2017

This year, I’ll be attending EasterCon in Birmingham, Nine Worlds in London, and WorldCon in Helsinki.

I hope to meet you there! And I always love to meet people I’ve chatted with on Twitter.

Sunday August 06
15:15
Edit As You Go v Blast Through to The End: Finishing Your First Novel
Anne Charnock, Geoff Ryman, Adrian Tchaikovsky
A discussion on the writing process. Writing a novel for the first time can be a daunting process and there is a lot of conflicting advice out there. A panel of authors talk about how they managed to complete their first novel. What was their process? Did they meticulously plan every bit? Edit each chapter individually? Or just power on through until the end and worry about the mess of editing later?  Have they changed their process since that first publication? What advice can they give to first time authors?
Worldcon 75  in Helsinki
Thursday August 10
14:00
Human Reproduction in Science Fiction
Anne Charnock, Shariann Lewitt, Robert Silverberg, Ann Tonsor Zeddies, Petri Luosto

Procreation is, naturally, crucial for the survival of humantity. How is it handled in science fiction and what are the implications to the real world? Will the first artificial womb herald the next jump in human evolution?

16:00
Turning Up the Heat on Cli-Fi
Siobhan Carroll, Sarah Goslee, Risto Isomäki, Anne Charnock, Cat Sparks

In an environmentally conscious 21st century, there’s a new kid on the speculative fiction block – Cli-Fi. Our panel will begin by looking at the rise of climate focused science fiction and discuss what separates the good from the bad, before speculating on what influence these novels can have on the literary and political landscape.

Saturday, August 12
13:00
Science Fiction Gone Wrong
Anne Charnock, Robert Silverberg, Alex Weinle, Annalee Newitz, Ian Stewart

Sometimes science fiction is a prophetic vision of the future. However, science fiction often turns out to be wrong. This can happen either through the actual dates of science fiction arriving on the calendar or scientific discoveries. We celebrat science fiction’s triumphs, but what about its failures? What can we learn from science fiction gone wrong? What does it show us about the state of collective consciousness at the time it was written?