#boskone

It’s that time again: Boskone 63 will be taking place next weekend, February 13th to 15th, in Boston Massachusetts at the Westin Boston Seaport Distict!! This will be my third year running joining Boskone in the dealer’s room, and I couldn’t be more excited, especially because the artist guest-of-honor is Charles Urbach, whose work I’ve loved since I was hanging out annual in the Gencon art show starting 20+ years ago. Greg Cox, Stefan Rudnicki, and many other awesome folks will also be there – and I hope you’ll be there as well!

I have my Boskone schedule!

Boskone is a traditional science fiction & fantasy convention held in Boston, Massachusetts over President’s Day weekend (February 14-16 this year). It’s also the convention I grew up at (literally—I was 12 when I attended the first time), so I have a great fondness for it.

My schedule is very varied this year, but here’s where you can find me during the convention.

Friday 8:30pm – Harbor III – Fandom 2.0: Being a Good Fan Saturday 11:00am – Marina 1 – Taekwondo (start the day kicking!) 4:00pm – Galleria-Dragonslair – Let’s All Play the Picture Game 5:30pm – Burroughs – Representation in Speculative Fiction Matters Sunday 10:00 am – Marina 1 – Taekwondo (start the day kicking!) 2:00 pm – Independence – Reading

I’m on two traditional panels, running two taekwondo sessions (all ages from novice to black belts welcome!), doing a reading, and running the picture game (picture prompts for writing!) in Dragonslair.

If I’m not on programming, I’ll either be hanging with my family, hunting food (it’s kind of a requirement), or sitting at the Duck Prints Press table in the Dealers’ Room.

Went to Boskone for the first time as Jessica Jones this weekend! It’s not as much of a cosplay-centric con, so I think one of my more casual cosplays was the right fit. (Shout out to the one person who clocked it! 😅)

I love it when I dig out an old collectible and can find no reference to it at all on the internet.

Hello! I thought some of you here might be interested in an upcoming virtual appearance I have scheduled. I’m going to be a panelist at a convention called Boskone. It’s virtual this year so there’s a decreased membership fee. It’s the weekend of February 12-14 and the cost is $25 which gets you into a whole slew of things. Details of the con can be found here: boskone.org

My schedule is as follows: 

The Transformative Power of Women in Horror 12 Feb 2021, Friday 5 pm EST

No longer the damsels in distress, nor the virginal "final girls," women in horror have come a long way. We are finally seeing an array of female characters and female-centric stories that have shattered the overused stereotypes that have defined women in horror for so long. With more dynamic female characters taking center stage, more female authors in print, and more gender savvy storylines being written, how has the transformation of women in horror impacted the genre itself? How has the landscape changed, affording us new creative opportunities? And what has been the effect on the power dynamic as it pertains to women, and the power of representation free from formulaic tropes. With Tonia Ransom (NIGHTLIGHT Podcast), Nicole Givens Kurtz (Mocha Memoirs Press), John Langan, Paul Tremblay, Jennifer Williams (M) 

Lovecraft Country 12 Feb 2021, Friday 8 pm EST

HBO’s TV series starts with a young Black man’s journey across a Stygian 1950s America. Why examine often-open racism through the prism of a secret history;  in a universe spawned by famously racist writer H. P. Lovecraft? Can the show be usefully compared to The Watchmen or Get Out? What is it getting right or doing differently that’s jolting the horror genre? Why is it catching fire?With Nicole Givens Kurtz (Mocha Memoirs Press), Faye Ringel, Gerald L. Coleman, Jennifer Williams, Tonia Ransom (NIGHTLIGHT Podcast) (M)

The Exorcist (1971 book)13 Feb 2021, Saturday 2:30 pm EST

Fifty years ago, the New York Times reassured readers that William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist was a different horror novel: "well researched [and] written in a literate style." The research holds up (you can see the demon’s statue in the Louvre). Is the prose still propulsive? Can you tell that Blatty was a screenwriter first? Today, would the story center on the possessed girl, not her priestly saviors? Is the book scary to atheists? If there’s a war between reason and religion, whose side is it on? With Bracken MacLeod (M), Jennifer Williams, David McDonald, Tonia Ransom (NIGHTLIGHT Podcast), Joe Hill 

The Representation of LGBTQ+ in Popular Culture 14 Feb 2021, Sunday 2:30 pm EST

We’ve never been able to find out if sharing the cover with Jupiter was a compliment, a wisecrack or some in-joke so far in it would take a drilling crew to find the punch-line.

Small print is important. There should have been an apostrophe possessive in “Authors’ Wedding” - “Author’s Wedding” would have meant only one author and there seem to be two, while no apostrophe at all is an oopsie. It’s not the only one.

Who is this Moorwood guy?

He must be my doppelganger or something. Looks just like me, the fortunate fellow. :->

So that’s the first thirty. Hey @dduane, feel like going round the block again?

I love you, hon. More than all the words I’ve ever written can begin to say.