Category: Author

Gen Con Report, 2011 Edition

Posted on by Gregory Wilson

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 […]

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Gen Con, August 7, 2011–Writers’ Symposium–Business of Writing-Agents, Query Letters and Pitches

Posted on by Gregory Wilson

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–Worldbuilding-Geography

Posted on by Gregory Wilson

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

Posted on by Gregory Wilson

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.

Worldcon

Posted on by Gregory Wilson

I’m heading back to Worldcon for the second time, this time by way of sunny Reno, Nevada, and it looks to be a busy time.  My schedule looks like this: Wednesday, August 17th: 4-5 p.m.: Panel–Teaching SF: Stretching the Mind While Thinking Outside the Box with Maurine “Mo” Starkey, Daniel M. Kimmel, Margaret McGaffey Fisk, […]

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GenCon

Posted on by Gregory Wilson

This is my fifth time at GenCon, the third as a member of the Writers’ Symposium (holy cow, where does the time go?), and as usual it looks like it’s going to be a blast, with lots of panel appearances, signings and readings planned.  As I’ve said before, GenCon is one of the most fun […]

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Readercon, July 16, 2011–Podcasts, Professions and Shameless Promotion–Combining Different Worlds

Posted on by Gregory Wilson

This was my second event at Readercon for this year, a solo talk on combining various aspects of one’s professional and personal background to further one’s career in writing. I wasn’t certain how this was going to go over–Readercon tends not to be big on practical aspects of the writing business to begin with, and I was moved shortly before the convention to Saturday at 9 p.m., up against a reading, a panel, and the massive draw of the Kirk Poland Memorial Bad Prose Competition–but I ended up with very solid turnout and had a great time. A lot of the participants, all of whom were (of course!) great, told me they had enjoyed the talk more than anything else at Readercon in part because there is so little attention to the writing life as such, so I hope the powers that be will consider doing more of this sort of thing in the future.

Readercon, July 16, 2011–Science Fiction for Today’s Undergraduates

Posted on by Gregory Wilson

My first of two appearances at Readercon this year, this panel dealt with teaching science fiction to the typical college student–how has it changed, how has it stayed the same, and how has our teaching impacted our writing and vice versa? There were some interesting insights that came out of the discussion here, partly because of the panelists’ varied teaching environments (from large state school to large private university to small liberal arts college to community college, from rural to suburban to urban areas) and specific backgrounds and partly because of the different approaches each of us took in our own courses. Besides me, the panel also included Joan Slonczewski (with whom I was also on an “academic” panel at Readercon last year, in the same room…seems to be a popular spot for these sorts of topics!), Michael Cisco and Leigh Grossman (who teaches at UCONN, my old stomping grounds).