JOIN US FOR QUASAR!
This November, it is our honor and privilege to extend the Nebula year with another weekend dedicated to professional development at SFWA. Join us at Quasar: SFWA’s Fall Online Nebula Event!
From November 15 to 16, Nebula attendees from June are already guaranteed access to a whole new host of panels, workshops, seminars, office hours, and special presentations. Include the promo code “2025Nebulas” when you register, and once we’ve cross-checked your name with our Nebula list, you’re in! Welcome back!
For newcomers, we are delighted to offer you access to Quasar, along with the whole 60th Nebula online catalog, plus writing dates at events.sfwa.org, for the rest of the Nebula year (until June 2, 2026) for only $75. And if only Quasar strikes your fancy? We’d be thrilled to have you along for the ride at $50 for this weekend in November.
What’s on the roster?
We have a terrific chat lined up between two of SFWA’s Grand Masters, Lois McMaster Bujold and Nicola Griffith, before a surprise Nebula announcement for next year’s events.
We’re also running the SFF spectrum in our presentations: from opening poets to closing booksellers; from indie creators across mediums to horror across the ages; from debunking scientific myths to hosting a session on Tarot need-to-knows for worldbuilding.
And speaking of worldbuilding: We have panels on community building, collaboration, and wellness to address the hole writer—because how we show up for ourselves and for each other matters deeply in this world.
Also, do you create SFF in audio form? Radio QUASAR is on the hunt for your audiobooks, audio dramas, podcast episodes, songs, and soundscapes! We can’t wait to put together a terrific playlist for the weekend from your phenomenal SFF work in the medium.
QUASAR WEEKEND PROGRAM SCHEDULE
Check back for more on Office Hours soon – along with some final additions in the coming days – but for now, please enjoy our preliminary weekend program! Save the date, and make sure you’ve signed up before registration closes on November 8.
Saturday, November 15
1:00 PM – 1:30 PM – Opening Act: Poetry by Brandon O’Brien
Let’s celebrate the rich diversity of speculative forms with an opening poetic act brought to us by Brandon O’Brien.
1:30 PM – 2:00 PM – Welcome to Quasar! An Introduction from SFWA
2:00 PM – 3:00 PM – Panel 1.1 Shared Challenges for Multimedia Indie Creators
Independent authors exist across mediums, publishing books, analog games, video games, comics, and more. But for all the diversity in their final products, Indie creators face many similar struggles – with distribution platforms, payment models, and promotions strategies. If you’re an indie or hybrid SFF creator, don’t miss this pragmatic industry chat across the indie landscape. We’ll explore common pitfalls and survival tactics for SFF writers who are doing most of the work alone – but in a system where indie creators are always stronger together.
Alexis Westmore will moderate our dynamic chat between Joan Marie Verba, Jessica Maison, Karrie Shao, and Richard Ruane.
2:00 PM – 3:30 PM – Seminar 1.1 Contract Need-to-Knows for a Challenging Year in Industry
We’re honored to host a conversation moderated by Victoria Strauss of Writer Beware, with agents Alice Speilburg and Natascha Morris, who can speak to the challenges writers face when protecting their rights as creators. In a year that has brought us many major industry discussions around AI piracy, merch clauses, moral rights waivers, copyright, and rights reversion, it’s time for seasoned and early professionals alike to empower ourselves and one another. This seminar has a hands-on learning component.
3:00 PM – 3:30 PM – Outpost Station (Wellness Activity)
Join Jennifer Hudak for some healing techniques to improve our bodies right from our chairs. You do not need extra equipment for this series of yoga moves with SFF flair.
3:30 PM – 4:30 PM – Panel 1.2 Mutual Resilience: How SFF Writers Build Community On and Off the Page
Sometimes art emulates life, and sometimes life emulates art. For writers who also do the work of developing stronger community networks, worldbuilding strategies show up in far more than plans for the latest story draft. What lessons for better community organizing can we take from SFF, and how does our work in community organizing improve the speculative tales we tell? This year at Quasar, four dynamic creators will invite you to think more ambitiously about how you dream up community – on the page, and in the world around you. Join us for a co-facilitated conversation between BrightFlame, Curtis Chen, and James Stegall.
4:00 PM – 5:00 PM – Office Hours -A-
5:00 PM – 6:00 PM – Panel 1.3 Centering Wellness as Creators
One of the most important lessons writers learn over their careers is adaptation. There is no “one size fits all” for creative success, especially when each of us has a different relationship to disability, illness, and neuro-variation. What happens when that relationship is further changed mid-stream? When something that worked for you for years is now affected by new challenges? For Quasar, SFF creators share their experiences with adjusted workflows, and offer insight into centering wellness all along.
We’re delighted to be in conversation with Eugen Bacon, Scott Edelman, Vanessa Ricci-Thode, and Catherine Tavares.
5:00 PM – 6:30 PM – Workshop 1.2 Creating Real-World Hope through Speculative MG/YA
Rob Cameron – teacher, linguist, writer – will be guiding us through the process of creating hope for the next generation through SFF. How do we get out of our own way as older writers, to create spaces in prose where the next generation can learn about and explore the world as confidently as possible? How do we lead with curiosity, when meeting younger readers where they are, and help them to understand that there are older helpers on hand, to face whatever challenges lie ahead?
