Tag: panel
Nine Worlds Schedule
This extended weekend, I will be appearing at Nine Worlds, the London-based convention for “gaming, film, cosplay, fandom, literature, science, geek culture, meeting people and having a really big party.” Here’s my schedule for the con:
Friday 7th, 5.00–6.15pm, Room 38
I Want to Be a Wild Thing When I Grow Up
Panellists: Laura Lam, Taran Matharu, Kim Curran, Ed Cox, Alex Lamb, Frances Hardinge
From the fantasy worlds of Blyton’s Magic Faraway Tree to whizz-poppers and marvellous medicines of Roald Dahl, how important are childrens stories on us as adults and do they shape what authors write when they grow up?
Friday 7th, 8.30–9.45pm, Room 11
The Midnight Society – Are You Afraid of the Dark?
Panellists: Frances Hardinge, Savannah Lotz, James Dawson, Sarah Lotz
Haunted houses. Ghastly murders. Horror is making a comeback in YA. Are you afraid of the dark? Join our storytellers as they talk about the tricks of the trade and try to out-scare each other telling spooky ghost stories.
Sunday 9th, 10.00–11.15am, Room 38
Once Upon a YA – Lore and legends in YA literature
Panellists: Mel Salisbury, Tom Pollock, Liz de Jager, Frances Hardinge, Marieke Nijkamp
In many YA books, especially the speculative ones, storytelling plays an important role. Whether real or fictional, legends, folklore, mythology all give meaning and depth to a world and to characters. But how are legends born? What role do stories play within stories?
Sunday 9th, 12.30-13.00, Commonwealth East
Signing session
Frances will be signing copies of her books at the Forbidden Planet table in Commonwealth East.
Eastercon/Dysprosium 2015
Over the long weekend I was at Eastercon (AKA Dysprosium, AKA the 66th British National Science Fiction Convention). Somebody kindly arranged for it to be held a short distance from my home, so it would have been churlish not to attend.
My panel was “A Maturing Readership – Young Adult Fiction”, skilfully moderated by Peadar O’Guilin. My fellow panellists were Adrian Tchaikovsky (author of the Shadows of the Apt series and general polymath) and 14-year-old Emjay Ameringen, keen reader of YA. It was really refreshing to be on a YA panel with an actual ‘young adult’ on it, and Emjay greatly enriched the discussion with her eloquence, humour and confidence.
There was a general discussion of how far YA had previously existed in another form, and the audience made many excellent suggestions of books from the past that would have supplied teenagers/young adults with reading material. Adrian suggested that in the past genre fiction had sometimes been treated as transitional reading, after children’s fiction and before adult fiction, and that this tradition might have had an influence on current YA literature.
A study by Bowker Market Research in 2012 found that 55% of people buying YA books were adults. We discussed possible reasons for this – the liberating themes of discovery, potential and overcoming boundaries in the books, the cathartic expression of intense emotions that adults aren’t supposed to show, the tight pacing, etc. Emjay said that these statistics didn’t bother her – in fact, knowing that adults were enjoying the same books that she was reading made her feel more mature.
Emjay also commented on the joys of re-reading the same book at a later age, and we talked about the ways in which a single book can provide a totally different reading experience depending on age. (I may now have to hunt down a picture book called The Bravest Ever Bear.)
With my panel out of the way, I spent the next couple of days running around the con having fun.
I attended panels/talks on supernatural detectives, early female paleontologists and archaeologists, the crazy/exciting areas of molecular biology, storm-chasing, the history of steampunk, turning books into roleplaying games, and how a fictional Home Office should deal with the paranormal.
Here are some things I learnt at Dysprosium:
1) Scientists have used DNA-folding techniques to create a 4-bit biological computer inside a cockroach.
2) It’s possible to end up inside a mile-wide tornado without immediately realising it.
3) This woman existed. Jane Dieulafoy, nineteenth century archaelogist, explorer, sharpshooter, writer, soldier and officially licensed cross-dresser.
