Readercon Schedule 2011
Well, assuming a giant comet doesn't smack into the Earth between now and then, I should be at Readercon in less than two weeks. In keeping with no particular tradition, here is my schedule, which will no doubt be supplemented by various moral outrages once the weekend begins:
Friday July 15
1:00 PM NH Reading. Harold Torger Vedeler. Vedeler reads from Gay, Bejeweled Nazi Bikers of Gor. Saturday July 16
2:00 PM ME Tin Foil Hat Open Mike. Rose Fox (moderator), K.A. Laity, Shira Lipkin, David Malki !, Charles Platt, Eric M. Van, Harold Torger Vedeler. Bring your wildest and wackiest ideas to this open mike session. Each speaker gets five minutes, ruthlessly enforced, to try to convince the audience of an unprovable (and ideally undisprovable) theory related to speculative fiction. The viewers are free to applaud or heckle as they see fit. No handouts, no visual aids, no multimedia, no Q&As, no spitballs, and please, no politics or religion. Sunday July 17
2:00 PM F Why We Love Bad Writing. James D. Macdonald, Anil Menon, Resa Nelson, Eric M. Van, Harold Torger Vedeler (leader). In the Guardian, writer Edward Docx bemoaned the popularity of such writers as Stieg Larsson and insisted on a qualitative difference between "literary" and "genre" fiction. Critic Laura Miller, writing in Salon, disagreed with most of Docx's assumptions, but wondered what it is that makes the books of Larsson or Dan Brown popular when few people would argue that either is a particularly good writer. Miller suggests that clichéd writing allows faster reading than unique language does, and the very ordinariness of the prose in The Da Vinci Code allows an average reader to devour its 400 pages in a few hours. Is this true, and if so, is it the only appeal of "bad writing"? Or are "entertaining writing" and "good writing" two entirely distinct ways of evaluating a book?
I have no idea what being a "leader" for that last panel means, but hopefully it will involve me wearing a cool hat.
Friday July 15
1:00 PM NH Reading. Harold Torger Vedeler. Vedeler reads from Gay, Bejeweled Nazi Bikers of Gor. Saturday July 16
2:00 PM ME Tin Foil Hat Open Mike. Rose Fox (moderator), K.A. Laity, Shira Lipkin, David Malki !, Charles Platt, Eric M. Van, Harold Torger Vedeler. Bring your wildest and wackiest ideas to this open mike session. Each speaker gets five minutes, ruthlessly enforced, to try to convince the audience of an unprovable (and ideally undisprovable) theory related to speculative fiction. The viewers are free to applaud or heckle as they see fit. No handouts, no visual aids, no multimedia, no Q&As, no spitballs, and please, no politics or religion. Sunday July 17
2:00 PM F Why We Love Bad Writing. James D. Macdonald, Anil Menon, Resa Nelson, Eric M. Van, Harold Torger Vedeler (leader). In the Guardian, writer Edward Docx bemoaned the popularity of such writers as Stieg Larsson and insisted on a qualitative difference between "literary" and "genre" fiction. Critic Laura Miller, writing in Salon, disagreed with most of Docx's assumptions, but wondered what it is that makes the books of Larsson or Dan Brown popular when few people would argue that either is a particularly good writer. Miller suggests that clichéd writing allows faster reading than unique language does, and the very ordinariness of the prose in The Da Vinci Code allows an average reader to devour its 400 pages in a few hours. Is this true, and if so, is it the only appeal of "bad writing"? Or are "entertaining writing" and "good writing" two entirely distinct ways of evaluating a book?
I have no idea what being a "leader" for that last panel means, but hopefully it will involve me wearing a cool hat.