Tag: Chris Kennedy

Dragon Con Atlanta 2020

Dragon Con Atlanta 2020

Conference Recap Dragon Con Atlanta 2020

Introduction

They held Dragon Con Atlanta 2020 from September 3 to 7, 2020. This year with Covid-19, it was a virtual conference. I viewed 5 panels, 1 interview, and 2 Dragon Con updates. Three tracks could be viewed at the same time for 24 hours a day from 6:30 PM Thursday to 3:30 PM Monday. The tracks were the main track, a fan track, and a classic track (replays of taped panels from 2008 to 2019). It was a great opportunity for me because Atlanta is far away from me, and I am not likely to attend this con in person.

The Logo for Dragon Con Atlanta 2020.

Dragon Con Atlanta 2020

This is a link to Dragon Con’s website.

https://www.dragoncon.org/

Summary

Friday, September 4th, at 11 PM

Games of Thrones panel from 2015 on the Classic Track:

The panel’s moderator was Marc Lee. The panelists were actors from the Game of Thrones show Kristian Nairn (Hodor), Finn Jones (Loras Tyrell), and Julian Glover (Grand Maester Pycelle).

Kristian talked about filming in Iceland, Finn talked about performing a gay scene on his first day of shooting, and Julian talked about always playing the villain in movies, so he was never in the sequels.

I thought it was a fun panel and the panelists were engaging.

Saturday, September 5th, at 1 PM

John Scalzi: Tour of an Author’s Life (and Kitchen), an interview with John Scalzi on the Main Track:

This was a taped interview by Brian Robertson of author John Scalzi. He interviewed Scalzi by remote from each of their homes. The interview was done in three parts.

First, John Scalzi talked about his career in his office. He started as a journalist and posted his work in progress on his blog. That novel was Old Man’s War and the success of that book launched his career as a novelist. He considers it an accidental career.

The second part of the interview was from John Scalzi’s basement. He keeps his musical instruments down there. Playing music is a release for him between writing.

The last part of the interview was from John Scalzi’s kitchen. He enjoys making burritos with anything goes. The burrito he made here featured two-day-old lasagna and parmesan dip. He finished the interview mentioning that his latest novel was nominated for the Dragon Award for Science Fiction Novel.

John Scalzi’s latest novel is The Last Emperox. It is the third and final book of the Interdependency Trilogy and was released on April 14, 2020. This is the link to the Goodreads page.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38322550-the-last-emperox

The panel started with 298 attendees, increased to 335 attendees at 1:10 PM, and ended with 361 attendees at the end of the interview.

I thought it was a great interview. I’ve seen John Scalzi many times and he is always interesting and engaging.

Saturday, September 5th, at 5 PM

Anne McCaffrey and Todd McCaffrey panel from 2008 on the Classic Track:

The beginning of the panel was Todd interviewing his mother Anne and the rest of the panel was questions from the audience. She said she got inspired to write because she needed money for her three small kids at home. Anne wrote the Dragonriders of Pern series which became more popular with the success of Harry Potter.

She said that sometimes it is the names that inspire the story other times it is the characters. Geology fascinated her and cartography was important to her novels. She moved to Ireland and horses were important to her. At one point he owned 23 horses.

It was interesting to see this panel from 2008. Anne McCaffrey is one of my favorite authors.

The panel started with 208 attendees.

Sunday, September 6th, at 3 PM

Perseverance – Mars 2020 panel with Dr. Sarah Milkovich and Kim Steadman on the Fan Track:

This was a slideshow presentation with two engineers of the surface operation for the Perseverance rover that launched to Mars on July 30, 2020. The presentation was filmed on July 31, 2020. They plan to land the probe at Jezero Crater on February 18, 2021. It was built by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) managed for NASA by the California Institute of Technology. The mission is to seek signs of ancient life at an ancient river delta.

The engineers discussed the instruments on the rover. The rover will take readings and collect 30 samples at various locations. A second mission will collect the samples and launch them to orbit. A third mission will collect the samples and return them to earth.

These are links to the mission briefing on the JPL website and the NASA website.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/mars-2020-perseverance-rover/

https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/

This is a projected photo of the rover on Mars.

I thought it was a great presentation. I hope the rover has a safe landing next year.

Sunday, September 6th, at 6 PM

The 2020 Dragon Awards announced by Cooper Andrews on the Main Track:

The 2020 Dragon Awards were announced. There are 15 categories including gaming, literature, and visual medium. There were nominees in each category and the winners were announced in this half-hour presentation. The last award was for the Science Fiction novel. John Scalzi, the writing Guest of Honor, won for his novel The Last Emperox.

Sunday, September 6th, at 6:30 PM

The Dragon Con Update with Will and Bee:

Will and Bee interviewed Leigh and Jon. Leigh and Jon conduct interviews of the leaders of different tracks at the conference. They want to bring attention to the behind the scenes people at the con. They post the interviews at the unique geek.

https://theuniquegeek.com/

The Dragon Con update finished with a heck with Beth about the Fan Interactions Report. She showed pictures from four hashtags that they used.

