Terrors of the Second Draft Friday 15:00 until Friday 16:00
Participants: Amanda Bridgeman, Russell B Farr, Donna Maree Hanson, Keith Stevenson
MODERATOR: RUSSELL B FARR
A lot of aspiring novelists focus so intently on getting their first draft compete that they never pause to consider what comes next: the rewrite. For some it’s a brilliant opportunity, for others an unwanted task filled with reluctance and dread. What is the best way to go about rewriting your fiction once you’ve completed it? What are the best tricks, techniques and tips to take your work from good to brilliant? What are the traps and pitfalls to avoid? A panel of professional writers discuss their own creative process in refining their works for publication.
Ch.ch.ch.changes: SF&F as a transformative force upon Society Friday 17:00 until Friday 18:00
Participants: Louisa Loder, Cat Sparks, Keith Stevenson
“There is no place like home” Scifi takes us away from home. How has our world changed as a result of SF?
Crits and Grits - When Are Crit Groups A Good Idea? Saturday 17:00 until Saturday 18:00
Participants: Anthony Panegyres, Carol Ryles, Keith Stevenson, Helen Stubbs
Crit groups and writing groups are an important part of the business of writing. When do you need to find one? When you do, how do you handle hearing things you don’t want to hear? Will you ever be friends again? Do you ever NOT need a critgroup?
Loving The Borg: Transhumanism in the Real World. Sunday 12:00 until Sunday 13:00
Participants: Doug Burbidge, Dave Cake, Matt Holmes, Robert Hood, Cat Sparks, Keith Stevenson
MODERATOR: DOUG BURBIDGE
Humanity’s ultimate merging with the machine is a dream – or nightmare – depending on which Hollywood trope you subscribe to, but what would it really be like and how would it happen? With more and more smart wearables, where does transhumanism begin and end? Would a transhuman feel less human or more, and would they be the best judge of the change? Could they still love, hope, create if their conscious thoughts were reduced to a stream of ones and zeroes? Would they still feel tethered in the real world or lost in the infinite possibilities of virtual reality? Our panellists consider the many and varied ways that true transhumanism will change us forever.
More than just extra Umlauts: Names and naming conventions in SF/F Sunday 17:00 until Sunday 18:00
Participants: Shona Husk, Keith Stevenson, Tehani Wessely, Frames White
MODERATOR: FRAMES WHITE
How do we come up with our naming and language themes? We have serious amounts of work going into creating good name / language structures. eg themed names, linguistic structures
Climate Change - is it Affecting our Spec Fic? Monday 12:00 until Monday 13:00 (60 Minutes)
Participants: Glenda Larke, Cat Sparks, Keith Stevenson
There’s a strand of SF that likes to consider our ultimate demise. In the middle of the last century that was likely to be through nuclear conflagration. Nowadays it’s climate change disaster. But portraying the antagonist as an elemental force rather than a ‘bunch of nuke-crazy Reds’ brings its own challenges from a writing perspective. How have writers tackled these very real fears over the past decade or so, and is there still room for a happy ending?
