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Boskone 45 Schedule

Here's my schedule, and I hope to see some of you in Boston! If the panel has an "M" next to my name, it means I'm the moderator.

Friday  5pm        Flash for Fanboys -- Appreciating the Flashman Stories
     Darlene Marshall
     Ernest Lilley   (M)
 Brigadier-General Sir Harry Flashman (1822-1915) was a debauched, bullying coward who became acclaimed for heroism on every battlefield of the 19th century. In twelve delightfully cynical books by George McDonald Fraser, who died last month, Flashman goes everywhere and meets everybody from Charles Darwin to Sherlock Holmes, Karl Marx to Kit Carson. Why do the Flashman tales appeal to our fanboys? Despite (or because of) Flashman's caddishness, can fangirls enjoy them too? Do the stories qualify as true Tim Powers-style secret histories? What similarities does Flashy share with genre protagonists such as Dominic Flandry, Malcolm Reynolds, Miles Vorkosigan, or Vlad Taltos?

Friday  9pm        Writing Erotica That Appeals to Most Sexes
     Darlene Marshall   (M)
     Beth Bernobich
     Teresa Nielsen Hayden
     Cecilia Tan
 Can you craft your prose to appeal simultaneously to audiences with differing erotic tastes? Do you keep several different readers in mind, take care to alternate viewpoint characters, or focus-group your product? Have Samuel R. Delany and Jacqueline Carey evaded the problem just by writing incredibly well about their chosen sexual territories? What can we learn from their or other successful
approaches?

Saturday11am       A Universally Acknowledged Truth
     Darlene Marshall
     Beth Bernobich
     Esther Friesner
     Beth Meacham   (M)
     Teresa Nielsen Hayden
 Almost two centuries after her death, Jane Austen is more popular than ever. We see film after film of her novels, read books about her life, and encounter a surprising number of works featuring her characters, or even herself. In recent years, SF authors including S. N. Dyer, Karen Joy Fowler, and John Kessel have written stories entwined with her world and words. What is the allure? Why do so many SF writers and fans love Jane Austen?

Saturday12noon     The Storyteller's Bowl: Making Money Off the Web
     Darlene Marshall   (M)
     MaryAnn Johanson
     Sharon Lee
     Lawrence Watt-Evans
     Trish Wilson
 Old idea, new technology: some writers are cutting out the middleman and publishing straight to the web via the "storyteller's bowl" model. In this arrangement, a chapter is posted once subscriptions reach a pre-set $um. Is this model good for the long term? Is it always successful? Should you try it for your next project?

Saturday1:30pm     Reading (0.5 hrs)
     Darlene Marshall

Saturday4pm        Kaffeeklatsch


Sunday  11am       Will 2008 be the Year When eBooks Made It?
     Darlene Marshall   (M)
     Ernest Lilley
     Charles Stross
 Is this the year when eBooks stopped being the future and started being now? What is the state of the art? What issues remain to prevent wide adoption? Are they primarily technological, legal, or matters of preference? If 2008 isn't the year, just what is still needed for eBooks to be a success?

Sunday  12noon     Autographing

Comments

Cecilia Tan said…
Darlene! Cecilia Tan here. Looking forward to meeting you at Boskone! It should be quite a good panel with four sharp women on it!
3:12 PM
Darlene Marshall said…
I'm looking forward to it as well. Should be a lively discussion, and I'm excited about the line-up of talent!
8:39 AM
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