| 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 | 1:00pm | Kensington | Black Clover | In a world where magic is everything, Asta and Yuno are both found abandoned at a church on the same day. While Yuno is gifted with exceptional magical powers, Asta is the only one in this world without any | Film | ||
| 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 | 6:30pm | Kensington | The Wind Rises | Despite the stressful changes that come with the transition from middle school to high school, Kotaro and Akane have each other to lean on — for now. | Film | ||
| 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 | 8:30pm | Kensington | Sword Art Online: The Ordinal Scale | Asuna and the gang convince Kirito to come back for a new game called Ordinal Scale. Once they’re inside the game, they realize it will be anything but fun | Film | ||
| 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 | |
| Friday | 10:30pm | Kensington | Recovery of a MMO Junkie | Morioka Moriko (♀) is 30, single, and a NEET. She has dropped out of the real world. Searching for a safe place, the place she ended up… is the online world!! | Film | ||
| Saturday | 8:00 AM | 9:00 AM | Atrium | The Third annual Frosty Fun Run/Walk/Crawl/Roll/Gasp/Flail | One mile of chilly awesomeness! (And, probably, frozen goose poop.) Run, walk, crawl, or roll–it doesn’t matter how you make it around the (slightly more than) one mile mostly-sidewalk course, you’ll still get a cool badge ribbon! (Sign up at OPs) | Diana Rowland | |
| Saturday | 9:00 AM | 1:00 PM | The Chessboard | Fallout: The Lost Vault | You’ve been kidnapped and left for dead in some weird underground facility. With danger around every corner can you and your friends make it out alive? Or will you be just another victim of The Lost Vault | We Hate Bards | |
| Saturday | 9:00 AM | 1:00 PM | The Chessboard | Canis Mysterium | Call of Cthulhu (7th Edition)- You have been chosen by the prestigious Miskatonic University to go and assess someone who has apparently gone mad thinking that he was a dog, and while in his crazed state, may have killed someone. | We Hate Bards | |
| Saturday | 9:00 AM | 1:00 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 | |
| Saturday | 10:00 AM | 10:50 AM | Charlevoix | Pacifism in Speculative Fiction | Representations of pacifism in speculative fiction is often unsympathetic and/or unrealistic. It seems that the only way a character can be a pacifist and a hero is if they’re not a pacifist at all. Shephard Book’s pacifism in Firefly dissolves into kneecapping bad guys as soon as the plot requires it, and Charles Xavier gets called a pacifist when he funds and trains a private army. Who are our favorite real pacifists in speculative fiction, and how can speculative fiction contend with the conflict of being a pacifist in a violent world without running for the easy conclusion that pacifism is naive, selfish, and unsustainable? | David John Baker, Marissa Lingen, Matthew Bin, Max Gladstone, Annalee Flower Horne | |
| Saturday | 10:00 AM | 10:50 AM | Club Lounge | Kaffeeklatsch with Guest of Honor Kate Elliott | Join our Guest of Honor for coffee, tea, and conversation. Limited to 10 participants. Sign up at OPS. | Kate Elliott | |
| Saturday | 10:00 AM | 10:50 AM | ConSuite | Geek Parent Meet Up | Meet other parents in the fandom community. Talk about the triumphs and hazards of geeky parenting. We’ll provide the caffeine. | ||
| Saturday | 10:00 AM | 10:50 AM | Isle Royale | Reading: Lucy A. Snyder, Ken Schrader, Sunny Moraine | Ken Schrader, Lucy A. Snyder, Sunny Moraine | ||
| Saturday | 10:00 AM | 10:50 AM | Manitou | 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. | Alexandra Manglis, Amal El-Mohtar, David Anthony Durham, John Chu | |
| Saturday | 10:00 AM | 10:50 AM | Saugatuck | Parenting in the 21st Century | Parenting has always been a challenge, but is it more challenging these days? Are “the kids” no longer sufficiently respectful of one’s lawn? And what is it with the YouTubes and the Twitters? Are these new problems, or just the same problems other generations of parents faced, dressed in new clothes? | James Breakwell, Mur Lafferty, Sarah Hans, David Klecha | |
| Saturday | 10:00 AM | 10:50 AM | 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 | |
| Saturday | 10:00 AM | 10:50 AM | KidFusion | Wake Up Yoga | Learn some yoga poses to get your day started | KidFusion Staff | |
| Saturday | 10:00 AM | TeenFusion | Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast | Come and discuss Alice in Wonderland and the crazy physics that exist in it as we construct our own time piece cookies. Discussion will include Lewis Carroll as a mathematician and how he works it into his stories | |||
