John Chu Panels Day Start End Title Description Location Panelists Friday 6:00 PM 6:50 PM Visions of Positive Masculinity From high fantasy adventures to noir mysteries to superheroes and war stories , genre fiction has meticulously catalogued the narrow roles society expects men to occupy: strong, brave, and powerful, but also angry, competitive, emotionally repressed, and misogynistic. What does a character arc look like for the man who has decided not to be the best at performing this toxic vision of masculinity? We’ve seen many stories about women who struggle and triumph against gender roles. How can writers use social expectations of masculinity to create challenges that their male characters have to overcome to save the day? SAUGATUCK David Anthony Durham, Jason Sanford, Jim C. Hines, John Chu, Pablo Defendini Saturday 10:00 AM 10:50 AM Immigration and Refuge in Science Fiction Travel stories are classics in any genre, but in science fiction stories of travelling to a new home are often about colonization, or about intrepid explorers amongst the (primitive) aliens. Let’s talk about the science fiction stories that better reflect the experiences of immigrants and refugees in the real world. MANITOU Alexandra Manglis, Amal El-Mohtar, David Anthony Durham, John Chu Saturday 1:00 PM 1:50 PM Reading: Jim C. Hines, John Chu, Annalee Flower Horne CHARLEVOIX Annalee Flower Horne, Jim C. Hines, John Chu Saturday 4:00 PM 4:50 PM You Got Magic In My Science Fiction! We’ve developed a variety of labels for works that mix fantastical elements like dragons or magic into science fiction settings like spaceships and sprawling futuristic cities. Does Star Wars’s use of The Force place it in a different part of the Science Fiction canon than Mass Effect’s use of biotics? From a storytelling and world-building perspective, what separates elements with magical trappings from those with science fictional trappings? Should fantasy vs scientific explanations be a purely aesthetic consideration, or does putting magical elements in science fiction meet a specific storytelling need that handwavy science cannot? LEELANAW Dan Moren, John Chu, Lucy A. Snyder, Marie Bilodeau, Ryan Van Loan, Charlie Jane Anders Saturday 5:00 PM 5:50 PM Autograph Session (5 PM) Come meet your favorite authors, artists and musicians and have them sign things! (Please limit your signing requests to 3 items per person.) ST. CLAIR A. T. Greenblatt, Addie J. King, Andrea Phillips, Angus Watson, Benjamin C. Kinney, Brandon Crilly, Charlie Jane Anders, Cherie M. Priest, Dan Moren, David D. Levine, Dyrk Ashton, Izzy Wasserstein, John Chu, John Scalzi, Kate Elliott, Lucy A. Snyder, Marie Bilodeau, Marissa Lingen, Max Gladstone, Merrie Haskell, Mishell Baker, Navah Wolfe, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Ryan Van Loan, Shweta Adhyam, Stephanie Morris, Teresa Nielsen Hayden