4) Some Bolivian detectives use magic skulls to help with their investigations. (Also quite an intimidating presence during interrogations, apparently.)
Then there was the fiercely contested Dalekdrome!
Sadly, the technically impressive ‘Telepresence Dalek’ fell foul of the seesaw, and never finished the course.
The ‘Malek’ did better, but the weight of the baby dalek in the papoose was a little too much for her to manage the ramps.
The winner, chasing through the course with reckless panache, was ‘Davros, Wiper and Exterminator of the Daleks’! (It was also considered by judge Herr Doktor to be the most aesthetically pleasing.)
Needless to say, all daleks who completed the course dealt with the wooden stairs by pushing them contemptously off the edge of the table…
On Sunday afternoon, the BSFA Award ceremony was held in the Discovery hall. Cuckoo Song didn’t win Best Novel, but I am still deeply honoured to have been on such a strong shortlist. Thanks to everyone who voted for me, and congratulations to the winners!
Finally I had a very enjoyable and relaxed Kaffeeklatsch, with a group who put up with my attempts to force-feed them biscuits and creme eggs. We discussed my current project (an adult urban fantasy), the ‘Knowledge’, post-mortem photography, the changing book world, etc.
All in all, a lovely convention, during which I encountered so many friends I lost count. Many thanks to the organisers for finding room for me in the programme!
Anyone coming to Eastercon?
The 66th British National Science Fiction Convention, otherwise known as Eastercon, will take place this weekend (3rd-6th April) at the Park Inn Hotel, Heathrow. This year the con has taken the name Dysprosium, an element that appears to be used in nuclear reactors. I’m sure we shouldn’t let that worry us at all.
In case anybody is interested, I will be at large at Eastercon/Dysprosium. Here is my schedule:
Friday 3rd April, 18:45, Endeavour Room
Panel: A Maturing Readership – Young Adult Fiction
What makes us grow out of young adult fiction? But if we do grow out of it, why do so many adults prefer it? And if we are moving on from young adult fiction, what are we moving on towards? Or what should we be moving on towards? Or is the whole concept just a new form of snobbery?
Panellists: Emjay Ameringen, Peadar O’Guilin, Frances Hardinge.
Sunday 3rd April, 17:30, Discovery Room
The BSFA Award ceremony. Since Cuckoo Song is on the shortlist for the British Science Fiction Association Award for Best Novel, I will be there with my fingers crossed. Needless to say, gifts of consolatory or congratulatory drinks will be quite welcome. And immediately afterwards…
Sunday 3rd April, 18.45-20.00, Armstrong Room
Picocon 32
Picocon (so named because it is fairly small) is a science fiction and fantasy convention run annually by the Imperial College Science Fiction and Fantasy and Gothic Horror Society (ICSF). It’s designed to be handy for students and fans based in the London area, but in practice quite a few people seem to travel long distances in order to attend, and come back year after year.
I was the first act on the Saturday, and since the theme of this year’s con was ‘duality’ I decided to focus upon Cuckoo Song, and held forth about doppelgangers, doubles and changelings.
I was followed by the fearsomely eloquent Cory Doctorow, who talked about digital securiy, cryptography, surveillance and ways that one might lose personal control in a world based upon the Internet of Things. It was a fascinating talk and very entertaining.
Picocon’s fearless agents had hunted down some particularly reprehensible examples of tawdry merchandise. Such items were then paraded before the attendees, who could bid to save or condemn them (all money to charity). Those objects deemed irredeemably ugly or tacky were ceremonially frozen using liquid nitrogen and then smashed with a sledgehammer. Very satisfying.
I also ran into Autun Purser, and was childishly excited to find that his Fantastic Travel Destinations collection now includes a poster based on Caverna!
In the afternoon I appeared on a panel with Cory, discussing dystopias, the benefits or dangers of writing groups, audience avatars, writing YA and how to be a subversive aunt/uncle.
