Boskone is a regional Science Fiction convention focusing on literature, art, music, and gaming. They're not just SF, though; there's a good amount of Fantasy and some horror representation in panels and author signings.
I won't be doing any readings, signings, or panels, but you can find me hanging out with members of Broad Universe.
Boskone 52 (February 13-15, 2015)
Boston Westin Waterfront hotel
425 Summer Street
Boston, MA 02210
Guests
Steven Brust, Guest of Honor
Charles Lang and Wendy Snow-Lang, Official Artists
Maya and Jeff Bohnhoff, Featured Filkers
Robert K. Wiener, Special Guest
Dave Clements, Science Speaker
Vincent DiFate, NESFA Guest
Author Morven Westfield comments on writing, vampires, the wildlife outside her window, and the writing life.
Showing posts with label boston. Show all posts
Showing posts with label boston. Show all posts
Monday, December 22, 2014
Monday, December 08, 2014
Arisia (January 16 - 19, 2015)
You're probably just getting into the swing of the holidays, but I'm thinking ahead to that quiet time when all the craziness is over and the Science Fiction/Fantasy conventions start up again.
The first on the calendar is Arisia, a volunteer-run convention that covers all aspects of science fiction and fantasy literature and media. I'll be hanging out at the Broad Universe table, signing and selling books, and also participating on two panels:
Panelists discuss religions, holidays and rituals across the genres (Fantasy, Horror, SF) and their creation. What are the differences in belief systems associated with traditional holidays of our world's different cultures as compared to those in genre fiction?
Terri Bruce (moderator), Barbara Chepatis, Greer Gilman, Debra Doyle, Morven Westfield
A discussion of favorite fortune telling methods, their uses, and how they're portrayed in popular culture. Covering tarot cards to hydromancy and everything in-between.
Catherine Kane (moderator), Sean Kane, Anna Erishkigal, Morven Westfield
Boston Westin Waterfront hotel
425 Summer Street
Boston, MA 02210
Author Guest of Honor: N. K. Jemisin
Artist Guest of Honor: Lee Moyer
Fan Guest of Honor: Colette Fozard
The first on the calendar is Arisia, a volunteer-run convention that covers all aspects of science fiction and fantasy literature and media. I'll be hanging out at the Broad Universe table, signing and selling books, and also participating on two panels:
Religions, Holidays, and Rituals in Your Fiction
Sat 10:00 AMPanelists discuss religions, holidays and rituals across the genres (Fantasy, Horror, SF) and their creation. What are the differences in belief systems associated with traditional holidays of our world's different cultures as compared to those in genre fiction?
Terri Bruce (moderator), Barbara Chepatis, Greer Gilman, Debra Doyle, Morven Westfield
Fortune Telling Methods
Sat 10:00 PMA discussion of favorite fortune telling methods, their uses, and how they're portrayed in popular culture. Covering tarot cards to hydromancy and everything in-between.
Catherine Kane (moderator), Sean Kane, Anna Erishkigal, Morven Westfield
Arisia Info
Arisia (January 16 - 19, 2015)Boston Westin Waterfront hotel
425 Summer Street
Boston, MA 02210
Author Guest of Honor: N. K. Jemisin
Artist Guest of Honor: Lee Moyer
Fan Guest of Honor: Colette Fozard
Sunday, March 09, 2014
Podcast of Broad Universe Rapid-Fire Readings at Boskone 2014
The Rapid-Fire Reading (RFR) is one of the oldest events that Broad Universe
presents, usually at science fiction, fantasy, and horror conventions.
It showcases published and in-progress work from members.
If you missed the Rapid-fire Reading at Boskone 51, here's your chance to listen to Broad Universe members read five minutes of their works. Writer Elaine Isaak assumed the duties of emcee, introducing readers and keeping us to our time limits. Writer Justine Graykin recorded the readings and published them in the March edition of the BroadPod podcast.
Here are the bios of the readers who participated. You can download or listen to the podcast on the Broad Universe web site.
Moven Westfield (me) is a fiction writer, technical writer, and occasional podcaster who fuses her love of computing, vampire mythology and modern witchcraft in a series set in the suburbs west of Boston. She has also contributed non-fiction articles on supernatural lore to the Witches’ Almanac since 2006. Morven served as a member of the Motherboard of Broad Universe for two terms and is an active member of the New England Chapter. She is also a long-time member of New England Horror Writers. Like many writers, she keeps a messy office and drinks way too much coffee.
Sandra Barret grew up in New England. She moved to California for a time, but that proved to be too much sun and fun. She’s back in New England with her wife, children, and more pets than are probably legal to own (and sheep…let’s not forget the sheep).
