The schedule for for Penguicon is out. Here’s what I’m doing:

Writer’s Block ( Saturday, 4/30 6:00 )

I’ll be reading from A Wrecking Bar, a Chocolate Bar, and a Ka Offering for Na-Nefer-Ka-Ptah, and signing copies. The book will be available for sale at the con bookstore. This is a wonderful program for authors who are involved with the con!

Life track:

How to Poison Your Muse: The Toxic Twins of Talent and Art– ( Saturday, 4/30 10:00 )

We’ll discuss how common ideas about talent and art sabotage our creativity. What are these traps, and how can we avoid them? A discussion for artists, authors, musicians, and anyone else who wants to create good stuff. Presenter(s): Paul Kemner, Michael Cieslak

Literature track:

Character Problems – What’s an Author to Do?- ( Saturday, 4/30 3:00 )

A main character needs to start out annoying, boring, or unappealing. (they have to grow from somewhere!) Your readers say ‘ugh’ and set your book aside. What’s an author to do? How do we avoid this? Examples? Presenter(s): Mary Lynne Gibbs, Paul Kemner, Emmy Jackson, Cindy Spencer Pape, Jeff Pryor

Tools for Outlines: M.I.C.E., The Three Act Structure- ( Sunday, 5/1 10:00 )

Is your story about Milieu, an Idea, a Character, or an Event? Figure out what sort of story you want to tell, and see which elements are most important, how you might want to structure the story, and how to tell if you’ve reached the end. Presenter(s): Paul Kemner, Ericka S. Kahler, Eric S. Raymond, Michael K. Elliot, Angie Rush

Mechanics of Magic in Fantasy & SF- ( Sunday, 5/1 2:00 )

Does a magical system for a story need rules? Costs, unintended consequences, social factors? What about reliability issues? How can we avoid worn-out tropes. How should magic in an RPG and story differ? Is some of the tech in SF ‘magic’ and should the same considerations apply? Presenter(s): Paul Kemner, Ericka S. Kahler, Eric S. Raymond, Catherynne Valente, Andrew Zimmerman Jones

So Eric S. Raymond, the Unix/Linux/Open Source guy, is in two of my panels.

There are hundreds of sessions on a wide variety of topics- check it out! If you’d like to be part of the con scene, you don’t need to limit yourself to the literature track.