On the Sunday, the guests of honour were Kari Sperring and Ian McDonald. As it happened, their speeches worked well as a pair (which fitted the theme of duality). Kari’s talk was about new ways of regarding history, challenging the accounts written by the ‘winners’, and avoiding mindless repetition of the dominant narrative when writing historical fiction. Ian’s speech was about new ways of regarding the future, the Long Now Foundation, and their desire to move away from mankind’s disastrous short-termism.
Both talks were very interesting, and their panel in the afternoon covered a lot of ground, including gender and the emergence of fictional futures shaped by cultures that weren’t American or European.
All in all, Picocon is a warm, friendly, welcoming convention, and they look after their Guests of Honour very well. Many thanks to Stephen Ingram and the other organisers. Thanks in particular to Noor Mulheron for chaperoning me throughout the con, and making sure that I was fed and watered and didn’t fall down any holes.
FantasyCon 2014
After the impressive vastness of Loncon3 and the London Film and Comic Con, FantasyCon proved to be smaller and more relaxed, with a friendly, approachable atmosphere. It was held in the rather attractive Royal York Hotel, next to York’s railway station.
My first panel was “Gentlemen Thieves, Lovable Pirates and Sexy Tricksters”, wittily moderated by James Barclay, and my co-panelists were Joanne Harris, Kim Lakin-Smith, Libby McGuigan and David Tallerman. We discussed the glorification of criminals, whether they were a gender slant in their depiction, the appeal of subversion and rebellion, and whether sympathic crooks needed to have potential for redemption. A good, thorough description of the panel can be found here.
Later that day, I appeared with Gollancz editor Gillian Redfearn, Tom Pollock, James Oswald, and Joanne Hall in the panel “The Chosen One”. Personally, I’m wildly allergic to Chosen Ones in fiction, and said so at some length. The conversation touched on the inspirational effect of such characters, the class implications of notions of ‘birthright’, the question of who the Chosen One was chosen by, and the fact that quite a lot of ‘Chosen Ones’ seemed to be white males. Joanne Hall has a description of the panel here.
(I realised afterwards that I had neglected to embarrass Tom Pollock by mentioning Filius Viae from Tom’s excellent The City’s Son – both a ‘ Chosen One’ and a really interesting subversion of the trope.)
In the evening, I competed in a live, SF-and-books-themed game of ‘Just a Minute’, skilfully compered by Paul Cornell. Scores were read out by Tea and Jeopardy‘s butler extraordinaire, Latimer (AKA Pete Newman). My fellow contestants were Gillian Redfearn, Kate Elliot and Stephen Gallagher, and we had proper buzzers that buzzed and lit up.
I’d never played it before, and hadn’t predicted how much fun it would be. Several times contestants fell prey to ‘hesitation’ because they or the audience were laughing too much. I learnt two other things as well. 1) I am capable of prescient challenges. 2) Audiences like it if you offer to kill them all.
Stephen Gallagher was victorious, and I came second (with Gillian Redfearn barely a step behind).
Altogether, a lovely convention. On the Sunday I even had time to scamper all over York, like a history-obsessed squirrel…
FantasyCon Schedule!
This weekend (September 5-7th) I shall be in York attending The British Fantasy Convention, and the organisers are inexplicably allowing me to appear on things and talk at people.
Here is my schedule:
Saturday 6th, 12:00 noon
Panel: Gentlemen Thieves, Loveable Pirates and Sexy Tricksters
Panellists: James Barclay, Joanne Harris, Kim Lakin-Smith, Frances Hardinge, Libby McGuigan
Why are untrustworthy characters and criminals among SFF’s most beloved characters? Does sympathy for the underdog shade into idealising predators?
Saturday 6th, 3.00pm
Panel: The Chosen One
Panellists: Gillian Redfearn, Tom Pollock, James Oswald, Joanne Hall, Frances Hardinge, Helen Marshall
From Neo to Barack Obama. Many works of SFF place the fate of the world on the shoulders of a single, pre-ordained hero, who often possesses some magical trait. The panellists discuss ideas and subversions of the One in SFF and beyond. Are there echoes in real world politics? Is the concept stale and regressive, or can it be redeemed by a more diverse range of Chosen Ones in pop culture?
