| DAY | START | END | LOCATION | TITLE | DESCRIPTION | PANELISTS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Friday | 12:00 PM | 12:50 PM | Isle Royale | The Care and Feeding of Your Subject Expert | Writing science fiction and fantasy requires a ton of research. Having the internet at our fingertips makes it easier than it used to be, but sometimes we need to ask an expert. Many folks are delighted to geek out about their specialties, but we still need to do due diligence, respect their time, and make sure we’re asking the right questions. How do you find qualified experts? Do you approach them with prepared questions? When is it ethical to pick someone’s brain for free, and when should you insist on compensating your expert? | Marissa Lingen, Michael Kucharski, Monica Valentinelli, Patrick S. Tomlinson, Teresa Nielsen Hayden |
| Friday | 1:00 PM | 1:50 PM | Isle Royale | Co-Writing For Fun and Profit | Writing is often viewed as a solitary activity , but many well-regarded works in SFF are the product of collaboration. With serialized fiction reclaiming its place as a major player in the field , collaborations amongst large groups of authors are gaining popularity and praise. What makes a good collaboration work? How do co-writers get–and stay–on the same page? What should authors keep in mind from the business end when signing contracts for co-written work? | Andrea Phillips, Michael R. Underwood, Carol Flynt, Mur Lafferty, Max Gladstone, Delilah S. Dawson |
| Friday | 2:00 PM | 2:50 PM | Isle Royale | How A Manuscript Becomes A Book | “I’m just an MS…sittin’ here on an editor’s desk…I hope and pray to be a book someday, but today I am just an MS!” There’s plenty of information on the web about how to write and sell a manuscript , but the process after the deal is signed is often opaque to new writers. We’ll walk through the steps a manuscript typically goes through between deal day and launch day, and what authors can do to help the process go smoothly. | Cherie M. Priest, Navah Wolfe, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Richard Shealy, Yanni Kuznia |
| Friday | 2:00 PM | 3:00 PM | The Chessboard | Codenames | two teams compete to see who can make contact with all of their agents first. Spymasters give one-word clues that can point to multiple words on the board. Their teammates try to guess words of the right color while avoiding those that belong to the opposing team. And everyone wants to avoid the assassin. | Ska |
| Friday | 2:00 PM | 4:00 PM | The Chessboard | Lords of Waterdeep | Waterdeep, the City of Splendors – the most resplendent jewel in the Forgotten Realms, and a den of political intrigue and shady back-alley dealings. In this game, the players are powerful lords vying for control of this great city. Its treasures and resources are ripe for the taking, and that which cannot be gained through trickery and negotiation must be taken by force! | Jason M |
| Friday | 2:00 PM | 6:00 PM | The Chessboard | Introduction to Roleplaying | Come join We Hate Bards and learn how to play some role playing games. We’ve got plenty of games from every genre to run, no experience necessary. | We Hate Bards |
| Friday | 2:00 PM | 6:00 PM | The Chessboard | Introduction to Roleplaying | Come join We Hate Bards and learn how to play some role playing games. We’ve got plenty of games from every genre to run, no experience necessary. | We Hate Bards |
| Friday | 2:00 PM | 6:00 PM | The Chessboard | Bootlegging Gone Bad | Call of Cthulhu (7th Edition) The Caldwell boys set up a good operation in the northern woods of Massachusetts. Your boss, Doctor Bobbin, the head of the local organized bootlegging operation thinks it’s time you pay them a visit and integrate their otherworldly brew into his supply chain. What could go wrong?” | We Hate Bards |
| Friday | 3:00 PM | 3:50 PM | Isle Royale | Writers and Fundraising For Charity | Thanks to the modern web and social media, it has never been easier for people to organize amongst themselves to raise funds for people in need. What are the best ways for authors to leverage their platforms to draw attention to worthy causes? How can we best mobilize big-hearted fans quickly when needs arise suddenly, due to extreme weather events or other immediate crises? How do we vet the causes we’re supporting, and provide transparency so that fans can likewise vet our fundraising efforts? | Christine Knight, Ferrett Steinmetz, Monica Valentinelli, Pablo Defendini, Mark Oshiro |