| Saturday | 10:00 AM | 11:00 AM | The Chessboard | Wizard | Players compete over multiple rounds based on the number of players, and whoever ends with the highest score wins. In each round, players are dealt a hand of cards — one card in the first round, two cards in the second, three in the third, etc. — then trump is determined by flipping the top card of the undealt deck; if a suit is revealed, that suit is trump, while if a Wizard or Jester (or no card in the final round) is revealed, then the round has no trump. Players then state how many tricks they expect to win in the round. | Ska | |
| Saturday | 11:00 AM | 11:50 AM | Atrium | Solar Observations | Why didn’t the sun go back to college? It has 27 million degrees! Come see the sun, talk about the eclipse and meet other heliophiles. | Bob Trembley | |
| Saturday | 11:00 AM | 11:50 AM | Big Top | Black Gate Interview Jim Butcher | Brandon Crilly of Black Gate Magazine sits down for a 30 minute interview with SubPress Guest Jim Butcher. | Brandon Crilly, Jim Butcher | |
| Saturday | 11:00 AM | 11:50 AM | Charlevoix | Using Real Scientific History To Enhance Fantasy World-Building | Secondary-world fantasies often draw on an ahistoric view of the past, intermingling technological, scientific, and social advancements that span thousands of years in the real world. The effect is quasi-medieval societies that are in some ways anachronistically modern, but in many ways far less advanced than the real-world cultures on which they’re based. Let’s talk about the real science and technology of the world’s post-classical eras and how we can use the real history of science and technology to build deeper and more interesting worlds. | A. T. Greenblatt, Dyrk Ashton, Elizabeth Shack, Jon Skovron, Lucy A. Snyder, Kate Elliott | |
| Saturday | 11:00 AM | 11:50 AM | Club Lounge | Kaffeeklatsch with Science GOH Annalee Newitz | Join our Pro Guest of Honor for coffee, tea, and conversation. Limited to 10 participants. Sign up at OPS. | Annalee Newitz | |
| Saturday | 11:00 AM | 11:50 AM | Isle Royale | Reading: Benjamin C. Kinney, Angus Watson, Marie Bilodeau | Angus Watson, Benjamin C. Kinney, Marie Bilodeau | ||
| Saturday | 11:00 AM | 11:50 AM | Leelanaw | That’s Not My Star Wars! | At one point, it appeared most of the world agreed on the canon-destroying awfulness of the Star Wars prequel films, and their unholy avatar Jar Jar Binks. But a new generation of Star Wars is taking hold, and not everyone is pleased with the direction that’s going, either. Where do we draw our mental lines, and why? | James Breakwell, Ferrett Steinmetz, Jason Sanford, Mur Lafferty, Sarah Hans, Seleste deLaney / Julie Particka | |
| Saturday | 11:00 AM | 11:50 AM | Manitou | Clip Studio for Web Comics | Lar deSousa of “The Least I Could Do” gives a guided touor of using this software to create webcomics. | Lar deSouza | |
| Saturday | 11:00 AM | 11:50 AM | Marquette | Workshop: Celtic Guitar | Phil Cooper, Susan Urban | ||
| Saturday | 11:00 AM | 11:50 AM | Petoskey | Last Exit Before The Worst Timeline | Alternate histories that explore what the world would look like if a particular horror had been averted can be a way of resisting the narrative that slavery, genocide, colonialism, sexism, and other social evils are inevitable steps on the road to human progress. What are our favorite alternate histories (and alternate presents) that look at better worlds, and how can we use the format to inspire people to hope–and action–in uncertain times? | BluRaven C. Houvener, David D. Levine, Jackie (Literary Escapism), Michael W Lucas, Mark Oshiro | |
| Saturday | 11:00 AM | 11:50 AM | Saugatuck | Animal Sidekicks In Science Fiction and Fantasy | From Cinderella’s birds to Poe Dameron’s faithful droid, adorable animal(ish) sidekicks have a long history in genre fiction. From a writing perspective, what do cute animals bring to a story? How do they help us reveal character and worldbuilding? How do we balance their utility in generating empathy and lightening the tone against their potential to annoy the living heck out of the audience? | Addie J. King, Cassandra Morgan, Izzy Wasserstein, Jon David, Nisi Shawl | |
| Saturday | 11:00 AM | 12:50 PM | St. Clair | Iron Costuming (2 Hours) | Join us for a fun-filled session of build your own costume! This year’s theme will be the Borg and other cybernetic organisms, but you’re free to use the materials we have on hand to make whatever you want! Enter your new costume in the Masquerade and we’ll have a special prize for the best one! | Wyn Jones | |