Saturday 6th, 5.00-5.20pm
Reading – extracts from Cuckoo Song
Saturday 6th, 8.00pm
Just A Minute
FantasyCon’s resident quizmaster, Paul Cornell, hosts this classic panel gameshow.
Paul Cornell, Kate Elliott, Stephen Gallagher, Gillian Redfearn, Frances Hardinge
Hope to see some of you there!
Loncon3
The World Science Fiction Convention is nomadic, descending each year upon a different unsuspecting city like a benign but unpredictable mothership. This year it was London that found itself overshadowed by the con’s intergalactic bulk, and bathed in an eerie, blu-ish glow.
Well, it took over the ExCel centre in London Docklands anyway.
Over five days, the convention featured over a thousand programme items – panels, workshops, interviews, lectures, plays, games, parties, concerts, film and TV screenings, dances, science talks and a great costume competition on the Saturday evening.
I was on four panels, the first of which was Fallen London: Recreating London in Games, moderated by Christi Scarborough and featuring Jonathan Green and Kate Nepveu. We talked about London’s rich history, and the fact that so many London-themed games were set in the Victorian period. (A good writeup of the panel by Kate Nepveu can be found here.)
My second panel was You Write Pretty, in which we each chose a sentence from a fantastical work, and had to convince the audience that our choice was the best of the bunch. Greer Gilman chose a quote from Andrew Marvel’s The Garden, EJ Swift picked a sentence from Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad and Christopher Priest took a line from Robert Sheckley’s The Specialist. The audience ultimately voted in favour of my quote from Jabberwocky, but I suspect that had more to do with Lewis Carroll than my arguments.
Where is the YA Humour was my third panel, with co-panelists Gail Carriger, John Hemry and Jody Lynn Nye, and moderator Suzanne McLeod. Our answer to the title question: ‘There’s quite a lot of YA humour actually, you just have to look further than The Hunger Games.’ (In other news, Gail Carriger wears excellent hats, and John Hemry owns a tribble.)
My last panel, The Education and Training of a Young Protagonist, featured Zen Cho, John Hemry and Gail Carriger, with David Luckett as moderator. We discussed virtual schools, boarding schools for “gifted” children, combat training, tailoring education to the metaphysic and whether classrooms and teachers would still have a place in the schools of the future.
I also gave a reading of extracts from Cuckoo Song and A Face Like Glass, and hosted a Kaffeeklatsch, which roughly translates to “hour-long natter over tea”. And in this case, biscuits. Lots of biscuits.
My spare time was spent roaming around and admiring people’s costumes and the displays in the Exhibit Hall.
Here’s “Jolie” the robot dog, who can speak Japanese, Spanish and English, and who sulks if she’s carried in a holdall or not given her bone toy.
Pigeon Simulator! It detects your motions, and by flapping your arms you can soar, swoop and bank, while the big screen gives you your pigeon’s-eye-view.
It’s possible that I now own more steampunk goggles than I did…
Young Adult Literature Convention
On 12th and 13th July, the first Young Adult Literature Convention (YALC) spread its wings and took to the summer sky. And it was glorious.
It was also very, very popular.
YALC took place as a part of the much larger London Film and Comic Con (LFCC). I first had an inkling that there might be more than a couple of people turning up to the combined conventions when I arrived outside the Earls Court Exhibition centre, and found that the huge forecourt was completely filled by one enormous, snaking queue.
I felt a little guilty as I bypassed the queue, using my special guest pass. (Though I also felt a bit like a member of the a secret society as I was shown in through a back door, which made me feel better.)
Within the halls, LFCC was crowded, hot as a pressure cooker, spectacular and beautifully distracting.
The YALC events took place in the Book Zone, the slightly cooler end of Earls Court 2.
