![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
My Readercon schedule!
Jul. 1st, 2011 02:10 pmFriday July 15
1:00 PM ME The Readercon New Fiction Book Club: Among Others. Suzy Charnas, Gwynne Garfinkle, Greer Gilman, Madeleine Robins (leader), Gary K. Wolfe. Jo Walton's stand-alone contemporary novel Among Others scatters several familiar fantasy concepts--the epistolary diary narrative, the British boarding school, countryside faeries, an evil mother, the magic of twins, and even a hint of Arthuriana--over a battered industrial landscape amid passionate paeans to classic science fiction and fannish community. The resulting tale has an almost slipstreamish unease; though set in the 1970s, it could only have been written in the early 21st century. We will discuss the ways Walton combines and contrasts these very disparate elements as well as the concepts of audience implied by the novel's thorough anchoring in a particular time and place.
Saturday July 16
1:30 PM VT Reading. Gwynne Garfinkle. Garfinkle reads "In Lieu of a Thank You."
Sunday July 17
11:00 AM F Borders (if Any) Between Fan Fiction and "Original Fiction". Gwynne Garfinkle, Eileen Gunn, Kate Nepveu, Madeleine Robins, Kenneth Schneyer (leader). Maguire's Wicked books. Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. Chabon's The Final Solution. Kessel's "Pride and Prometheus." Resnick's "The Bride of Frankenstein." Reed's "A Woman's Best Friend." Moore's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Heinlein's The Number of the Beast. All of these stories employ characters, settings, and pre-existing plots from other authors, yet these authors (with the possible exception of Chabon) would probably deny that what they have written is "fan fiction." Lee Goldberg has spent thousands of words explaining why his dozens of authorized television tie-in novels are not "fan fiction." Is there an actual, definable difference between fan fiction and original fiction, or this just another instance, like Margaret Atwood's, of authors rejecting a label or genre in order to remain "respectable" or "marketable?"
1:00 PM ME The Readercon New Fiction Book Club: Among Others. Suzy Charnas, Gwynne Garfinkle, Greer Gilman, Madeleine Robins (leader), Gary K. Wolfe. Jo Walton's stand-alone contemporary novel Among Others scatters several familiar fantasy concepts--the epistolary diary narrative, the British boarding school, countryside faeries, an evil mother, the magic of twins, and even a hint of Arthuriana--over a battered industrial landscape amid passionate paeans to classic science fiction and fannish community. The resulting tale has an almost slipstreamish unease; though set in the 1970s, it could only have been written in the early 21st century. We will discuss the ways Walton combines and contrasts these very disparate elements as well as the concepts of audience implied by the novel's thorough anchoring in a particular time and place.
Saturday July 16
1:30 PM VT Reading. Gwynne Garfinkle. Garfinkle reads "In Lieu of a Thank You."
Sunday July 17
11:00 AM F Borders (if Any) Between Fan Fiction and "Original Fiction". Gwynne Garfinkle, Eileen Gunn, Kate Nepveu, Madeleine Robins, Kenneth Schneyer (leader). Maguire's Wicked books. Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. Chabon's The Final Solution. Kessel's "Pride and Prometheus." Resnick's "The Bride of Frankenstein." Reed's "A Woman's Best Friend." Moore's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Heinlein's The Number of the Beast. All of these stories employ characters, settings, and pre-existing plots from other authors, yet these authors (with the possible exception of Chabon) would probably deny that what they have written is "fan fiction." Lee Goldberg has spent thousands of words explaining why his dozens of authorized television tie-in novels are not "fan fiction." Is there an actual, definable difference between fan fiction and original fiction, or this just another instance, like Margaret Atwood's, of authors rejecting a label or genre in order to remain "respectable" or "marketable?"