| Saturday | 11:00 AM | 11:50 AM | KidFusion | Let’s Make Some Noise | Make your own percussion instrument | Joe Silas | |
| Saturday | 11:00 AM | TeenFusion | Lunch Break | ||||
| Saturday | 11:00 AM | 12:00 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 | |
| Saturday | 11:00 AM | 3:00 PM | The Chessboard | Kingdom Death: Monster | Set in a world devoid of most resources, you control a settlement at the dawn of its existence. Fight monsters, craft equipment, and develop your settlement to ensure the survival of your people. | Jason S | |
| Saturday | 12:00 PM | 2:50 PM | Atrium | Iron Artist | Drawing/sculpture isn’t usually a performance art, but Iron Artists show how they work while creating a piece of art (or craft) on the assigned topic. | Crystal Mielcarek, John Benson, Lar deSouza , Matt Feazell, Melanie Brooks, Michael Kucharski, PocketDemon, Rachel Quinlan | |
| Saturday | 12:00 PM | 12:50 PM | Big Top | Guest of Honor Interview: Nisi Shawl | Join us for an interview of Guest of Honor Nisi Shawl, conducted by Jim Hines. | Jim C. Hines, Nisi Shawl | |
| Saturday | 12:00 PM | 12:50 PM | Interlochen | Game Boards in Stories | From Through the Looking Glass to The Hunger Games to Karuna Riazi’s The Gauntlet, genre fiction has long been intrigued with the concept of game boards as settings for stories. Carroll’s Through The Looking Glass contains multiple references to how the characters would move in in chess–the game that forms the world’s setting. What are our favorite stories centered around games? What real world board games (aside from RPGs) would make for interesting story settings? | Andrea J, Amy Sundberg, Andrea Phillips, K. Lynne O’Connor, Monica Valentinelli | |
| Saturday | 12:00 PM | 12:50 PM | Isle Royale | The Ancient 1980s | When most people think historical fiction, they think of the 16th through 19th centuries. But genre fiction is increasingly taking on the recent past. What’s the draw (beyond nostalgia) of the 1980s and 90s as fictional settings? What unique research challenges do they present, and how do writers balance providing familiarity for those who remember the era with background information for those who need context? What are our favorite modern works set in the recent past? | Alexandra Manglis, David Anthony Durham, Michael W Lucas, Stephanie Morris | |
| Saturday | 12:00 PM | 12:50 PM | Keweenaw | Reading: Merrie Haskell, Michael R. Underwood, Mishell Baker | Merrie Haskell, Michael R. Underwood, Mishell Baker | ||
| Saturday | 12:00 PM | 12:50 PM | Leelanaw | Writing about Forensics | Whether you’re writing a thrilling crime drama or a cozy whodunit , here are some useful tips for including forensics in your story. | Addie J. King, Adam Shannon, Bryon Quertermous, Jen Haeger, Josef Matulich | |
| Saturday | 12:00 PM | KidFusion | AFTERNOON BREAK | KidFusion is closed for one hour in the afternoon. | |||
| Saturday | 12:00 PM | 12:50 PM | TeenFusion | Makeup Your Mind | We are all mad here and our makeup should match. Come learn to do mad hatter or queen of hearts makeup with those that are equally as mad as you are | ||
| Saturday | 12:00 PM | 1:45 PM | The Chessboard | Fate of the Elder Gods, | In Fate of the Elder Gods, players take on the ever-maddening role of cults trying to summon ancient evil and herald the fall of mankind! Each cult is in competition to be first to summon their god, but they all must also repel intrepid investigators working to seal off the gate to beyond with Elder signs. Gather arcane artifacts, cast powerful spells, embrace the Dark Gift of your Elder God, and be first to hasten doom…before it’s too late! | Jim S | |
| Saturday | 1:00 PM | 1:50 PM | Big Top | Guest of Honor Interview: Kate Elliott | Join us for an interview of Guest of Honor Kate Elliott, conducted by John Scalzi. | Kate Elliott, John Scalzi | |
| Saturday | 1:00 PM | 1:50 PM | Charlevoix | Reading: Jim C. Hines, John Chu, Annalee Flower Horne | Annalee Flower Horne, Jim C. Hines, John Chu | ||
| Saturday | 1:00 PM | 1:50 PM | Interlochen | The Do’s and Don’ts of Fandom | Supporting one another is always important, especially in small communities. What is the best way to support others? How do we keep ourselves from hurting other fandoms? | Dessa Lux, Natalie Luhrs, Sarah Hans, Sunny Moraine, Vanessa Ricci-Thode | |
| Saturday | 1:00 PM | 1:50 PM | Isle Royale | Reading: Stacey Filak, Andrea A. Phillips, Michael J. DeLuca | Andrea Phillips, Michael J. DeLuca, Stacey Filak | ||
| Saturday | 1:00 PM | 1:50 PM | Manitou | Space Software | An interactive demo of Kerbal Space program , Universe Sandbox and NASA’s Eyes on the Solar System. | Bob Trembley, Connie Trembley | |