| Friday | 3:00 PM | 4:50 PM | TeenFusion | Show us your hand | Come play card games with your fellow geeks and try not to lose your head, or your hand | |
| Friday | 4:00 PM | 4:50 PM | Isle Royale | Collaborating With Your Copyeditor | Bad copyedits are so legendary in this business that STET has become both a punchline and a battle-cry. But most copyeditors are genuinely trying to help authors achieve their vision. Let’s discuss how to form productive working relationships that produce more polished books and don’t leave anyone contemplating STET knuckle tattoos. Dear copyeditors: there is a typo in this panel description just for you. | Richard Shealy, Michael R. Underwood, Vanessa Ricci-Thode, Jason Sizemore, Teresa Nielsen Hayden |
| Friday | 3:00 PM | 4:00 PM | The Chessboard | Qwirkle | Players begin the game with six blocks. The start player places blocks of a single matching attribute (color or shape but not both) on the table. Thereafter, a player adds blocks adjacent to at least one previously played block. The blocks must all be played in a line and match, without duplicates, either the color or shape of the previous block. | Ska |
| Friday | 5:00 PM | 5:50 PM | Interlochen | World-building Culture Beyond Aesthetics | Many authors take care to ground readers in the aesthetic details of their secondary-world cultures, using clothing, architecture, food, and language to give readers a ‘feel’ for what a culture is like. Often, these details are drawn from stereotypes of real regions of the world, leaving us with the generic “”middle easternness”” of Narnia’s Calormen , or the “”future Chinese empire with no Chinese people”” of Joss Whedon’s Firefly. Let’s talk about how to go beyond aesthetics to build original cultures with their own philosophies, biases, social orders, and worldviews. How can we build distinct cultures in our work without using medieval Europe as the cultureless default against which other societies are compared? What are our favorite fictional cultures, and our favorite stories that use distinct original cultures to add more to their world than appropriated aesthetics? | David Anthony Durham, Max Gladstone, Michael R. Underwood, Scott H. Andrews, Shweta Adhyam |
| Friday | 5:00 PM | 5:50 PM | Isle Royale | Disaster Response in Science Fiction and Fantasy | Many SFF stories feature cataclysmic events , both natural and man-made , that rain destruction on civilian populations. We’re accustomed to seeing the camera spend a few moments “looking for the helpers” as our heroes crash through occupied buildings or drop mines on the Klingon fleet, but what about the hours and days that follow? What opportunities do science fiction and fantasy present to educate and reflect on disaster response processes in the real world? | Jon Skovron, Marissa Lingen, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Vanessa Ricci-Thode, Diana Rowland |
| Friday | 5:00 PM | 5:50 PM | Petoskey | Reading: Annalee Newitz | Annalee Newitz | |
| Friday | 5:00 PM | 5:50 PM | St. Clair | So This Is Your First ConFusion | Welcome to your first Confusion! To keep your actual confusion to a minimum, let us tell you what we’re about and what we have to offer you this weekend! | Amy Sexsmith, Anna Carey, Cylithria Dubois |
| Friday | 5:00 PM | 5:50 PM | KidFusion | Welcome to ConFusion! | Kids welcome tour of ConFusion. | KidFudsion Staff |
| Friday | 5:00 PM | 5:50 PM | TeenFusion | Origami | Learn the fine art of Japanese paper folding | |
| Friday | 5:00 PM | 6:00 PM | The Chessboard | Viceroy | Viceroy is a board game of bidding and resource management set in the fantasy universe of the famous Russian CCG Berserk. As the players struggle for control over the world of Laar, they recruit a variety of allies and enact various laws. These cards allow players to develop their state’s military and magical might, increase their authority, and get precious gems they need to continue expanding their nation. | Jim S |
