How do you find and build community as a writer? When is feedback helpful, and when is it toxic? This panel will explore how to form and maintain connections with other writers, and how to share, critique, and champion each others work.
Indie publishing is a new frontier for many authors, but what does breaking into this space look like for members of the LGBTQ+ community? Join us for a discussion of ideas, advice, and the personal experiences of independently published queer authors.
When the writing is strong, the world building is interesting, and the characters are compelling, readers want more. They want to spend time with the same characters on new journeys without losing the wonder which first drew them in. Authors discuss how to maintain consistent publishing schedules while meeting, maintaining, and set new expectations with their readers.
It starts with one story, but want to revisit the world, or you aren’t finished exploring this them. Once you’ve built a collection, how do you approach publication when most short stories are accepted one at a time? This panel talks about the business of traditionally publishing short story collections, from writers who have done so.
Fantasy and Science Fiction have always drawn elements from their sister genre Horror, from the zombie-like White Walkers of George R.R. Martin’s A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE to the psychological horror in space of S.A. Barnes’s DEAD SILENCE. This panel would explore this dark mix of genres, including how to write it and providing great examples for everyone’s reading lists.
No matter your age or experience, writers with ADD face unique challenges in creating and completing a project. Authors with lived experience discuss the challenges and triumphs in their careers.
When do you need a picture, and when do you need a thousand words—and when do you need both? How have comics shaped popular narrative themes and readers’ habits? Join us as artists and writers discuss how sequential art elevates storytelling.
Writers with disabilities prop up excellent examples of representation, discuss how to overcome harmful tropes and stereotypes, and explore, the good, the bad, the ugly, and the future of portraying disability in SFF.
This panel will bring together speculative fiction writers who use their craft to illustrate how public systems (the school, prison, and healthcare systems) have failed BIPOC and poor people, and brilliantly reimagine what living in a people-centered society could look like.
Read more about System Failure: How Afro-Futurism, Fantasy, and Horror Help Us REIMAGINE Society
How often are critiques of the romance genre rooted in misogyny? Panelists will discuss the tradition of romance in SFF and explore ways to combat baseless criticism.