Blog by Sumana Harihareswara, Changeset founder
Three Sessions at NASFiC This Weekend
Hi, reader. I wrote this in 2020 and it's now more than five years old. So it may be very out of date; the world, and I, have changed a lot since I wrote it! I'm keeping this up for historical archive purposes, but the me of today may 100% disagree with what I said then. I rarely edit posts after publishing them, but if I do, I usually leave a note in italics to mark the edit and the reason. If this post is particularly offensive or breaches someone's privacy, please contact me.
I will speak on two panels at the virtual NASFiC (the North American Science Fiction and Fantasy Convention) 2020, this weekend:
- "Imaginary Book Club", Friday 21 Aug, 7pm-7:50pm ET: "Imaginary Book Club" is an improv-type session where each of us "reviews" a book that does not exist, and the other people riff on that. Ada Palmer, Mary Anne Mohanraj, and Julia Rios join me (I'm moderating) in this comedy panel.
- "Running SF/F Organizations", Sunday 23 Aug, noon-12:50pm ET: "Creators, directors, publishers, and nonprofit leaders discuss the trials and victories of running magazines, publishing companies, and other SF/F businesses and organizations. They discuss logistics, strategy, budgets, and the effects of gender and race on their experiences as leaders. And they share what they wish they'd known ten years ago." I'll be talking with Cheryl Morgan, Eileen Gunn, and Mary Anne Mohanraj, with Victor Raymond moderating.
I may also be in another session -- finding out now!
Also, at 2pm tomorrow (Friday), Leonard is delivering "How Game Titles Work" which emerges from work he did researching his novel Constellation Games:
In 2009, while writing a novel about alien video games, Leonard Richardson uncovered the rules of rhetoric and syntax underlying the titles developers give their games. By following these rules, he was able to create dozens of realistic-sounding fictional games from distinct alien cultures. Over the past ten years, video game developers in the real world have subverted and played with these rules, expanding what a game's title can say about the experience of play. In this presentation, Leonard goes over the rules and talks about how they've changed over time.
NASFiC is free to attend this year -- visit this "how to attend" page to get livestreaming and chat embedded in the webpage for any sessions you want to watch.
