I will be at Worldcon 2022/Chicon 8 in Chicago this September! My new novel Number One Fan is launching the day before the con. I’ll be dressed up and at the Hugos rooting for everybody queer. If you see me at the con or at the bar, please say hello! If you see me out at dinner, choose a mysterious gesture or ambiguous expression to shoot me from across the room. If you want books signed, come to my autographing sesh on Sunday or just stop me in my tracks to see my fast and fancy pen. Hope to run into you there!
Below is a breakdown my schedule: each panel and event, date, time and place info, and a quick description. The final overall schedule from Chicon should be forthcoming any day now, but if you want to see me here’s the scoop:
Thursday September 1
- 11:30AM Super Sex! Do superheroes “bone,” as a Tor.com post wondered? Certainly, but it’s not shown a whole lot in TV or in film, no matter what the sexual orientation. Romance blooms, and the occasional film features a love scene, but the actual explorations of how sex would work between super characters tends to take a back seat to violence, explosions, and origin stories. Why is this? What films/TV shows have found a good balance—and which ones leave us wondering where is the love?” Crystal Ballroom B
- 2:30PM Queerness in Comics: Representation vs. Metaphor Queer people have often needed to be satisfied with seeing themselves in media through metaphorical stories, like the Marvel’s mutants. More and more there is a clamor for actual queer people being included in stories. Furthermore there is a push for better stories where real queer characters are present, not just tragic stories. And not just stories focusing on their queerness. Is there still a place for metaphor or should it all be realistic? Michigan 3
- 6:30 Number One Fan Launch! Join me at City Lit Chicago for a launch event for Number One Fan. I’ll be in conversation with Victor Manibo and Nino Cipri, two writers I deeply admire who both have new books out at as well. I’ll be signing copies of N1F, talking books and writing, and taking questions. City Lit Books
Friday September 2
- 10:00AM Table Talk Meg Elison is the author of four novels, including the Philip K. Dick Award winning Book of the Unnamed Midwife. She is also a Locus winner for her 2020 novelette, “The Pill,” as well as a Nebula, Hugo, and Sturgeon finalist. All her work is real gay and she makes her own ink out of walnut gall. Crystal Foyer
- 1:00PM The Resurgence of the Epistolary Novel SFF stories have been told through journals, letters, and other “found” documents as far back as Frankenstein and Dracula, in modern classics such as Butler’s Earthseed, and in recent hits like This Is How You Lose the Time War. Done right, the epistolary format can add a wonderful level of verisimilitude and immersion, but comes with its own perils and pitfalls. We’ll talk about our favorite examples and discuss variations on the theme from passenger pigeons to text messages! Grand Hall K
- 5:30PM Sycorax’s Daughters and Other Witchy Works Linda D. Addison, Kinitra Brooks, and Susana Moore co-edited the groundbreaking anthology of Black horror collection whose title was inspired by the little known witch mother of Caliban in Shakespeare’s The Tempest. But Sycorax is one of a long line of magical women said to be witches. This panel is a chance to rave about our favorite witch novels, stories, and books and will explore witches in speculative fiction. We’ll also discuss the ways in which women’s magic is depicted has evolved over time. Grand Hall J
Saturday September 3
- 10:00AM Adapting SF Shows and Movies Into Comics What are your favorite SF films or TV shows to get the “Graphic Novel Treatment”? Graphic novels have the benefit of not being constrained by an FX budget. Comic adaptations from Aliens to The Expanse to Star Wars have hit the shelves over the last few decades. What were your favorite comics adaptations? How did the comics add to the stories we saw on screen? Let’s explore it! Grand Hall MN
- 1:00PM Themed Readings: Horror Join Meg Elison, Hildur Knútsdóttir, and Daniel Kraus for an hour of stories themed to horrify, but in a good way. Roosevelt 1
- 4:00PM What Happened After My Story Got Optioned Getting your intellectual property optioned in Hollywood is like grabbing the brass ring. But for many authors, it’s hard to reconcile that it may be years, if ever, before the optioned work gets made into a movie or TV show. We’ll hear from authors who’ve been through this particular mill to get their personal stories: What happened? If you made it to the production process, how did the story change? Were you included in the process? Let’s hear it all: good, bad, ugly—and get advice for other authors who may be in the same boat one day. Regency Ballroom D
- 7:00PM A Critical Look at the Final Girl Trope The last character (often but not exclusively female) left in a film, particularly slasher films, traditionally ticks a lot of the same boxes that boil down to her being “purer” than the others. The term has been around since 1992, but the trope has been with us a lot longer and has evolved in recent years. What does this evolution look like? Has calling out the trope (to the point that there’s now a book by Grady Hendrix called The Final Girl Support Group) helped in that evolution? Is it dead as a doornail, or is there some life left? Crystal Ballroom C
Sunday September 4
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- 1:00PM The Fantastic, Speculative, Science-Fictional City Cities are essential parts of speculative fiction, from James Bliss’s Cities in Flight to N.K. Jemisin’s The City We Became, where the city itself is the main character. How has the city been used within the genre, and how has our approach to it changed? What’s different about authors writing from within urban settings, as opposed to describing them from outside? Grand Hall MN
- 4:00PM Autographing Have me sign your books! Autographing
