ConFusion Schedule

This week I'm going to be at Legendary ConFusion in Dearborn, Michigan. Should be a very good time with a plethora of authors including Peter V. Brett, Myke Cole, Sam Sykes, Cherie Priest, Kameron Hurley, Brad Beaulieu, and many, many more.

If you have Amazon Prime and are local to the convention, you can order Promise of Blood today and still have it arrive in time to get it signed. I have no idea if it will be available in the dealers room, so I plan on bringing a stack of my own copies to sell but my quantity will be limited. I also have no idea if they're giving me a seat at the mass author signing... so that's awkward. Oops. I didn't see the "Full Schedule" PDF. Looks like I'm set for the 3PM Mass Author Signing on Saturday.

If you want to come see me get all sweaty and nervous at the front of a room full of people, here are my panels:

Does my world need an economy?

Rae Carson, Cherie Priest, Ron Collins, Brian McClellan, Ferrett Steinmetz

7pm Saturday - Southfield

Worldbuilding can be fun, daunting, and everything in between. One of the aspects that can have a drastic impact on the course of the story is the fantasy economy. As a discipline, economics is often seen as boring in the extreme, but in practice it informs such fantasy staples as warfare, diplomatic relations, crime - organized or desperate, and nearly any other conflict one could choose to name. The fantasy economy is fundamental, and here is how to do it right.

Don’t write what you know

Brian McClellan, Elizabeth Shack, Stina Leicht, Tobias Buckell, Catherine Shaffer, Mike Carey

11am Sunday - Erie

An axiom of writing has long been “write what you know”. In SFF circles this is somewhat amended, but the sense that one should constrain writing to subjects of passionate interest and deep understanding still seems to be quite popular. But what about the other side of the coin? What value can be found in writing what one does not know about? Research, learning, and then spreading that joy can yield fantastic results, if done right. We discuss how to do it right.

Faking History

Brigid Collins, Brian McClellan, Kameron Hurley, C.C. Finlay, Howard Andrew Jones

1pm Sunday - Erie

Legends generally take time. History has a weight that helps to propel the present and inform a culture. In building an epic backstory in fantasy or science fiction, how does one do that? Flat out stating “there is a legend of this thing with a badger” only serves to make an audience look for the badger, so how does one craftily insert these details without a reader taking conscious notice? Who does this well, and what can we learn from some others who have done it less well?

Gaming and Writing

Carrie Harris, Saladin Ahmed, Howard Andrew Jones, Brian McClellan

2pm Sunday - Rotunda

Many authors grew up playing games: tabletop, roleplaying, live action, or a mix of all three. Games, tie-in fiction, and the experience of constructing a shared narrative all help develop the drive to write, and can have an impact that lasts far into an author’s career. This panel discusses what they learned about storytelling from the act of gaming

Note: this was not on my original slate of panels. A couple of people asked for something like this, and I added it. If you do not feel like you have anything to add to the discussion, don't hesitate to let me know. That being said, I think this one sounds fun and I wish I could take credit for coming up with is.