"in the Fire of Spring"
Apr. 15th, 2009 08:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eldritchhobbit* I now have my schedule for RavenCon:
Friday, April 24
4pm panel: "The Adult in Young Adult" (Today's SF/F YA novels don't shy away from controversial topics like sex, domestic violence, and global warming. How are these atypical themes faring in the YA marketplace? How are they handled differently in YA vs. adult SF/F?)
11pm dramatic reading: As part of the celebration of Edgar Allan Poe's 200th birthday, I'll be doing a dramatic reading of Poe's "The Premature Burial."
Saturday, April 25
3pm solo presentation: "When Harry Met Faërie: The Tolkien Solution to the Rowling Problem," based on my article "Harry Potter is a Hobbit: Rowling, Tolkien, and the Question of Readership" and my forthcoming book chapter "When Harry Met Faërie: Rowling's Hogwart's, Tolkien's Fairy-Stories, and the Question of Readership." (Who is the proper audience for the Harry Potter series? Critics can't agree. Some say the subject matter is too dark for the for children, while others argue that its fantasy trappings are too immature for adults. By applying Tolkien's literary theory to "the Rowling problem," however, we discover that the problem isn't with Rowling's fiction, but instead with mainstream categories of readership. Using Rowling to illustrate Tolkien's ideas, we can answer an important question: how do we put the so-called adult reader back into the so-called children's genre?)
Sunday, April 26
10am panel: 10 Books You Should Save For Your Child (What were the top ten books when you were a child, the ones that made you a SF/F reader?)
2pm panel: Beyond Harry Potter (What other books are out there for those children who love Harry Potter?)
In other news...
* Wands and Worlds is looking for the "overlooked gems" of science fiction and fantasy for children and teens published in 2008, the books that were not nominated for the most visible awards or necessarily widely reviewed and deserve greater appreciation. I'm still working my way through last year's YA SF publications, but I thought Gillian Philip's Bad Faith, S.A. Bodeen's The Compound, and Bonnie Dobkin's Neptune's Children certainly deserve much more praise and attention.
* The Lone Star Stories Reader, a speculative fiction anthology that includes stories by such authors as![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
marthawells, Sherwood Smith, and Tim Pratt, is now available as a free PDF download here.
* The release date for the film Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince has been moved to July 15, 2009.
* Last but not least, Librivox has added a new unabridged reading of another genre classic: The Lost Continent by Edgar Rice Burroughs.
"Come, fill the Cup, and in the Fire of Spring
The Winter Garment of Repentance fling:
The Bird of Time has but a little way
To fly--and Lo! the Bird is on the Wing."
- Omar Khayyám
Friday, April 24
4pm panel: "The Adult in Young Adult" (Today's SF/F YA novels don't shy away from controversial topics like sex, domestic violence, and global warming. How are these atypical themes faring in the YA marketplace? How are they handled differently in YA vs. adult SF/F?)
11pm dramatic reading: As part of the celebration of Edgar Allan Poe's 200th birthday, I'll be doing a dramatic reading of Poe's "The Premature Burial."
Saturday, April 25
3pm solo presentation: "When Harry Met Faërie: The Tolkien Solution to the Rowling Problem," based on my article "Harry Potter is a Hobbit: Rowling, Tolkien, and the Question of Readership" and my forthcoming book chapter "When Harry Met Faërie: Rowling's Hogwart's, Tolkien's Fairy-Stories, and the Question of Readership." (Who is the proper audience for the Harry Potter series? Critics can't agree. Some say the subject matter is too dark for the for children, while others argue that its fantasy trappings are too immature for adults. By applying Tolkien's literary theory to "the Rowling problem," however, we discover that the problem isn't with Rowling's fiction, but instead with mainstream categories of readership. Using Rowling to illustrate Tolkien's ideas, we can answer an important question: how do we put the so-called adult reader back into the so-called children's genre?)
Sunday, April 26
10am panel: 10 Books You Should Save For Your Child (What were the top ten books when you were a child, the ones that made you a SF/F reader?)
2pm panel: Beyond Harry Potter (What other books are out there for those children who love Harry Potter?)
In other news...
* Wands and Worlds is looking for the "overlooked gems" of science fiction and fantasy for children and teens published in 2008, the books that were not nominated for the most visible awards or necessarily widely reviewed and deserve greater appreciation. I'm still working my way through last year's YA SF publications, but I thought Gillian Philip's Bad Faith, S.A. Bodeen's The Compound, and Bonnie Dobkin's Neptune's Children certainly deserve much more praise and attention.
* The Lone Star Stories Reader, a speculative fiction anthology that includes stories by such authors as
marthawells, Sherwood Smith, and Tim Pratt, is now available as a free PDF download here. * The release date for the film Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince has been moved to July 15, 2009.
* Last but not least, Librivox has added a new unabridged reading of another genre classic: The Lost Continent by Edgar Rice Burroughs.
"Come, fill the Cup, and in the Fire of Spring
The Winter Garment of Repentance fling:
The Bird of Time has but a little way
To fly--and Lo! the Bird is on the Wing."
- Omar Khayyám
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Date: 2009-04-15 01:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-15 04:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-15 02:03 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2009-04-15 05:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-16 12:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-15 03:04 pm (UTC)Here's an excerpt from Proven Guilty by Jim Butcher:
When people say the word "convention", they are usually referring to large gatherings of the employees of companies and corporations who attend a mass assembly, usually in a big hotel somewhere, for the purpose of pretending to learn stuff when they are in fact enjoying a free trip somewhere, time off work, and the opportunity to flirt with strangers, drink, and otherwise indulge themselves.
The first major difference between a business convention and a fandom convention is that fandom doesn't bother with the pretenses. They're just there to have a good time. The second difference is the dress code-- the ensembles at a fan convention tend to be considerably more novel.
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Date: 2009-04-15 04:16 pm (UTC)I know they're working on the ConCarolinas schedule now, so it shouldn't be long. I'll post as soon as I know anything. I look forward to meeting you in person there!
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Date: 2009-04-16 02:36 pm (UTC)The receptionist was, inevitably, a young woman, and just as unavoidably attractive. She went with the solid-oak furnishings, the actual oil paintings, and the hand-crafted furniture in the reception area, and the faint scent of lemon wood polish in the air-- variations on a theme of beautiful practicality.
She looked up at me with a polite smile, her dark hair long and appealing, her shirt cut just low enough to make you notice, but not so low as to make you think less of her. I liked the smile. Maybe I didn't look like a beaten-up bum. Maybe on me it just looked ruggedly determined.
"I'm sorry, sir," she said, "but the addiction-counseling center is on twenty-six."
Sigh.
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Date: 2009-04-17 04:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-16 12:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-16 12:37 pm (UTC)