A second great panel at Worldcon 2011, this one with some serious star power. I’m not usually intimidated by these things, but I’ll admit to having been a little awed at the prospect of sitting on a panel with Jo Walton, L.E. Modesitt Jr., Pat Rothfuss and Tim Powers. As you might expect with that kind of group, the discussion on magic in fantasy was both illuminating and entertaining, and having a phenomenal turnout (probably close to two hundred people in the room) helped too.
Author: Gregory Wilson
Worldcon, August 18, 2011–The Lord of the Rings: Assessing the Movie Trilogy
One of a number of interesting panels I was lucky enough to be on at Worldcon in 2011, this one asked the panelists to assess the impact of the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy ten years later (without being overly staggered by how much time has already passed since then) on the genre of fantasy specifically and film more generally. Since I’m on record as being both deeply influenced by the books, which first fired my imagination as a child and has continued to do so ever since, and a huge fan of the films, which did such a good job of bringing the spirit of the books to the screen, I was really excited to be moderating the panel. It didn’t disappoint; Arthur Chenin, Stephen Potts and Norman Cates all had interesting things to say during the discussion, and having someone in Norman who actually worked on the films (and the upcoming Hobbit movies) talk about how moving he still finds them was, for me, worth the price of admission by itself.
Worldcon panel
Just a quick post to let everyone know that I’ve posted a new panel appearance on my Media page from this most recent Worldcon, about teaching outside the box with science fiction–there were some really interesting panels in Reno, and I’m glad to finally get the chance to share one of the more academically oriented […]
Continue reading →Worldcon Panels
Just a quick post to let everyone know that I’ve posted some new panel appearances on my Media page from this most recent Worldcon–there were some really interesting panels in Reno, and I’m glad to finally get the chance to share them here. If you’re interested, please head over and let me know what you […]
Continue reading →Worldcon report
Given the attention Worldcon traditionally gets, you probably haven’t been lacking for reports from con-goers–I’ve read about twenty of them myself, and that was a pretty quick skim of the ones available. But I promised my own account of the happenings in Reno, and I’m finally geting the chance to deliver on that promise now. […]
Continue reading →Gen Con Report, 2011 Edition
Well, August is drawing to a close, we’ve just ducked the worst of a hurricane, and information about school scheduling is starting to flow into my inbox. That must mean the summer is almost over, and with it much of the convention going season. But this one was a great one, with Gen Con and […]
Continue reading →Gen Con, August 7, 2011–Writers’ Symposium–Business of Writing-Agents, Query Letters and Pitches
This is some of the nuts and bolts kind of stuff which I think Gen Con does best–here on the subject of pitching agents and editors, with Don Bingle, John Helfers and Brad Beaulieu. Interesting information, even if John was so horrifically exhausted at this point in the convention I wasn’t sure he was going to make it through the panel…
Gen Con, August 6, 2011–Writers’ Symposium–Writing Right-Dialogue and Dialects
Another one of my favorites, this one on methods of writing dialogue and dialects, with Jean Rabe and Don Bingle. This was a serious discussion, but we had some fun as well…particularly considering the best way to interpret police scanners!
Gen Con, August 6, 2011–Writers’ Symposium–Worldbuilding-Geography
Another good panel at Gen Con, this one about geography in worldbuilding, with Paul Genesse, Ramsey Lundock, and Sabrina Klein. Particularly interesting here are Ramsey’s (who lives in Japan) comments on how Japan’s geography influences its culture, especially in light of the recent tsunami.
Gen Con, August 6, 2011–Writers’ Symposium–Make It Steamy-A Look At The Steampunk Genre
One of my favorite panels at Gen Con 2011, this one about the steampunk genre, with fellow “experts” Anton Strout, Paul Genesse, Lawrence Connolly, and Maurice Broaddus. This panel was a lot of fun, and I did what I could not to deserve the quotation marks around the steampunk “expert” part.