gwynnega

WisCon is next week! Here is my schedule:

Spindles and Spitfire: A Reading: Sat 1:00-2:15pm
Join us for sinister whimsy, folkloric sensibilities, dark humor, and SNACKS! Gwynne Garfinkle is a red headed hellion who will capture your heart and put it in a jar above her writing desk. Nicole Kornher-Stace will drag you to bridges made of the dead, and you'll thank her for it. Shira Lipkin has returned from the castle beyond the goblin city. She brought you a present. Patty Templeton misses the ghosts that used to keep her up at night.

What Makes a Character Come Alive? Sun 1:00-2:15 pm
[Patty Templeton, Alisa Alering, Charlie Jane Anders, Gwynne Garfinkle, Beth Meacham, Fred Schepartz]
In the end, "Writing" is a collaboration between the author and the reader. Readers can claim to love a character, and see them clearly—but is the person they're seeing real and three-dimensional? Or simply a cardboard cut-out of a recognizable figure (often inspired by the cliches and tropes of television instant-recognition "characterization") which the reader herself paints with vivid colors, or projects herself onto? As writers, how do we create a real and realistic human being on the page? What are the tricks—and what are the concerns? Are we willing to risk making someone unlikeable—even "unrelatable"—in order to fulfill that aim? How much does it matter whether a reader likes a character, as long as they're real to her?

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Postscripts to Darkness volume 6 is available for order. It contains my story "The Imaginary Friend," as well as work by Silvia Morena-Garcia, Alexandra Seidel, and many others.