Next weekend is Can-Con, Ottawa’s annual conference on Canadian science fiction and fantasy. I’ve heard great things about this literary-focused convention, but it’s the first time I’m actually going, so I’m pretty excited! I’m in three very cool panels with very cool people and will also do a reading on Saturday. Not sure what I’m going to read yet. Maybe an excerpt from Mahimata, sequel of Markswoman, which is due out next March. Or maybe something completely different!

Here is my schedule for the weekend of 12 – 14 October. Looking forward to meeting old friends and making new ones. 🙂

Saturday, Salon E, 10-10:50 am
Writing Believably to Young Audiences: Appealing to younger audiences is a tricky business, especially depending on what age you’re writing for. How does writing middle grade differ from YA, for example? What tropes or narrative styles are appealing, and which ones have been overdone? And most importantly: how do you hook a voracious young reader onto your writing? Amelinda Bérubé, Rati Mehrotra, Caighlan Smith, Maaja Wentz (Moderator)

Saturday, Salon F, 12-12:50 pm
A Seriously Folked Up Panel on Fairy Tales: Fairy tales exist to be retold. They survive because their messages still matter. We still deal with issues of hunger, so Hansel and Gretel still gets told and retold. We still deal with class mobility, so Cinderella keeps being told. We still deal with envy, so Snow White keeps being told. Panelists delve into some fairy tale themes and explore how they get played out in modern media and how fairy tales shift and change to tell the stories we need to tell ourselves. KT Bryski, Amal el-Mohtar, Kari Maaren, Rati Mehrotra, Derek Newman-Stille(Moderator)

Reading: Salon B, 15:00-15:25 pm

Sunday, Salon E, 11-11:50 am
I Wrote a Novel! Now What Do I Do with It? You’ve written “the end” on your finished draft. Now what? Is it as good as it can get? How do you know? If not, how do you improve it? After it is as *perfect* as you can get it, you kind of have three choices: (1) traditional publishers, (2) self-publishing, (3) trunking it. Jen Albert, Ada Hoffmann, Jennifer Carole Lewis, Rati Mehrotra, James Alan Gardner (Moderator)