I was on “Bring Me My Dragons! Writing Fantasy Today”, a panel discussing YA Fantasy. My co-panelists were Jonathan Stroud (The Bartimaeus Trilogy, Lockwood & Co.) , Amy McCullogh (Oathbreaker’s Shadow) and Ruth Warburton (The Winter Trilogy), and the panel was ably chaired by Marc Aplin of Fantasy Faction.
We discussed the characteristics of YA heroes, and Jonathan came up with a particularly interesting answer, defining them by their smallness, lightness, perception and quickness of motion and wit – advantages they need against those who are larger, stronger and ostensibly more powerful. Discussing whether darker elements should be excluded from YA fantasy, Ruth pointed out that our notions of what is ‘safe for children’ are specific to our own place and time. Throughout history very young children have been forced to work, fight or die, and in many countries this is still the case. Fantasy is an opportunity to portray this honestly.
The question of ‘moral messages’ was raised, and in different ways we all said that we didn’t feel a need to thump our readers over the head with an ideology. As Amy said, you can explore issues without telling the reader what to think.
(By the way, I am still not used to being live-tweeted. It’s a little like making an offhand remark, and then realising that not only is the nearby microphone on, but it has just transmitted your words to every speaker in the world.)
One thing most of us YALC authors hadn’t realised was that we would be sharing the Green Room with the celebrities of LFCC. Over the weekend I spotted Princess Leia, R2D2, William and Lee Adama, Faramir and Cersei Lannister, not to mention the 8th doctor having his photo taken by Giles from Buffy. (Yes, I am aware that all of these people have real world names, but it’s very hard to remember that when you catch sight of them across the room, munching a sandwich.)
Throughout the weekend, YALC had an enthusiastic, buzzy, sugar-rush atmosphere that has left most of us a bit giddy even now. I think this was partly due to sharing space with LFCC, and the alchemy the occurs when you pour related fandoms into the same flask and stir vigorously. Co-habiting with LFCC also meant that there was a high cosplay count, and our audiences were liberally sprinkled with resplendent Khaleesis, Captains America, anime characters and Doctor Octopuses. (Doctor Octopi? Doctors Octopus?)
Many thanks to Children’s Laureate Malorie Blackman, Booktrust and everybody else responsible for organising such a fantastic event!
Just because I can, I will end this post with a few examples of the wonderful costumes at LFCC/YALC.
BSFA/SFF AGM and Mini-Convention
On the 7th July, the mighty forces of the British Science Fiction Association and the Science Fiction Foundation did unite, for a day of AGMs, panels, interviews and discussions of matters speculative and fantastical. The BSFA was kind enough to invite me as their guest of honour.
The weather was less kind, to the point of being downright unsporting. My walk to the venue was considerably more aquatic than expected. Fortunately my little paper map held out, and only collapsed into a papier mâché tatter just as I reached my destination.
I did at least manage to catch part of the first panel, featuring the SFF’s guest of honour, Jo Fletcher of Jo Fletcher Books. It was a cross between a literary discussion and a balloon debate, the other panellists ‘pitching’ different books to Jo, who used her formidable editorial instincts to decide which ones she would ‘publish’.
Next it was my turn to be interviewed by Tom Pollock (The Skyscraper Throne trilogy). Tom was a generous, insightful and skillful interviewer, and managed to give some shape to my ramblings and digressions.
We discussed children’s fiction with a bodycount, ‘neat’ resolutions versus ‘messy’ complex endings, dead parents, questionable surrogate parents, hats, geese, whether romance in YA fiction can push out depictions of other relationships, and whether my worlds were dystopias.
Tom was also very modest, and did not mention
a) that his second book The Glass Republic had just been shortlisted for a British Fantasy Award,
or
b) that the very next morning he was throwing himself off the Broadgate Tower and abseiling 165m to raise money for St Mungo’s Broadway.
(It’s OK, he survived.)
After lunch, Sophia McDougall (Mars Evacuees, the Romanitas trilogy) interviewed Jo Fletcher, who described the journalistic and publishing career that has led to her running her own imprint. She also talked about the rise of internet vitriol, working with legends such as Ursula le Guin, and running a convention with a broken neck. When asked what sort of manuscripts authors should avoid sending her, she mentioned vampires (she’s seen enough of them for a lifetime) and dystopias (soon to be out of vogue).
