I still can't believe this is happening.
I have talked to various people in various places about this, but I feel that it is high time I posted a definitive version that I can point to when I am asked about it in future. So...
How I Became a LeakyCon Presenter, And What I Am Going to Be Doing with These Newly-Bestowed Powers
LeakyCon is a conference by fans, for fans, and, in large part, about fans. While attendees are ostensibly there because they are fans of the Harry Potter books (and, to a lesser degree, the movies), what is truly being celebrated is the community that has sprung up around the books. The highest profile guests are Team StarKid, John and Hank Green, Harry and the Potters, the Potter Puppet Pals, and other people who gained fame (at least initially) as creative Harry Potter fans. Evanna Lynch was there last year, but she didn't seem to be fawned over any more or less than con-organizer Melissa Anelli, and few people appeared even to notice that Scarlett Byrne, the actress who played Pansy Parkinson in the last three movies, was helping out at the registration desk on the first day.
LeakyCon is not ComicCon, where the majority of the thrill is in sneak peeks of The Next Big Thing and in hyperventilating in long lines waiting to meet famous writers, creators, artists, and actors. LeakyCon is not Ascendio, which is more of an academic conference with primarily scholarly presentations about Harry Potter as a work of literature. LeakyCon is a celebration of Harry Potter (and now other Stories) as inspiration for social interactions and the creation of new art.
magpieinthesky and I were therefore somewhat disappointed when we got a look at the programming schedule and realized that, outside of the main-stage skits and performances, the wrock concerts, the movie screening, and the Wizarding World event, there wasn't an abundance of programming that interested us. There were shipper meet-ups, Death Eater recruitment seminars, crafting sessions, yoga classes, and Harry Potter Aliance meetings, all of which sound wonderfully fascinating to someone, but we were looking for more academic programming. We found a couple of quasi-scholarly presentations to attend (a lecture about how fan communities respond to HP in post-Apartheid South Africa, and a discussion about the psychological aspects of patronus charms and other magical metaphors) and filled another couple of hours with Mark Oshiro's live reading and spontaneous signing event*, and the con as a whole was incredible, but we came away a little dissatisfied, intellectually.
When I got home, I dove headfirst into the Dresden Files audiobooks, the first of which were sent to me by the lovely bizarreoptimism. At approximately the same time, Mags got me to begin reading the Chronicles of Chrestomanci, and the much-hyped Pottermore first opened, then began to almost immediately crash and burn fairly spectacularly. I began noticing the tendency of fantasy writers to work into their worlds barriers between magic and modern technology: Hogwarts has spells in place that prevent the use of electronics; Harry Dresden's magic renders him incapable of using a computer; technology begins to short out the closer one gets to Stallery Mansion. And then there was Willow Rosenberg shaking things up by embodying the dual roles of computer geek and "badass Wicca."
I brought this up to Mags over a tongue-blistering chai latte while waiting for bratnatch and her family to meet us for lunch back in September. At the time, I was also thinking about how the realization of magical abilities in most of these stories seems to coincide with either puberty or sexual awakening, not entirely unlike the mutant x-gene in Marvel comics, but this did not prove as intellectually stimulating for me as the more nuanced magic/tech relationship.
When LeakyCon put out an RFP** for programming for this year's conference, Mags suggested that I develop my ponderings into a lecture. After very little convincing, I got her on-board as a co-presenter and started putting together a proposal. Meanwhile, she was discovering BtVS and The Hunger Games while also working herself into a frenzy of anticipation over the at the time soon-to-debut Legend of Korra, and she produced, fully-formed, the idea for a round table discussion about Korra, Katniss, and Buffy as teenaged "Action Girls" who are chosen (without their consent) as leaders and role models, and how they are presented by the societies within and our own society outside of their respective stories.
From these initial ideas, we wrote two proposals:
"Sufficiently Advanced Technology: Fictional Magic Users in Technologically-Advanced Societies"
While many fantasy worlds are set entirely on different worlds or in alternate universes, authors who write about wizards, witches, and magicians living in contemporary Western societies must address the interaction - or lack thereof - between magic and technology. By examining the unique relationships that the central magical characters in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files, Joss Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Diana Wynne Jones’ Chrestomanci novels have with the technologies that are intimately connected to contemporary life in Little Winging, Chicago, Sunnydale, and Stallery*, we can reach a better understanding of these characters' roles in their societies, as well as their stories' attitudes toward our own technologically-obsessed society.
"Buffy, Katniss, and Korra: Action Girls in the Media"
Demons. Corrupt Governments. Anti-Bending Movements. Fictional teenage heroines have more than these central conflicts to tackle. By exploring these three young women thrust into leadership positions meant to fight for (or against) a larger cause, we can discern what common threads tie them together, as well as the complexities that make them such diverse, unique, and relatable characters. We aim to discuss several key themes, including the effect of medium (television, comics, literature, film, animation) on the character's portrayal; gender dynamics and roles within female leadership; interaction with the heroine's government figureheads and institutions; how they take on their role and leadership styles once accepted; relationships and romance; and the place of media and fandom in creating perceptions of the "Action Girl" (as well as the dreaded "Mary Sue" insult). Whether you favor a stake, crossbow, or natural element, be sure to bring an open mind.
