{"id":5796,"date":"2011-05-30T06:30:45","date_gmt":"2011-05-29T18:30:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=5796"},"modified":"2011-05-28T20:33:11","modified_gmt":"2011-05-28T08:33:11","slug":"context-natcon-2011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2011\/05\/30\/context-natcon-2011\/","title":{"rendered":"ConText: Natcon 2011"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am delighted to be a guest at ConText<\/a>, the\u00a0 32nd<\/sup> New Zealand Science Fiction & Fantasy Convention<\/strong>, which is to be held in Auckland over the Queen\u2019s Birthday long weekend of 3-5 June.
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

The international Guest of Honour is US author Catherine Asaro<\/strong><\/a> who will also be running a pre-Convention writing workshop on 1-2 June. Catherine is also accompanied by her musical collaborator, Donald Wolcott<\/strong><\/a>.\u00a0 The fan Guest of Honour is Lynette Howell<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Other guests include my fellow writers\u00a0 Lyn McConchie<\/strong><\/a> and Russell Kirkpatrick<\/strong><\/a>, Grant Stone<\/strong><\/a> and Ripley Patton<\/strong><\/a>, as well as artists Frank Victoria<\/strong><\/a> and Paul Tobin<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

I am looking forward to meeting old friends and making new, and hope that those of you who are able to be there will say hello. Just to make it a bit easier, here’s my current ConText schedule:<\/p>\n

Friday 3 July, 8 pm:<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Mapping Out Terrain: The Wild Wild World of the Writing Blog<\/strong>
\nWhen XKCD last mapped the internet, literary blogging was a small area of rising ground beside the great plains of Facebook \u2026\u00a0 So why do writers and readers blog? <\/em>How do they go about it? What blogs do the bloggers read? And are there any great taboos? Come hear from enthusiastic bloggers Helen Lowe and Ripley Patton about the ins and outs of their blogging habit.<\/em><\/p>\n

Saturday 4 June:<\/strong><\/h3>\n

12 noon: Panel—<\/strong>Keeping It Real:<\/strong><\/p>\n

“SFF abounds with exotic and fabulous worlds, peopled by aliens and demons, magicians and jedi knights, all dealing with powers and sorceries that take readers to the farthest bounds of the imagination\u2014so how do writers keep their characters and societies believable in the vortex of so much wonder”<\/em><\/p>\n

Panelists: Catherine Asaro, Russell Kirkpatrick, Helen Lowe<\/p>\n

3 pm: Panel—The Grand Symbiosis, History & Fantasy<\/strong>
\nFrom A Game of Thrones & The War of the Roses, to Scott Westerfeld’s Leviathan & World War 1, history and fantasy are clearly enmeshed, not just in terms of the backdrop and the characters who take the stage, but also weapons and armour, battles and military tactics. Hear the panelists discuss some of their favourite historically-influenced works and whether history can be called the dominant influence on the genre.<\/em><\/p>\n

Panelists: Helen Lowe, Steve Litton, Andrew Robins<\/p>\n

4 pm: Kaffeeklatsch<\/strong><\/p>\n

I field a lot of emails and questions about getting an agent and being published overseas, and I thought the kaffeekltsch would be a good opportunity for a little informal Q&A on this–along the lines of “overseas publication, getting an agent, and working with publishers by remote.”<\/em> But if everyone prefers to talk to me about my books, well hey, I am<\/em> an author, so that would be absolutely fine<\/em> as well. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

Sunday 5 June<\/h3>\n

2 pm: Panel—Word and Image<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

A discussion between authors and artists on the creative relationship between writer and artist in speculative fiction, how the idea of the story is given effect through word and image—as well as how word and image spark off each other to generate new creations.<\/em><\/p>\n

Panelists: Helen Lowe, Donald Wolcott, Frank Victoria<\/p>\n

4 pm: Reading<\/strong><\/p>\n

I’ll be sharing this slot with Lyn McConchie, <\/strong>which should give us about half an hour each to read—but just to let you know, as well as my own work, I’ll also be reading from Mary Victoria’s<\/strong><\/a> novels Tymon’s Flight<\/strong><\/em> and Samiha’s Song<\/strong><\/em>, since Mary can’t be present.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

And of course Sunday evening is the convention banquet and Sir Julius Vogel Award ceremony<\/strong>, where The Heir of Night <\/strong><\/em>is up for both the award for Best Novel and Best Professional Artwork, for the interior map. You can see the full list of finalists, in all categories, here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am delighted to be a guest at ConText, the\u00a0 32nd New Zealand Science Fiction & Fantasy Convention, which is to be held in Auckland over the Queen\u2019s Birthday long weekend of 3-5 June. The international Guest of Honour is US author Catherine Asaro who will also be running a pre-Convention writing workshop on 1-2 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-events"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5796"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5796\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5855,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5796\/revisions\/5855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}