The Readercon committee has just posted the final program for the 19th iteration of what always turns out to be my favorite convention of the year. (I haven’t missed one yet.) I expect the sharply focused panel descriptions to spark lively discussions as usual.

You can find my photographs from last year here, and I look forward to seeing you there this year!

Here’s where you’ll be able to find me:

Friday, July 18 at 3:00 p.m.
Writers’ Groups and Writers: A Match Made in Heaven or Hell?
Alaya Dawn Johnson and Matthew Kressel (co-leaders) with Richard Chwedyk, F. Brett Cox, Michael J. Daley, Scott Edelman, Andrea Hairston, Kay Kenyon, Barbara Krasnoff, Resa Nelson, Jennifer Pelland, Luc Reid, Paul Tremblay, et al.
Writers groups: some writers swear by them, others swear at them. Many writers consider critiques from their writers’ group an invaluable part of the submission process. Others believe that writers’ groups tend to dilute individual style, tending toward “groupthink.” Our leaders are members of Altered Fluid, a Manhattan-based writer’s group that has met regularly since 2001.

Saturday, July 19 at 1:00 p.m.
Kaffeeklatsche
Scott Edelman; Matthew Kressel

Sunday July 20 at 10:00 a.m.
I’m Not Terse, I’m Just Edited That Way
Richard Chwedyk, Lucy Corin, Ron Drummond, Scott Edelman, Barry N. Malzberg, Kathryn Morrow (M)
We now know that Raymond Carver’s famously minimalist style was essentially the invention of his editor Gordon Lish, and plans are underway to publish the much longer original versions of his stories, which Carver in some ways preferred. Of course, the sf world has already seen this happen with the novels of Robert A. Heinlein. Competing versions challenge our assumptions about the identity of authorship (or at least authorial style) and the nature and integrity of texts. But the upheaval may be even bigger than that. It’s easy to imagine a day when every reader could use their e-book software to create their own half-terse, half-discursive version of each of Heinlein’s novels and Carver’s short stories. Well, there goes the commonality of the reading experience, too! What’s a writer and reader to do?

Sunday, July 20 at 11:00 a.m.
Reading
Scott Edelman reads his story “A Very Private Tour of a Very Public Museum” from the upcoming summer issue of Postscripts.

Sunday, July 20 at 1:00 p.m.
Finding Hamster Huey’s Head: The Nature of the Childhood Favorite Story
Shira Daemon (L), Sarah Beth Durst, Scott Edelman, Louise Marley, Ann Tonsor Zeddies
Children very often like to hear the same story over and over again, often even insisting on a verbatim rendition (a phenomenon documented wonderfully by Bill Watterson in “Calvin and Hobbes”). Why? Is it simply a comfort mechanism, or do they get more from each hearing? Is this phenomenon related to listening to the same piece of music again and again? What relationship does it have to re-reading favorite stories as an adult?