Long time, no post. But I want to make sure you know that I’m going to be at ConFusion, and you can find me there. My schedule is below:
Footnotes in Fiction
Friday, 8pm, Southfield
While readers are accustomed to footnotes in translated and historical works, footnotes, endnotes, and other side-matter such as indexes pack powerful storytelling potential. Goldman used them to power the meta-story in The Princess Bride. Ursula K. Le Guin used the occasional footnote to define terms, and footnotes are popular in alt history and historical fiction for audiences of all ages. How can we use footnotes to best effect in our work, and how do we walk the line between entertaining flavortext and extraneous infodump?
Annalee Flower Horne (M), David John Baker, Scott H. Andrews, Anaea Lay, Amy Sundberg
Political History As Setting in Science Fiction and Fantasy
Saturday, 12pm, Southfield
The history of Gildor is essential context for S. Morganstern’s classic. Even in his abridged version, Goldman includes this background in footnotes so that readers will be able to fully appreciate the story. Whether we’re writing a sweeping secondary-world epic, an alternate history, or futuristic science fiction, giving our worlds history helps them feel lived-in and real. Let’s talk about our favorite worlds with deep histories, and how authors can weave historical information into the story in an engaging way that doesn’t bog down the narrative with infodumps.
Dave Klecha (M), Anaea Lay, Carl Engle-Laird, K.A. Doore, K. Lynne O’Connor, Lewis Shiner
New Trends in Post-Collapse Fiction
Saturday, 5pm, Greenfield
The prospect of a world where the march of social and technological progress has drastically reversed course seems a lot closer than it used to be. What has changed in the way we imagine post-collapse futures? How do post-collapse futures of the past and present exist in conversation with the social and political worlds in which they were written?
Marissa Lingen (M), Andrea Johnson, Michael J. DeLuca, Petra Kuppers, Anaea Lay
Reading
Saturday, 7pm, Rotunda
Petra Kuppers, Anaea Lay, John Chu
I swear I didn’t just tell the programming folks to let me ramble about exposition all weekend, but apparently I’ll be rambling about exposition all weekend. It should be informative!
Anaea Lay 