| Friday | 6:00 PM | 6:50 PM | Interlochen | Spoilers and the Mechanics of Surprise | JJ Abrams famously hates spoilers so much that he threatened to ruin the career of any member of the Star Wars cast or crew who leaked to the press. Many authors and readers/viewers agree that it’s best to go into a work unspoiled, but some readers love spoilers. Some rely on spoilers as content warnings that tell them if they’ll be able to enjoy a work, while others simply don’t view surprise as a necessary element to their enjoyment. When is relying on surprise the right choice for a work, and when is it more flash than substance? | Christine Knight, Dan Moren, -E, Jon Skovron, Tracy Townsend |
| Friday | 6:00 PM | 6:50 PM | Isle Royale | Morality and Personality Matrices in SFF | From D&D’s alignment system to the houses of Hogwarts, astrological signs, and Myers- Briggs types, many geeks can’t resist classification systems that sort characters–and real people–into easily-categorized types. What are the benefits and drawbacks of these systems in terms of characterization and worldbuilding? When do they help writers build realistic and consistent characters, and when do they artificially limit characterization and steer writers towards caricature? | James L. Sutter, Jeff Pryor, Julia Rios, Navah Wolfe, Stephanie Morris |
| Friday | 6:00 PM | 6:50 PM | Keweenaw | Reading: John Scalzi | John Scalzi | |
| Friday | 6:00 PM | 6:50 PM | Petoskey | Reading: Sarah Gailey, Mur Lafferty, and Charlie Jane Anders | Charlie Jane Anders, Mur Lafferty, Sarah Gailey | |
| Friday | 6:00 PM | 6:50 PM | Saugatuck | 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? | David Anthony Durham, Jason Sanford, Jim C. Hines, John Chu, Pablo Defendini |
| Friday | 6:00 PM | 6:50 PM | St. Clair | Dragon’s Den | The Ann Arbor Science Fiction Association Board wants to hear how you will help Friendship is ConFusion and future ConFusions keep making fans and friends! Small grants available for particularly promising ideas! | Allison Anderson, Amy Sexsmith, Brian Decker, Anna Carey, David Klecha, Eric Guy, Cylithria Dubois |
| Friday | 6:00 PM | 6:50 PM | KidFusion | I Want to Be a Superhero! | Make a superhero cape and/or mask for the weekend. | KidFudsion Staff |
| Friday | 6:00 PM | TeenFusion | Dinner Break | |||
| Friday | 6:00 PM | 10:00 PM | The Chessboard | Terraforming Mars | Engine building game about who can contribute the most to a joint effort to terraform Mars. | Sam O |
| Friday | 6:00 PM | 8:00 PM | The Chessboard | Alien Frontiers | Do you have what it takes to be a deep space colonist? An alien frontier awaits the brave and daring! This new planet will be harsh, but if you have the skills to manage your resources, build a fleet, research alien life, and settle colonies, the world can be yours. | Jason M |
| Friday | 6:00 PM | 10:00 PM | The Chessboard | The Transmuters Last Touch | Dungeons and Dragons 3.5- After a robbery of the caravan you were supposed to be guarding you find kobold tracks in the woods that lead to an old abandoned temple. What evil could lie within… | We Hate Bards |
| Friday | 6:00 PM | 10:00 PM | The Chessboard | This One Will Kill You! | Call of Cthulhu (7th Edition)- A madman has escaped from Arkham Asylum! It is up to you to stop him, by any means necessary! | We Hate Bards |
| Friday | 6:00 PM | 8:00 PM | The Chessboard | Dreamchaser | If you could live out any story, any moment—what would you experience? Lead a Rebellion • Befriend a Dragon • Become a New York Times Best Seller • Race to the Stars • Find Dad’s Pants…Let Dreamchaser adapt to you! What are you destined to achieve? Join in on a collaborative story game experience where every player has a say on who and what our story involves. Chase your dreams—your goals! | We Hate Bards |
| Friday | 7:00 PM | 7:50 PM | Big Top | Opening Ceremonies | Welcome to ConFusion Through the Looking Glass! Please join our ConChair and our Guests of Honor, Kate Elliott, Luke Ski, Nisi Shawl, Annalee Newitz, and James Breakwell, along with our Special Guests, courtesy of Subterranean Press, Gail Cross and Jim Butcher! Hear about all the exciting stuff you can expect from them, and us, this weekend! Dessert Reception to follow shortly after Opening Ceremonies conclude! | Amy Sexsmith, Annalee Newitz, James Breakwell, Jim Butcher, Kate Elliott, Gail Cross, Luke Ski, Nisi Shawl |