Terri Bruce has been making up adventure stories for as long as she can remember. Like Anne Shirley, she prefers to make people cry rather than laugh, but is happy if she can do either. She produces fantasy and adventure stories from a haunted house in New England where she lives with her husband and three cats. Thereafter, the second book in her AfterLife series will be available May 1, 2014.
Roberta Rogow is know for her Filk (Sciencefiction/fantasy folk songs); she also writes historical mysteries. Her latest book, Murders in Manatas, is a detective story set in an alternate universe, sort of Last of the Mohegans meets Arabian Nights, with a Spanish accent. The second in the series, Mayhem in Manatas will appear later this year.
Anna Erishkigal is an attorney who writes fantasy fiction under a pen-name so her colleagues don’t question whether her legal pleadings are fantasy fiction as well. Much of the law, it turns out, is fantasy fiction. Lawyers just prefer to call it ‘zealously representing your client.’ Seeing the dark underbelly of life makes for some interesting fictional characters. The kind you either want to incarcerate, or run home and write about. In fiction, you can fudge facts without worrying too much about the truth. In legal pleadings, if your client lies to you, you look stupid in front of the judge. At least in fiction, if a character becomes troublesome, you can always kill them off.
If you missed the Rapid-fire Reading at Boskone 51, here's your chance to listen to Broad Universe members read five minutes of their works. Writer Elaine Isaak assumed the duties of emcee, introducing readers and keeping us to our time limits. Writer Justine Graykin recorded the readings and published them in the March edition of the BroadPod podcast.
Here are the bios of the readers who participated. You can download or listen to the podcast on the Broad Universe web site.
Moven Westfield (me) is a fiction writer, technical writer, and occasional podcaster who fuses her love of computing, vampire mythology and modern witchcraft in a series set in the suburbs west of Boston. She has also contributed non-fiction articles on supernatural lore to the Witches’ Almanac since 2006. Morven served as a member of the Motherboard of Broad Universe for two terms and is an active member of the New England Chapter. She is also a long-time member of New England Horror Writers. Like many writers, she keeps a messy office and drinks way too much coffee.
Sandra Barret grew up in New England. She moved to California for a time, but that proved to be too much sun and fun. She’s back in New England with her wife, children, and more pets than are probably legal to own (and sheep…let’s not forget the sheep).
Terri Bruce has been making up adventure stories for as long as she can remember. Like Anne Shirley, she prefers to make people cry rather than laugh, but is happy if she can do either. She produces fantasy and adventure stories from a haunted house in New England where she lives with her husband and three cats. Thereafter, the second book in her AfterLife series will be available May 1, 2014.
Roberta Rogow is know for her Filk (Sciencefiction/fantasy folk songs); she also writes historical mysteries. Her latest book, Murders in Manatas, is a detective story set in an alternate universe, sort of Last of the Mohegans meets Arabian Nights, with a Spanish accent. The second in the series, Mayhem in Manatas will appear later this year.
Anna Erishkigal is an attorney who writes fantasy fiction under a pen-name so her colleagues don’t question whether her legal pleadings are fantasy fiction as well. Much of the law, it turns out, is fantasy fiction. Lawyers just prefer to call it ‘zealously representing your client.’ Seeing the dark underbelly of life makes for some interesting fictional characters. The kind you either want to incarcerate, or run home and write about. In fiction, you can fudge facts without worrying too much about the truth. In legal pleadings, if your client lies to you, you look stupid in front of the judge. At least in fiction, if a character becomes troublesome, you can always kill them off.
Wednesday, February 19, 2014
Boskone 2014 Recap - Part 4 (Sunday)
Sunday
I have never stayed through to the end of Boskone and I thought I might this time, and be able to help tear down, to attend the feedback session, and maybe even check out the Dead Dog Filk, but I had a chance to get a ride home instead of discovering first-hand whether the public transportation was affected by the storm.
After checking out and stowing my luggage in the luggage room, I attended two more panels. My Favorite (or Worst) Story and Why I Wrote It was moderated by Leigh Perry and included Paul G. Tremblay, Dana Cameron, and Charlaine Harris. It's always interesting to hear how writers come to their stories (or stories come to their writers), and this was no exception. Interesting and fun.
The second panel, Having Your Work Adapted to Film was moderated by Melinda Snodgrass and included Charlaine Harris and Steven Sawicki. They discussed what an option is (a placeholder so that someone else doesn't buy the rights, not an agreement to do a film), how the money works (the lower the money, the shorter the term), and why books must by necessity differ from the movie (books are internal, movies are external; books are too long to fit in 90 minutes or, with some, even 3 hours). Very informative, well-explained, and well-moderated.