After submitting both proposals and waiting quite a little while to hear back, both of the programs were accepted: "Buffy, Katniss, and Korra: Action Girls in the Media" is scheduled for 10 AM on Friday, 10 August, and "Sufficiently Advanced Technology: Fictional Magic Users in Technologically-Advanced Societies" is at 2 PM the following day. We are presenting together on both of these, with me taking lead on Tech and her on Action Girls. I imagine we will discuss both presentations and the logistics of pulling them off in some depth in a couple of weeks when I am up visiting(!!!) Meanwhile, I have been reading everything I can get my hands on about Whedon's shows and what they have to say about technology, listening to my Dresden Files audio books with an ear out for Harry's interaction with and estrangement from the "vanilla" world of modern Chicago, and rereading HG in a more objective, focused manner than my first emotional experience of it. I have begun designing a PowerPoint project for the Tech presentation that I am CERTAIN will utterly fail to work (Murphionic fields for the lose!), and I now feel fairly comfortable in saying that I have done enough research into the Whedon bits of the Tech talk that I can almost certainly parlay it into a paper for school at some point, since this is pretty much exactly what I would like to focus on in my M.A. work.
Mum's reaction to all of this is the by now predictable, "Can you sell anything you've written in of all of this work?" She asks this because I've been talking for months about working on things I can submit to various publications, none of which I have completed to my satisfaction, so no money has materialized. But money is, in the most basic way, *not the point* of this exercise. These presentations are more important to me than anything I might be able to submit to Cracked or Strange Horizons, or even, at this point, my own massive hypertext project, because I am finally, at long last, about to get experience doing something relatively within the field in which I actually intend to have a career. This is like a summer internship at an engineering firm, except instead of getting coffee, I am actually doing a small-scale version of what I hope to be doing professionally in a few years.
If you'll forgive the phrase, BOO-FUCKIN'-YA.
* I will SMASH THINGS if we are scheduled against him this year. That would be more tragic to me than if we were up against StarKid, I think. After all, I will have seen StarKid live three times at that point, and there will undoubtedly be videos of their performace on the internet moments after it is over. Mark's events are much more intimate and cozy, and without doubt more breathtakingly, pants-wettingly hilarious.
** Request for Proposal, for those of you who haven't had the pleasure of being a government contractor.
How I Became a LeakyCon Presenter, And What I Am Going to Be Doing with These Newly-Bestowed Powers
LeakyCon is a conference by fans, for fans, and, in large part, about fans. While attendees are ostensibly there because they are fans of the Harry Potter books (and, to a lesser degree, the movies), what is truly being celebrated is the community that has sprung up around the books. The highest profile guests are Team StarKid, John and Hank Green, Harry and the Potters, the Potter Puppet Pals, and other people who gained fame (at least initially) as creative Harry Potter fans. Evanna Lynch was there last year, but she didn't seem to be fawned over any more or less than con-organizer Melissa Anelli, and few people appeared even to notice that Scarlett Byrne, the actress who played Pansy Parkinson in the last three movies, was helping out at the registration desk on the first day.
LeakyCon is not ComicCon, where the majority of the thrill is in sneak peeks of The Next Big Thing and in hyperventilating in long lines waiting to meet famous writers, creators, artists, and actors. LeakyCon is not Ascendio, which is more of an academic conference with primarily scholarly presentations about Harry Potter as a work of literature. LeakyCon is a celebration of Harry Potter (and now other Stories) as inspiration for social interactions and the creation of new art.
magpieinthesky and I were therefore somewhat disappointed when we got a look at the programming schedule and realized that, outside of the main-stage skits and performances, the wrock concerts, the movie screening, and the Wizarding World event, there wasn't an abundance of programming that interested us. There were shipper meet-ups, Death Eater recruitment seminars, crafting sessions, yoga classes, and Harry Potter Aliance meetings, all of which sound wonderfully fascinating to someone, but we were looking for more academic programming. We found a couple of quasi-scholarly presentations to attend (a lecture about how fan communities respond to HP in post-Apartheid South Africa, and a discussion about the psychological aspects of patronus charms and other magical metaphors) and filled another couple of hours with Mark Oshiro's live reading and spontaneous signing event*, and the con as a whole was incredible, but we came away a little dissatisfied, intellectually.
When I got home, I dove headfirst into the Dresden Files audiobooks, the first of which were sent to me by the lovely bizarreoptimism. At approximately the same time, Mags got me to begin reading the Chronicles of Chrestomanci, and the much-hyped Pottermore first opened, then began to almost immediately crash and burn fairly spectacularly. I began noticing the tendency of fantasy writers to work into their worlds barriers between magic and modern technology: Hogwarts has spells in place that prevent the use of electronics; Harry Dresden's magic renders him incapable of using a computer; technology begins to short out the closer one gets to Stallery Mansion. And then there was Willow Rosenberg shaking things up by embodying the dual roles of computer geek and "badass Wicca."
