Swancon Thirty Six | Natcon Fifty Program

Thursday | Friday | Saturday | Sunday | Monday

Below is the draft Swancon Thirty Six | Natcon Fifty program for Monday. While we are making every effort to make sure all details are correct, we cannot guarantee that items won’t change. We also have plenty of space for last minute program ideas, so if the mood strikes and you want to organise something, we’ll help provide you with space to do it.

Contact us any time in the lead-up to the convention, or speak to a committee member once you arrive.

Colour codes: Entertainment | Interactive | Presentation

Anime tropes, the sequel
with John Samuel and Gunnell

Art of blogging
with Angela Slatter, Brin McLauchlan
Blogging has become an integral part of the genre scene. Indeed, some have made their names in the community through blogging. There are even blogging superstars like John Scalzi, Teresa Nielsen Hayden and, of course, Neil Gaiman. What are the criteria for good blogging and what makes a blog become such a cool place to keep up with?

Comics you should be reading
with Tom Eitelhuber, Damian Magee, Kitty Hemsley
Swancon’s foremost comics aficionados (or, more accurately, the ones we could find to do this panel) will give attendees a guided tour of some of their favourite current titles.

Critics: your friend and enemy
with Ian Nichols, Jenny Blackford, Richard Harland
Critics can be a friend or enemy of any work a writer is hoping to be accepted by the readers. But a critic’s loyalty is not to the writer or the publisher but to the reader and buyer. Do the public always trust the critics to tell them what they want to know or even what they need to know? Let’s find out how it feels to be in the middle from the critics themselves.

Defining fandom
Sarah Xu, Rachel Holkner
Celebrating fifty years of Natcons and a long tradition of science fiction fandom. But what is fandom exactly? How is it a unique community? More importantly, where is fandom heading? What should we be doing for and within the community? What are the future directions of conventions and how will changes in information technology play a part? We can define fandom from our past, how should we define fandom by our future?

From the Vaults: An Investigation into the Roots of Science Fiction and Fantasy”
with Ian Nichols, Dave Luckett
Science fiction and fantasy have a long history, but many people are now unaware of some of the classics of the genres. Writers who helped make the genres what it is today have fallen by the wayside, barely known by current fans. This panel will suggest a five-foot shelf of books and writers essential to the understanding of F&SF, and it may help stop any prospective writers getting rejections because they’re doing what has been done before.

Future’s Reflections
Sean Williams moderates a three way conversation with Ellen Datlow and Justina Robson
In an ever changing world of e-books and paperbooks, interactive media and folktales, new sciences and mythologies, the struggles of old and new ideologies, of trends and fashions, of what was cool, what is cool and what will be cool, what remains constant in our story telling? Does today’s fantasy and science fiction show the paths of future writing or will new writing, new authors, merely reflect what has always been in our tales of spaceships and sourcery, of warriors and scientists, of ghosts and machines, of kinsmen and what is alien?

Not to get too bogged down on all the maudlin semantics the above suggests, our guests have one final chat about where we’ve been and where we might be going in the world of science fiction and fantasy.

Homework for Swancon 2012
with PRK, Kitty Hemsley, Kat Griffiths
Swancon 2012 has launched, and announced their guests. Come along and discuss the guests’ works, and build your homework reading list for the coming year!

Kicking butt: martial arts in fiction
with Shane J Cummings, Dirk Flinthart, Wing Chung, Paul Kidd
There are fight scenes in films, TV and literature all the time. And martial arts is no exception. Indeed it is on the uptake, not just in Hollywood but in fiction, particularly science fiction and fantasy. What is the reality of martial arts fighting as compared to the fantasy?

Staging the fantastic: Laura Goodin and Grant Watson in conversation about playwriting
We easily forget the contribution to science fiction and fantasy through the art of theatre. But here are two playwrights who know very well it is a medium as rich with imagination and ideas as any other. What’s more they know it can provide an experience unique to its art form that deserves a wider appreciation.

The castle moves on: remembering Diana Wynne Jones
with Kylie Ding, Rebecca Handcock

2010 in film
with Tom Eitelhuber, Tina Eitelhuber and Ju Landesse
Mind-bending dream worlds, re-imaginings of Greek mythology, masked superheroes, vampires, wolfmen, zombies, a reunion with Woody and Buzz and a long-anticipated return to The Grid. Our panellists will turn a critical eye towards those films that defined geek cinema for the year 2010 and try to separate the hits from the misses.

Whose Line is it anyway?
Hosted by Danny Oz