6:30 PM – 7:30 PM – Panel 1.4 SFF Collaboration Done Right
Collaboration is an essential part of many SFF projects, but it’s not always easy. Whether working in video games and shared narrative worlds, or with editors and sensitivity readers, there will be challenges as well as rewards. How much expectation-setting is necessary? What can we do to keep our professional partnerships healthy and mutually rewarding? What do we do when they aren’t working out? Join our panel in talking from experience about how best to work collaboratively in the genre.
We’re collaborating with Anthony Eichenlaub, Sydnee Thompson, Darusha Wehm, and Rosemary Jones on this event!
Sunday, November 16
9:00 AM – 10:00 AM – Panel 2.1 Science Fact in Science Fiction: Getting It Right in SFF
We’ve come a long way since early commercial science fiction, which boasted scientific components that were often wedged in as heavy-handed asides to the plot. Now, we still have SFF writers who can rock a good scientific tangent, and others who have subtler strategies for depicting scientific concepts well in their speculative prose. In this opening panel for Quasar: Day 2, we’re thrilled to talk with accomplished SFF writers who have differently blended fact in fiction. Join us to figure out which approach is right for you!
Join moderator Kemi Ashing-Gawa, in conversation with Julie Nováková, Steven D. Brewer, and Bert-Oliver Boehmer.
9:00 AM – 10:30 AM – Workshop 2.1 The Business of Writing: Publishing Short Story Anthologies
Working with so many different voices is no easy feat! How do we curate short story collections with care? What makes for a strong theme, and how do we strengthen our own editorial voice as we go forward? At Quasar, we’re sitting with Sheree Renée Thomas to learn what it takes, and how to prepare ourselves for the slings and arrows of advancing good work in anthology form.
10:00 AM – 10:30 AM – Office Hours -B-
10:30 AM – 11:30 AM – Panel 2.2 Science Fiction in Science Fact: Myth-Busting with the National Association of Science Writers
Nonfiction science writers love a good tall tale as much as anyone – but that doesn’t mean they don’t wince when a beloved subfield is poorly represented in SFF! So here’s a terrific opportunity, brought to us by the brilliant minds at the National Association of Science Writers, for speculative writers to sharpen their game. Join moderator Takara Small, in conversation with Corey Powell and Jane C. Hu, to shake off misconceptions about a number of key scientific concepts for our most far-ranging and “out there” prose.
11:00 AM – 12:30 PM – Seminar 2.2 Tarot Need-to-Knows for Writers (with Bonus Breakout-Room Chats and Readings!)
In an age of portents, how could we resist? Join BrightFlame and Lane Smith for a rich conversation about how and why to incorporate Tarot concepts into your speculative storytelling. What does a structure, an art form, and a ritual like Tarot do for your worldbuilding? How does it empower and how can it be inflected to improve and imperil? This conversation will be followed by a breakout room activity that allows participants (limited sign-up!) to get deeper into the nuances of the form.
11:30 AM – 12:30 PM – Office Hours -C-
12:00 PM – 1:00 PM – Panel 2.3 Poetry, Flash, & the Power of Hybrid Storytelling
Where does “the poetic” begin and end? What differentiates a prose poem from flash fiction? And why are we so hung up on dividing lines in genre in the first place – and not on the power of hybrid storytelling? In this panel, members of SFWA’s Poetry Committee are in conversation with a dynamic creator of flash and other experimental SFF forms, to explore the liminal in speculative writing – and to encourage fellow writers to make full use of whatever medium best reflects the idea they wish to convey.
Join Wendy Van Camp, as she moderates a chat between Mary Soon Lee, Brian U. Garrison, Gwynne Garfinkle, and Jennifer Hudak.
1:00 PM – 1:30 PM – Keynote: Grand Masters Nicola Griffith and Lois McMaster Bujold, with SFWA President Kate Ristau
1:30 PM – 2:00 PM – SECRET NEBULA ANNOUNCEMENT
2:00 PM – 3:00 PM – Panel 2.4 How to Give Good Panel
Ever moderated a panel where some of your panelists were seasoned pros and others were just getting started? What should panelists do to optimize their time on a bigger platform? Is there a difference in presentation style for peer-based and reader-facing industry events? And how can moderators and panelists support each other better, to provide a thrilling and memorable experience wherever they may roam in the genre? Join Day Al-Mohamed, Joyce Reynolds Ward, and Fran Wilde for a rich conversation with seasoned presenters from a range of promotions contexts, and take your panel game to the next level!
2:00 PM – 2:30 PM – Meditation Station (Wellness Activity)
Join Jennifer Hudak for an “out of this world” experience – or, at least, a much needed meditative pause, with SFF flair.
3:00 PM – 4:00 PM – Panel 2.5 It’s a Scream: Writing Horror Across the Ages
Horror and dark fantasy are having a real time to shine in middle grade and young adult fiction—but we all know the love of scary transcends age. Check out this discussion of how to make the story scary. What tricks and tips do authors use? How do they know it’s scary enough—or when it might be too scary? Whether an author is amplifying suspense, giving gothic flair, or just plain spilling blood across the floor, attendees are sure to shiver hearing these authors share their experience of writing scary.
With the support of SFWA’s MG/YA Committee, we are proud to host a conversation between Tracey Baptiste, Rob Costello, Gabby Byrne, and Scott Edelman.
Don’t miss out on some terrific community-building conversations – across genres, across mediums, across ages – at this year’s Quasar. Register today, and let other professional and professionalizing writers in your world know to sign up before November 8, too!