I brought this up to Mags over a tongue-blistering chai latte while waiting for bratnatch and her family to meet us for lunch back in September. At the time, I was also thinking about how the realization of magical abilities in most of these stories seems to coincide with either puberty or sexual awakening, not entirely unlike the mutant x-gene in Marvel comics, but this did not prove as intellectually stimulating for me as the more nuanced magic/tech relationship.
When LeakyCon put out an RFP** for programming for this year's conference, Mags suggested that I develop my ponderings into a lecture. After very little convincing, I got her on-board as a co-presenter and started putting together a proposal. Meanwhile, she was discovering BtVS and The Hunger Games while also working herself into a frenzy of anticipation over the at the time soon-to-debut Legend of Korra, and she produced, fully-formed, the idea for a round table discussion about Korra, Katniss, and Buffy as teenaged "Action Girls" who are chosen (without their consent) as leaders and role models, and how they are presented by the societies within and our own society outside of their respective stories.
From these initial ideas, we wrote two proposals:
"Sufficiently Advanced Technology: Fictional Magic Users in Technologically-Advanced Societies"
While many fantasy worlds are set entirely on different worlds or in alternate universes, authors who write about wizards, witches, and magicians living in contemporary Western societies must address the interaction - or lack thereof - between magic and technology. By examining the unique relationships that the central magical characters in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files, Joss Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Diana Wynne Jones’ Chrestomanci novels have with the technologies that are intimately connected to contemporary life in Little Winging, Chicago, Sunnydale, and Stallery*, we can reach a better understanding of these characters' roles in their societies, as well as their stories' attitudes toward our own technologically-obsessed society.
"Buffy, Katniss, and Korra: Action Girls in the Media"
Demons. Corrupt Governments. Anti-Bending Movements. Fictional teenage heroines have more than these central conflicts to tackle. By exploring these three young women thrust into leadership positions meant to fight for (or against) a larger cause, we can discern what common threads tie them together, as well as the complexities that make them such diverse, unique, and relatable characters. We aim to discuss several key themes, including the effect of medium (television, comics, literature, film, animation) on the character's portrayal; gender dynamics and roles within female leadership; interaction with the heroine's government figureheads and institutions; how they take on their role and leadership styles once accepted; relationships and romance; and the place of media and fandom in creating perceptions of the "Action Girl" (as well as the dreaded "Mary Sue" insult). Whether you favor a stake, crossbow, or natural element, be sure to bring an open mind.
After submitting both proposals and waiting quite a little while to hear back, both of the programs were accepted: "Buffy, Katniss, and Korra: Action Girls in the Media" is scheduled for 10 AM on Friday, 10 August, and "Sufficiently Advanced Technology: Fictional Magic Users in Technologically-Advanced Societies" is at 2 PM the following day. We are presenting together on both of these, with me taking lead on Tech and her on Action Girls. I imagine we will discuss both presentations and the logistics of pulling them off in some depth in a couple of weeks when I am up visiting(!!!) Meanwhile, I have been reading everything I can get my hands on about Whedon's shows and what they have to say about technology, listening to my Dresden Files audio books with an ear out for Harry's interaction with and estrangement from the "vanilla" world of modern Chicago, and rereading HG in a more objective, focused manner than my first emotional experience of it. I have begun designing a PowerPoint project for the Tech presentation that I am CERTAIN will utterly fail to work (Murphionic fields for the lose!), and I now feel fairly comfortable in saying that I have done enough research into the Whedon bits of the Tech talk that I can almost certainly parlay it into a paper for school at some point, since this is pretty much exactly what I would like to focus on in my M.A. work.
Mum's reaction to all of this is the by now predictable, "Can you sell anything you've written in of all of this work?" She asks this because I've been talking for months about working on things I can submit to various publications, none of which I have completed to my satisfaction, so no money has materialized. But money is, in the most basic way, *not the point* of this exercise. These presentations are more important to me than anything I might be able to submit to Cracked or Strange Horizons, or even, at this point, my own massive hypertext project, because I am finally, at long last, about to get experience doing something relatively within the field in which I actually intend to have a career. This is like a summer internship at an engineering firm, except instead of getting coffee, I am actually doing a small-scale version of what I hope to be doing professionally in a few years.
If you'll forgive the phrase, BOO-FUCKIN'-YA.
* I will SMASH THINGS if we are scheduled against him this year. That would be more tragic to me than if we were up against StarKid, I think. After all, I will have seen StarKid live three times at that point, and there will undoubtedly be videos of their performace on the internet moments after it is over. Mark's events are much more intimate and cozy, and without doubt more breathtakingly, pants-wettingly hilarious.
** Request for Proposal, for those of you who haven't had the pleasure of being a government contractor.