Monday, September 6th, at 9 AM

Award-Winning and Best-selling Authors panel on the Fan Track:

Bill Fawcett was the Moderator of the panel. The panel was Tasmin Silver (writes urban fantasy and historical fantasy), Robert Sawyer (his most recent novel is the alternate history, The Oppenheimer Alternative), Jody Lynn Nye (wrote in the Myth Adventures series and co-wrote with Anne McCaffery), and John Scalzi (Dragon Con Writing Guest of Honor and winner of the Dragon Award for Science Fiction Novel, for the Last Emperox).

Bill asked the panel a series of questions. The main point was what makes a novel an award winner versus a best-seller. Robert’s answer was a best seller needs a likable protagonist while an award winner might have an unlikeable protagonist. John answered that best-sellers are marketable books with the goal to entertain, while award winners have a bold view and are written for writers.

Other questions included are best sellers a product of the time they are read, social media advice, and advice for new writers.

I thought that all four writers gave insightful answers to the moderator’s questions. I wish the had more time to talk.

Monday, September 6th, at 1 PM

Let’s Build a World panel on the Fan Track:

Michael G. Williams was the Moderator of the panel. The panel was Cecilia Dominic (writes urban fantasy and steampunk), Charles E. Gannon (writes hard SF and Alternate history), and Chris Kennedy (SF author, publisher, and editor).

The panel was about how writers build their worlds. The first question was about how the authors created their setting. The second question was about the most important decision to make in world-building. What do you most hate about world-building? Is it characters first or later when you are designing a setting? Is believability important to you?

They played an exercise on world-building picking four answers to important questions. They picked religion (ancestor worship that is not based on reality), family (with gender fluidity), social conformity (the worst thing to them is to be shunned), and tech (low tech).

I thought the plan was interesting especially how the writers completed the world-building exercise.

Recommendation – Conclusion

Virtual Dragon Con Atlanta 2020 was a great experience. Viewing the virtual con was nice since I would not have made it to Atlanta this year. I wasn’t sure what to expect. I checked out a few presentations Friday evening to see how it was. Before the Game of Thrones panel, I looked at the end of Improvised Dungeons and Dragons. The panelists took a humorous take on a random D & D game. What I saw was funny. I wish I had seen the whole panel. My star of the con was John Scalzi. Other highlights were the Let’s Build a World panel and the Mars 2020 presentation. I hope to attend Dragon Con sometime in the future.

Links

This is my post for a similar conference that I attended in person in January 2020.

I attended the SF conference ConFusion in Detroit, Michigan from January 16 to 19, 2020. I attended four panels, two readings, and one interview. The theme of the con was How to Train Your ConFusion, based on the movie, How to Train Your Dragon. My star of the con was John Scalzi. He gave an excellent reading of Chapter Two of his upcoming book named The Last Emperox. My other highlights were Kameron Hurley’s interview and the lecture on Edible Insects and Human Evolution. I’ll be back next year.

Conference Recap ConFusion Detroit 2020

Confluence 2016 Conference

The Confluence 2016 Conference.

I attended the Confluence 2016 Conference.

Introduction

The Confluence 2016 Conference was held on from July 29 to July 31, 2016, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

I attended the Confluence 2016 Conference on July 30 and July 31, 2016. I drove from Cleveland, Ohio to the conference that was located at the Sheraton Pittsburgh Airport Hotel. The conference is run by the Parsec organization of Pittsburgh. It is a literary science fiction, fantasy, and horror conference. The events included panels, readings, interviews, writing workshops, and filk concerts. I was focused on attending as many panels as I possibly could on Saturday and Sunday. I attended 15 panels and the U.S.S. Improvise improv sketch comedy routine.

http://parsec-sff.org/confluence/

Saturday: July 30, 2016

Ancient Wonders Panel

Ancient Wonders was a talk about the earliest science fiction and fantasy writings.

Communicating with Aliens Panel

Communicating with Aliens was a talk about how communicating with aliens can be written about in science fiction. The nature of determining intelligence is not always clear. How the author describes the communication is determined by if humans have gone to find the intelligent life or the intelligent life has found humans on earth.

The Basics of Ancient Warfare Lecture

Next, Timons Esaias gave an interesting lecture on The Basics of Ancient Warfare. He began talking about local soldiers using their locally available weapons. Professional armies were a threat to the local king, so wars were fought by mercenaries, who were paid and then dismissed after the war was over. This did not change until the development of the heavy infantry of the Greeks, which was called the phalanx. There are three types of warriors; on foot, on animals, and on a ship. Other topics in the talk were the Welsh longbow, Roman artillery, and the Huns and Visigoths use of horses to defeat the Romans.

The How (Not) to Sabotage Your Writing Panel

How (Not) to Sabotage Your Writing was a panel where the panelists gave their unique advice on how they persevered in becoming writers. That advice included; be okay with criticism, collaborate with your editor, engage your audience, know your tools as a writer, and take the time to learn to be a better writer.

Alien Worlds and Races Panel

In the Alien Worlds and Races panel, the panelists talked about they designed alien lifeforms. The P.E.R.S.I.A. acronym for determining a race’s culture was discussed. It stands for political, economic, religious, social, intellectual, and artistic institutions.