Where Was I Supposed to Be?
Before I wrap up my recap, let me mention Boskone's new guide application. Based on open-source software called KonOpas, it runs on a browser and - a biggie for me - can even show the schedule when you're not connected to the internet. Because it runs on a browser, it doesn't matter whether your smartphone is an iPhone, an Android phone, or a Windows phone; you just open a browser and go to boskone.org/guide. You can select the panels that you want to attend and they will appear in a chronological list under MyCon.
One of my friends said he actually preferred it over Guidebook, the app that Boskone used last year (and Arisia used this year). I have only two minor complaints: I don't think there's a way to add your own events (for example, going out to dinner or staffing the Broad Universe table) and I don't know how to pronounce KonOpas. Kudos to the team who implemented it for Boskone! (Boskone lists them as Eemeli Aro, Henry Balen and Tim Szczesuil).
So How Was the Interview with the Guest of Honor?
When I first started going to cons, I remember hearing "You should get to the room early. GOH events are always packed." I didn't, and after standing outside the room trying to listen to the well-modulated but under-amplified voice inside for a few minutes, I walked away. I forget who it was or where it was, but I felt that I had really missed something of great import, like going to Paris and missing the Louvre or La Tour Eiffel or the Catacombs.
I know people who plan their whole convention around the GOH events. I know others who avoid them because they can be too crowded. And then there are others like me, who forget to put them on their schedule and then do things like sign up for table duty because there's an empty slot (duh! I wonder why!) or go get lunch because there finally isn't a line (duh, again!)
So maybe next year the first thing I do when looking at the schedule using KonOpas will be to select the GOH events. I don't need to plan my con around them, but at least I'll remember they're there.
I have never stayed through to the end of Boskone and I thought I might this time, and be able to help tear down, to attend the feedback session, and maybe even check out the Dead Dog Filk, but I had a chance to get a ride home instead of discovering first-hand whether the public transportation was affected by the storm.
After checking out and stowing my luggage in the luggage room, I attended two more panels. My Favorite (or Worst) Story and Why I Wrote It was moderated by Leigh Perry and included Paul G. Tremblay, Dana Cameron, and Charlaine Harris. It's always interesting to hear how writers come to their stories (or stories come to their writers), and this was no exception. Interesting and fun.
The second panel, Having Your Work Adapted to Film was moderated by Melinda Snodgrass and included Charlaine Harris and Steven Sawicki. They discussed what an option is (a placeholder so that someone else doesn't buy the rights, not an agreement to do a film), how the money works (the lower the money, the shorter the term), and why books must by necessity differ from the movie (books are internal, movies are external; books are too long to fit in 90 minutes or, with some, even 3 hours). Very informative, well-explained, and well-moderated.
Where Was I Supposed to Be?
Before I wrap up my recap, let me mention Boskone's new guide application. Based on open-source software called KonOpas, it runs on a browser and - a biggie for me - can even show the schedule when you're not connected to the internet. Because it runs on a browser, it doesn't matter whether your smartphone is an iPhone, an Android phone, or a Windows phone; you just open a browser and go to boskone.org/guide. You can select the panels that you want to attend and they will appear in a chronological list under MyCon.
One of my friends said he actually preferred it over Guidebook, the app that Boskone used last year (and Arisia used this year). I have only two minor complaints: I don't think there's a way to add your own events (for example, going out to dinner or staffing the Broad Universe table) and I don't know how to pronounce KonOpas. Kudos to the team who implemented it for Boskone! (Boskone lists them as Eemeli Aro, Henry Balen and Tim Szczesuil).
So How Was the Interview with the Guest of Honor?
When I first started going to cons, I remember hearing "You should get to the room early. GOH events are always packed." I didn't, and after standing outside the room trying to listen to the well-modulated but under-amplified voice inside for a few minutes, I walked away. I forget who it was or where it was, but I felt that I had really missed something of great import, like going to Paris and missing the Louvre or La Tour Eiffel or the Catacombs.
I know people who plan their whole convention around the GOH events. I know others who avoid them because they can be too crowded. And then there are others like me, who forget to put them on their schedule and then do things like sign up for table duty because there's an empty slot (duh! I wonder why!) or go get lunch because there finally isn't a line (duh, again!)
So maybe next year the first thing I do when looking at the schedule using KonOpas will be to select the GOH events. I don't need to plan my con around them, but at least I'll remember they're there.
Thursday, February 13, 2014
Broad Universe Events at Boskone (in Boston, MA) this Coming Weekend
In a January 30 article, Boston magazine listed Boskone in its Culture Calendar as one of its seven "must-see arts and entertainment events in February
2014."
