Nine Worlds Schedule

[la_marquise]

The next month is going to be hugely busy, with 4 cons and a trip to France. It's going to be fun, too, or so I hope. And it starts tomorrow with Nine Worlds at Heathrow.

Here's my schedule: Friday 15.15 - 16.30
Interrogating the Old Shows

A cultural critique of scifi shows pre 2000, examining where episodes or, potentially, whole shows of old favourites (Blakes 7, Old Battlestar, among others), might have become "unwatchable" to a new generation of fans due to their approach to characters' gender, ethnicity or sexual orientation.

Friday 17.00-18.15
Nine Fanwork Recs

Nine people tell us about their favourite fanwork

Nine speakers, nine favourite fanworks! A fast-paced TED-style set of seven-minute presentations, in which nine people talk about their favourite fanwork -- why they love it, why they recommend it, what makes it stand out from other works by the same creator, whether it works without knowledge of canon ... As with last year's 'Nine Myths About Fanfic', participants will be timed by a samba-dancing green robot. We're sorry.


Saturday 15.15-16.30

Slash & feminism

Is slash inherently misogynist, feminist or something else?

Male characters in canon are often more rounded, three-dimensional and credible than female characters. When we write M/M slash, are we reinforcing popular culture's bias towards male characters, or are we reclaiming them? The panel examine arguments for and against slash as a feminist activity, and talk about gender-bending, femslash and the marginalisation of female characters.


Saturday 17.00-18.15

Beta-reading and teaching writing in fandom

How to be a better beta

Beta-reading is an art as well as a skill, and betas often go well beyond editing text. They can also be cheerleaders, idea-generators, writing teachers, and even co-authors. The panel discuss effective beta-reading and feedback techniques, and follow up with an interactive workshop on a piece of fanfiction.

Comments

[anna-wing.livejournal.com]

Oh yes. The number of Tolkien fic writers who have complained to me that it is impossible, impossible, that elves did not practice sex-based social-role differentiation, even if Tolkien said so, would (perhaps not) astound you. Or the ones who claim that Eowyn is doomed to being a powerless potterer around the garden, as if being number two consort in the incipient Western Empire is going to be an unimportant role.

I noticed some of that in your "The Grass King's Concubine" too.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

WorldBelow reflects WorldAbove in that book: trying to shape it differently made it really, really hard to make clear to readers, given it was funneled through external (or ferret) viewpoints. But I do struggle with this myself, I admit.

[anna-wing.livejournal.com]

It was less obvious in that book than in "Living With Ghosts", where all the major female characters died, and the ones with power were undercut by their personal relationship failures (Yvelliane) and personal weakness(Quenfrida). Though I admit that the ferret women (portraying women as childish or animal being of course also a common way of denying them the right to strive for power on equal terms with men) were rather striking in that respect.

I actually found "The Grass King's Concubine" more interesting as a look at colonialism, through Marcellan and his attempts to change WorldBelow to suit his own ideas of what was right or proper.