What the U.S. Navy Taught me About Starfleet Lecture

Christopher Weuve gave a lecture on What the U.S. Navy Taught Me About Starfleet. He started with giving three points about the U.S. Navy. First point, the history of the U.S. Navy starts with battleships. The torpedo and then the airplane drastically changed naval warfare. Second point, a surface ship uses hiding to avoid enemies. Third point, hydrodynamics affects the ship’s maximum speed. The, he gave three points about Starfleet. First, Starfleet is really not like the navy. It is more like the coast guard because it has multiple missions including law enforcement. Second, Starfleet has a really hard problem. Space is really big. The ships do not have shore support and there is no international law in space. Third, Starfleet has it easy because no one is incompetent and stuff doesn’t break. A final observation was that rank is not a job description.

Promoting Your Writing Panel

The next panel explored how you should be Promoting Your Writing. The panel advises starting promoting a book at least six months before it comes out. The rule of thumb is to spend 80% of your time writing and 20% on marketing. The work does not end when you turn in the manuscript. You are your brand. Plan to attend cons, do readings at bookstores and libraries, participate in anthologies, and also use targeted Facebook and Twitter ads. Create publicity by having a newsletter, an author’s website, a mailing list, a blog, make guest posts on other blogs, and create podcasts.

Mapping the Fantastic Panel

Mapping the Fantastic was about how authors invent worlds that make spatial sense. A map is a perception. Geography dictates much about the plot of a story.

U.S.S Improvise Sketch Comedy Show

The only event at this time was held in the ballroom, where many conference goers arrived to see the sketch comedy show called U.S.S Improvise. I thought that the cast was engaging and funny. Most of their riffs were from Star Trek: The Original Series and Star Trek: The Next Generation. It was a welcome change to hearing seven panels and lectures.

Writing Alternative History Panel

The next panel described how they were Writing Alternate History. It’s important to do the research. There are many pivotal historical events, when changed for fiction lead to interesting stories.

Game of Thrones Panel

The last panel I went to on Saturday was on Game of Thrones. The moderator was unable to attend, so the audience became the panel. We debated different topics on the books and the HBO show. I was exhausted at the end of the day, so I went home after the abbreviated discussion.

Sunday: July 31, 2016

The Crystal Palace Exhibition of 1851 lecture

The first lecture on Sunday was on The Crystal Palace Exhibition of 1851 presented by Timons Esaias. The Industrial Revolution led to Iron, Steel, the Steam Engine, and the Railroad Engine. In 1851, an exhibition was planned to showcase the technology of the times. Joseph Paxton designed a huge modular greenhouse to hold the exhibit in Hyde Park in London, England. It was called the Crystal Palace. The event brought people, technology, and ideas from all over the world. In effect, the exhibition was the first World’s Fair.

Indistinguishable from Magic Panel

The next panel asked when do advanced technologies become Indistinguishable From Magic? This panel takes its premise from Arthur C. Clarke’s Third Law, which states that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. In other words it was suggested that magic is technology that we do not understand yet.

Near Term Technology Panel

The panelists described what Near Term Technology is available.

Getting There Panel

The next topic was on the technology of space propulsion called Getting There. In non-manned flight laser propelled sails are being researched. The biggest change in manned flight has been the beginning of commercial means of getting to space. In the NASA approach, failure must be avoided because failure leads to review boards. Commercial flight companies are willing to fail because eventual success will pay off well. Nuclear rockets are needed now, electro propulsion should be seen in the near term, and wormhole technology is a long term option.

The Economics of Self-Publishing Panel

The last scheduled panel was on The Economics of Self-Publishing. All four of the panelists have self-published and related their experiences to the audience. Authors who self-publish must design, edit, publish, and market their work. They suggest that it is vital that the author spends money on a professional editor. Book covers sell the product, so money spent on a cover designer is necessary to promote the book. Purchase multiple ISBN codes, one for each format used such as hardcover, paperback, e-book, and audiobook.

Self-publishing is easier now because of print on demand. Self-published authors no longer must pay for a print run of books and then sell them one by one. There are two main print-on-demand formats, Ingram-spark and Createspace (An Amazon Company). I was inspired so much by the panel that I purchased a book from the panel’s moderator, Chris Kennedy. The book is called Self-Publishing for Profit. He details how he became a best-selling self-publishing author.

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Wrap-up

I had a great time at the Confluence 2016 Conference. It the first conference that I have ever attended. I learned many things and was glad that I made the time to take the trip. I plan to go to the next Confluence. It is scheduled for August 4 to August 6, 2017.

Links

A similar Conference to the Confluence 2016 Conference was the Western Reserve Writers Conference 2016. Winter Fiction Fest is sponsored by Literary Cleveland while the Cuyahoga County Public Library sponsors a similar event called the Western Reserve Writers Conference 2016.

This is my recap for the Western Reserve Writers Conference 2016 on September 24, 2016. It was located at the South Euclid-Lyndhurst branch of the Cuyahoga County Public Library at the new William N. Skirball writer’s center which is located at the branch. It was a one-day event with an introduction, a keynote speaker, three breakout sessions, and one Q & A panel.

Western Reserve Writers Conference