Friday | 5:00 PM | 5:50 PM | Haven't We Been Here Before? | Keweenaw | Many of horror's early tales originate in New England, the cultural center of early America. This is a trend that has continued throughout the years, with Stephen King and others. Why is New England such an attractive setting for the horrific? What are some other touchstone milieus in America and beyond? | Michael Cieslak, Suzanne Church, Lesley Conner, Joe Hill, Mallory O'Meara | LITERATURE |
Friday | 6:00 PM | 6:50 PM | I Believe I Can Fly | Keweenaw | Those lyrics, popularized by R. Kelly in the film Space Jam, highlight something each and every one of us dreams of—being able to soar in the heavens. Greek myth, superhero stories, and many genre books tap into this fantasy. What about the concept of flight is so appealing? How are today's books reimagining the trope and where else can we go with it? | Elizabeth Shack (M), David John Baker, Mary G. Thompson, Matthew Alan Thyer, Ken Schrader | LITERATURE |
Friday | 8:00 PM | 8:50 PM | Eating the Future | Keweenaw | Juicy nuggets of forward facing cuisine. Find out what your children will be eating on their way to Mars, create menu's for offworld diners or cash in on the next food craze. | Julie Lesnik (M), Ferrett Steinmetz, Sarah Lynn | SCIENCE |
Friday | 9:00 PM | 9:50 PM | Erotica: More Than Sex? | Keweenaw | Panelists discuss character, plot, and yes, sex scenes in erotica. What makes a sex scene hot? How do you use sex to drive the plot? When do the erotic elements cross into objectification? How do authors approach sex and erotica in het and queer romance? | Bernadette Bosky (M), Delilah S. Dawson, Ferrett Steinmetz, Sara Dobie Bauer | LITERATURE |
Saturday | 10:00 AM | 10:50 AM | Only 80s Kids Remember | Keweenaw | Gen X nostalgia is all the rage, from the Transformers and GI Joe films, to the Voltron and Ghostbusters reboots, to Netflix's Stranger Things. Come claim your birthright as a child of the 80s, and talk about what these looks-back get right and wrong. | Vanessa Ricci-Thode, Jen Talley, Joe Hill, Daniel Abraham | FANDOM |
Saturday | 11:00 AM | 11:50 AM | The Faces of Fandom | Keweenaw | It's easy to think fandom is an unchanging monolith, but fandom has always had many faces, and it grows and changes all the time, and different fandoms have their own distinct cultures. How do fandoms differ (SFF, media, fanfic, music, sports, etc) and what traits do they share (participatory vs. consumer fandom)? | Mari Brighe (M), Joel Zakem, Mark Oshiro, Bernadette Bosky, Arthur D. Hlavaty, Julie Winningham | FANDOM |
Saturday | 12:00 PM | 12:50 PM | It Takes an Intergalactic Village | Keweenaw | Finding and surrounding your life with positive influences that will help your kids become productive, insightful, and best of all nerd-class citizens. | Karen Burnham, Matthew Alan Thyer, Vanessa Ricci-Thode, Andrew Zimmerman Jones | FANDOM |
Saturday | 1:00 PM | 1:50 PM | TV Tropes | Keweenaw | Not just a website where you can lose an hour in a blink, TV Tropes is now foundational to discussions of modern pop culture. Let's talk about the biggest tropes and the games, shows and movies that are using them best or creating new ones. | Sam Morgan (M), Mari Brighe, Vanessa Ricci-Thode, James L. Sutter, Max Gladstone, Jeanne Szarama | MEDIA |
Saturday | 2:00 PM | 2:50 PM | What Could Possibly Go Wrong? | Keweenaw | Last ConFusion, our panelists tackled driverless cars and their implications. But, with technology moving as fast it is, this ConFusion we'll tackle it all. What technologies are on the horizon and what kinds of stories can we tell in their wake? | Janet Harriett (M), David John Baker, Cameron McClure, Patrick S. Tomlinson, Max Gladstone, Michael J. DeLuca | LITERATURE |
Saturday | 3:00 PM | 3:30 PM | Romancing the YA Novel | Keweenaw | Our panelists talk the trends and realities of romance in YA fiction. What readers wish authors would avoid, and where readers with they would go. | Mary G. Thompson (M), Delilah S. Dawson, Stacey Filak, James L. Sutter, Merrie Haskell | LITERATURE |
Saturday | 6:00 PM | 6:50 PM | Reading: Suzanne Church, Sarah Gailey, Gregory Wilson | Keweenaw | Authors read from current or forthcoming works | Suzanne Church, Sarah Gailey, Gregory Wilson | LITERATURE |
Sunday | 10:00 AM | 10:50 AM | Blurring the Lines | Keweenaw | Genre is sometimes described as little more than arbitrary marketing categories, but readers and writers often define themselves by their preferred genre. What makes a genre distinct, and what happens when those distinctions are imported into another genre? Is it just a crossover, or an illustration that the distinctions are arbitrary? | Brandon Black (M), Jackie Morgan, Cherie Priest, Jason Sanford, Kristine Smith, Jason Sizemore | LITERATURE |
Sunday | 11:00 AM | 11:50 AM | Nerd Culture Cultivation | Keweenaw | Raising humans that you WANT to have conversations with. | Rhiannon Kelley, Anna Carey, Jen Talley, Stacey Filak, Andrea Dale | FANDOM |
Sunday | 12:00 PM | 12:50 PM | Rail Guns, Power Armor and Killer Robots | Keweenaw | How close are we to the military technology heralded in SciFi books? Experts will talk about what is on the horizon. | Kristine Smith (M), Tobias Buckell, Kameron Hurley, Karen Burnham | SCIENCE |