It's not surprising. After all, Boskone has been going now for 51 years. This year's lineup includes Guest of Honor Seanan McGuire/Mira Grant, Official Artist David Palumbo, Special Guest Ginjer Buchanan, Featured Filker Bill Roper, Hal Clement Science Speaker Bill Higgins, and NESFA Press Guest Jane Yolen.
The New England Chapter of Broad Universe, an international non-profit organization dedicated to promoting, encouraging, honoring, and celebrating women writers and editors in science fiction, fantasy, horror and other speculative genres, will have a table in the Dealers' Room and will present a Rapid-Fire reading.
What's a Rapid-Fire Reading? "The Rapid Fire Reading (RFR) is one of the oldest events Broad Universe holds. Usually at science fiction, fantasy, and horror conventions but branching out to other venues, too, the RFR showcases snippets of published and in-progress work from members for the audience to enjoy." Source: Broad Universe web page
The RFR will be on Saturday, February 15, at 6 pm in Burroughs. Readers include Sandra Barret, Terri Bruce, Anna Erishkigal, Justine Graykin, Morven Westfield, Phoebe Wray, Jill Shultz, and Roberta Rogow.
Other members who will be attending, some presenting on panels, include
Elaine Isaak
Ellen Larson
Jennifer Pelland
It's not surprising. After all, Boskone has been going now for 51 years. This year's lineup includes Guest of Honor Seanan McGuire/Mira Grant, Official Artist David Palumbo, Special Guest Ginjer Buchanan, Featured Filker Bill Roper, Hal Clement Science Speaker Bill Higgins, and NESFA Press Guest Jane Yolen.
The New England Chapter of Broad Universe, an international non-profit organization dedicated to promoting, encouraging, honoring, and celebrating women writers and editors in science fiction, fantasy, horror and other speculative genres, will have a table in the Dealers' Room and will present a Rapid-Fire reading.
What's a Rapid-Fire Reading? "The Rapid Fire Reading (RFR) is one of the oldest events Broad Universe holds. Usually at science fiction, fantasy, and horror conventions but branching out to other venues, too, the RFR showcases snippets of published and in-progress work from members for the audience to enjoy." Source: Broad Universe web page
The RFR will be on Saturday, February 15, at 6 pm in Burroughs. Readers include Sandra Barret, Terri Bruce, Anna Erishkigal, Justine Graykin, Morven Westfield, Phoebe Wray, Jill Shultz, and Roberta Rogow.
Other members who will be attending, some presenting on panels, include
Elaine Isaak
Ellen Larson
Jennifer Pelland
Sunday, December 29, 2013
Arisia and Boskone: How New England Genre Writers Survive the Darkest Months
Though December has the shortest day of the year, January and February typically have the coldest weather.
Fortunately, those of us in New England who love science fiction, fantasy, horror, or just want to learn more about writing in those genres, have two Science Fiction conventions to keep us warm -- and sane.
I'll be attending both this year (weather willing).
Arisia (January 17-20, 2014)
Westin Waterfront
425 Summer Street
Boston, MA 02210
Arisia is a volunteer-run convention that covers all aspects of science fiction and fantasy literature and media.
I'll be hanging out at the Broad Universe table, signing and selling books. Stop by and say hello.
Boskone 51 (February 14-16)
Westin Waterfront
425 Summer Street
Boston, MA 02210
Boskone is a regional Science Fiction convention focusing on literature, art, music, and gaming. They're not just SF, though; there's a good amount of Fantasy and some horror representation in panels and author signings.
Once again, I won't be doing any readings, signings, or panels, but you can find me hanging out with members of Broad Universe.
Fortunately, those of us in New England who love science fiction, fantasy, horror, or just want to learn more about writing in those genres, have two Science Fiction conventions to keep us warm -- and sane.
I'll be attending both this year (weather willing).
Arisia (January 17-20, 2014)
Westin Waterfront
425 Summer Street
Boston, MA 02210
Arisia is a volunteer-run convention that covers all aspects of science fiction and fantasy literature and media.
I'll be hanging out at the Broad Universe table, signing and selling books. Stop by and say hello.
Boskone 51 (February 14-16)
Westin Waterfront
425 Summer Street
Boston, MA 02210
Boskone is a regional Science Fiction convention focusing on literature, art, music, and gaming. They're not just SF, though; there's a good amount of Fantasy and some horror representation in panels and author signings.
Once again, I won't be doing any readings, signings, or panels, but you can find me hanging out with members of Broad Universe.
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