Mine at least matches what's in my dashboard when I sign in. (Also did you know you can reset anyone's password if you know their email address? They don't authenticate password resets AT ALL. It's a tiny bit horrifying.)

[yhlee]

Oh, I knew that the passwording system was pretty crappy, especially given the default...yeah. I was going on the possibly mistaken presumption that no one would care enough to mess with my schedule.

[sovay]

Also did you know you can reset anyone's password if you know their email address? They don't authenticate password resets AT ALL. It's a tiny bit horrifying.)

. . . yeah.

[phi]

I think you've convinced me to show up for Thursday night programming instead of going to SFOD.

I will be there, and likely will be taking Friday off work to do so, since Julia Rios' group reading is at 1pm Friday.

[sovay]

I think you've convinced me to show up for Thursday night programming instead of going to SFOD.

Cool! I should warn you that there will almost certainly be less poetry out loud, but you never know.

I will be there, and likely will be taking Friday off work to do so, since Julia Rios' group reading is at 1pm Friday.

I'm not even scheduled across from that!

[kate_nepveu]

Ugh, I'm going to miss the _AJ_ bookclub and I'm so vexed. Hope to see you around!

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

Awesomesauce! I am scheduled against far too many of your things, but I hope to see the WWI panel and your reading, which are going to be terrific.

Nine

[sovay]

I am scheduled against far too many of your things, but I hope to see the WWI panel and your reading, which are going to be terrific.

Thank you! I am sorry we didn't end up on "Theater and the Interrupted Ritual," but I can't bilocate.

[gwynnega]

Looking forward to seeing you!

[sovay]

Looking forward to seeing you!

You, too!

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I can't believe I'm actually on a slate with you. It's guaranteed to mean I'm in your presence for an hour, which: hurray!!

And talking about Ancillary Justice <3 <3 <3

[sovay]

I can't believe I'm actually on a slate with you. It's guaranteed to mean I'm in your presence for an hour, which: hurray!!

It's going to be an awesome panel.

[carik.livejournal.com]

I hope to see you there, but I still don't know if I'm going to make it.

Either way, enjoy!

[sovay]

Either way, enjoy!

Thank you! I do hope to see you if you're there!

[ajodasso.livejournal.com]

*raises hand* And this is my schedule of mischief. Yours looks most excellent. I look forward to seeing you there!

[sovay]

And this is my schedule of mischief. Yours looks most excellent. I look forward to seeing you there!

Awesome. I'm not even scheduled across from all of that. See you soon!

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

I hope it's a grand con and altogether enjoyable for you!

Looks a very interesting schedule. Maybe some year I'll even manage to make it there.