| Friday | 7:00 PM | 7:50 PM | KidFusion | Bedtime Snack and Story Time | Grab your pjs and a blanket and join the KidFusion staff and friends for a bedtime snack and a fairy story by our special guest. | KidFudsion Staff/Becca Price |
| Friday | 7:00 PM | 8:00 PM | The Chessboard | Between two cities | It is the early 1800s, a time of immense construction and urbanization. You are a world-renowned master city planner who has been asked to redesign two different cities. Projects of such significance require the expertise of more than one person, so for each assignment you are paired with a partner with whom to discuss and execute your grandiose plans. Will your planning and collaborative skills be enough to design the most impressive city in the world? | Mike D |
| Friday | 8:00 PM | 8:50 PM | ConSuite | Dessert Reception | A meet and greet between ConFusion attendees and our GoHs and SubPress special guests. Mix, mingle, and enjoy some sweet treats. This is a very popular event, so plan your time accordingly! | Amy Sexsmith, Annalee Newitz, James Breakwell, Jim Butcher, Kate Elliott, Gail Cross, Luke Ski, Nisi Shawl |
| Friday | 8:00 PM | 8:50 PM | Manitou | Hollywood Heroes | Will the real Deadpool please stand up? Are you skipping the Justice League movie in favor of the books? If Ragnarok ends the world in a movie, does that count in the comic books? What superhero movies don’t quite live up to the books — or vice versa? | Matt Feazell, BluRaven C. Houvener, Meg Brandal |
| Friday | 8:00 PM | 8:50 PM | Marquette | The Very Worst of Mark Bernstein | Mark has been bringing pain to his friends and listeners for years. Come for puns, Spoonerisms, inter-species relationships, and other weirdness. Also, an elephant. | Mark Bernstein |
| Friday | 8:00 PM | TeenFusion | Rolling Your Roll | How to roll a character for a role playing game and the basics of D&D | ||
| Friday | 8:00 PM | 9:00 PM | The Chessboard | Sagrada | Draft dice and use the tools-of-the-trade in Sagrada to carefully construct your stained glass window masterpiece. | Jason M |
| Friday | 8:00 PM | 9:00 PM | The Chessboard | Dixit | One player is the storyteller for the turn and looks at the images on the 6 cards in her hand. From one of these, she makes up a sentence and says it out loud (without showing the card to the other players). | Cheryl O |
| Friday | 8:00 PM | 10:00 PM | The Chessboard | Dreamchaser | If you could live out any story, any moment—what would you experience? Lead a Rebellion • Befriend a Dragon • Become a New York Times Best Seller • Race to the Stars • Find Dad’s Pants…Let Dreamchaser adapt to you! What are you destined to achieve? Join in on a collaborative story game experience where every player has a say on who and what our story involves. Chase your dreams—your goals! | We Hate Bards |
| Friday | 9:00 PM | 9:50 PM | Isle Royale | Let’s Talk: Physics | A lighthearted talk on a hard science topics with smart and funny people. Let’s Talk: Physics will dive deep into the building blocks of the Universe and try not to giggle about Super G-Strings. | Allison Deiana, David D. Levine, Daniel Dugan, David Lockett |
| Friday | 9:00 PM | 9:50 PM | Big Top | Steven Universe Sing-Along | Come and sing along to your favorite songs from Steven Universe! Don’t worry if you can’t remember the words, we’ll have them on the big screen. | Amal El-Mohtar, Maggi Rohde |
| Friday | 9:00 PM | 9:50 PM | Petoskey | Mark Reads! | Mark Oshiro reads someone else’s work and reacts in real time for you! 18+ Only | Mark Oshiro |
| Friday | 9:00 PM | 9:50 PM | St. Clair | Friends of Bill W | ||
| Friday | 9:00 PM | 12:50 AM | TeenFusion | Teen D&D | Play D&D in the Teen Room. Previous experience is not required. | |
| Friday | 9:00 PM | 10:00 PM | The Chessboard | Splendor | Splendor is a game of chip-collecting and card development. Players are merchants of the Renaissance trying to buy gem mines, means of transportation, shops—all in order to acquire the most prestige points. If you’re wealthy enough, you might even receive a visit from a noble at some point, which of course will further increase your prestige. | Cheryl O |