The last item on the schedule was my panel with Farah Mendlesohn, Niall Harrison and Virginia Preston. My fellow panelists scared me beforehand by asking whether I would mind a “frank and free discussion of my work”. Since they are all terrifyingly intelligent, I had visions of my books being meticulously dissected while I hid quivering under the table.
In the event, my fellow panel members were actually fairly gentle with me, and no hiding was required. We discussed what constituted a ‘good’ character in my books, Farah suggesting that it was one who “would open doors that everybody else had told them should remain closed”. We also talked about rebels and rule-breakers, mentor-figures and ways that gaming has affected my writing.
Many thanks to everyone at the British Science Fiction Association and the Science Fiction Foundation for a very enjoyable day!
World Fantasy Convention 2013
Shortly after the St Jude storm had batted the British Isles around like a bored cat with a paper boat, I travelled down to Brighton for the World Fantasy Convention. Nobody had told the local winds that the storm was over, so whenever I ventured out I kept both hands clamped protectively over my hat.
Once again I had the joy of meeting a lot of people I only knew through Twitter, email and the mailing list of the Scattered Authors’ Society. (I grew quite accustomed to the words ‘I recognised you from your hat!’)
I was also introduced to Shadwell, one of the small felt pigeons acting as ‘ambassadors’ for Loncon 3 next year.
The first evening of the convention was Halloween, so there were many splendid costumes on display.
There were also magnificent displays of steampunk regalia, and three gentlemen with four-foot-wide hats made out of modelling balloons and flashing lights.
On the Friday I appeared in a panel with a stellar collection of authors – Garth Nix, Holly Black, Sarah Rees Brennan, Chris Priestley and Chris Wooding. This was the brief.
The Next Generation” Not in Front of the Children: How Far Should You Go in Young Adult Fiction? (Oxford)
Our chair, Sarah Rees Brennan, gave a wonderfully tongue-in-cheek performance as the Voice of Moral Outrage, declared us all ‘sinners’ and corrupting influences from the very start, and introduced us by ominous nicknames. I’m very happy with my new title, “The Grande Dame of Darkness”…
I have long held the view that young readers are tougher and smarter than many adults realise, and are generally the best judges of whether they are ready to read certain kinds of material. It became clear that most of the panel was broadly in agreement, but it was still a fun and interesting discussion. Chris Priestley gave an eloquent defence of books that purely entertain, rather than making heavy-handed attempts to educate or ‘improve’. Holly Black discussed the perpetual nervousness with which the adult world regards teenagers. Garth Nix stated that YA should not be considered subset of children’s fiction, but of adult fiction (hence the name). By age sixteen Chris Wooding had been not only reading horror novels but writing them.
On Sunday I took part in a joint reading with other children’s/YA authors from the Scattered Authors’ Society – a ‘taster menu’ of extracts offering a mix of comic, haunting, exciting and chilling. My fellow readers were Emma Barnes, Cecilia Busby, Teresa Flavin, Amy Butler Greenfield, Katherine Langrish, Katherine Roberts, Linda Strachan and Lucy Coats.
Over the weekend I had the chance to listen to a number of fascinating panels, covering subjects such as world-building, YA as a genre, historical fantasy and the influence of real landscapes and places upon fantasy writing.
In the upstairs art gallery, like everyone else I was hypnotised by Tessa Farmer‘s otherworldly aerial battle made almost entirely out of dead things, suspended from the ceiling by threads. Sheep skulls were dreadnaughts, and tiny ant-like fairies rode dead bees, beetles and sea-horses into combat. I also took a shine to Autun Purser’s Fantastic Travel Destinations, advertising trips to the likes of Yuggoth, Midwich and the end of the Earth with cheery 1940s style posters.
Now I have convention withdrawal symptoms… and I have to find somewhere to store all my loot.