| Saturday | 1:00 PM | 1:50 PM | Marquette | Comedy in Music | Discussion of the folks who’ve made us listen and laugh over the years, from Spike Jones and Tom Lehrer to Weird Al and Garfunkel and Oates. | Mark Bernstein, Tom Smith, Wyn Jones, Luke Ski | |
| Saturday | 1:00 PM | 1:50 PM | Petoskey | It Was All A Dream…But Should It Have Been? | “You woke me out of oh! such a nice dream!” says Alice at the end of Through The Looking Glass. Modern authors are often warned to avoid dream sequences, because it’s difficult to get readers to invest in a story that can be wrapped up with a Deus Ex Alarm Clock. But the concept endures from Through the Looking Glass to Spirited Away and Inception. When is a dreamland the right choice for a setting, and how do successful dreamlands in fiction maintain stakes and tension? | Liz Derrington, Seleste deLaney / Julie Particka, Shweta Adhyam, Teresa Nielsen Hayden | |
| Saturday | 1:00 PM | 1:50 PM | Saugatuck | SF and Philosophy: Exploring the Connections | SF has been called the literature of ideas, and the ideas explored in SF have become increasingly philosophical throughout the history of the genre. What are the most illuminating thought experiments in recent and classic SF? Which philosophical questions do they raise? And how are philosophers in today’s universities employing SF in their teaching and research? | Benjamin C. Kinney, Andrea J, Dyrk Ashton, Ken Schrader, Nathan Rockwood | |
| Saturday | 1:00 PM | 1:50 PM | KidFusion | It’s Tiny Hat Time | Make a tiny hat to wear at the tea party! | Selina Firecat | |
| Saturday | 1:00 PM | 2:50 PM | TeenFusion | Mad Hatters Hat Shop | It’s always tea time except for when you have to make hats. Join us for an hour of madness as we decorate our own hats in honor of the Mad Hatter | ||
| Saturday | 1:00 PM | 2:00 PM | The Chessboard | Sentinels of the Multiverse | A mad scientist holds the world hostage with his terrifying inventions. An alien warlord from a far away galaxy brings his limitless army of bizarre minions to conquer the planet. A giant rampaging robot cuts a swath of destruction across the coast, destroying major population centers. And who will stand in their way? A team of heroes, all with impressive powers and abilities stand between the world and the forces of evil. Will you help them? Answer the call to protect the multiverse! | Cheryl O | |
| Saturday | 2:00 PM | 2:50 PM | Big Top | Any Sufficiently Detailed Magic System is Indistinguishable From Science | The influence of tabletop roleplaying games is widely felt in fantasy. Many stories make a ‘science’ out of their magic that reflects the carefully-balanced rules of a tabletop sourcebook. What are the trade-offs between creating magic systems with strict rules and leaving magic as a mysterious and unknown force? How do we balance the sense of wonder and magic against the desire to give readers a stable hook from which to suspend their disbelief? What makes a well-defined magic system work in a story, and when are we showing the reader too much of the machinery behind the curtain? | Brandon Crilly, Charlie Jane Anders, David Anthony Durham, Kate Elliott, Shweta Adhyam, Jim Butcher | |
| Saturday | 2:00 PM | 2:50 PM | Charlevoix | Reading: James Breakwell | James Breakwell | ||
| Saturday | 2:00 PM | 2:50 PM | Leelanaw | Let’s Talk: Automation | A lighthearted talk on a hard science topics with smart and funny people. Let’s Talk: Automation will chuckle through the collapse of society as we know it. With 30% of the workforce at risk of being replaced by an algorithm , what will Humans still be good at? | Curtis Potterveld, David John Baker, Daniel Dugan, Jane Ugrinovskiy | |
| Saturday | 2:00 PM | 2:50 PM | Manitou | The Future of the Portal Fantasy | Many classic children’s books, including Through The Looking Glass, are portal fantasy stories. What do new portal fantasies need to bring to the table to stand out in a crowded field? How do reinterpretations like Every Heart A Doorway fit into the portal fantasy landscape? Do you pretty much have to be Neil Gaiman to get away with playing this trope straight, or is there room for new voices? And where do we want to see portal fantasies take us next? | Lee Harris, Mari Ness, Navah Wolfe, Sarah E. Gibbons | |
| Saturday | 2:00 PM | 2:50 PM | Marquette | Concert: February Sky | Singers/instrumentalists Susan Urban and Phil Cooper bring us songs both traditional and original. | Phil Cooper, Susan Urban | |
| Saturday | 2:00 PM | 2:50 PM | Petoskey | Fanfiction as Subversion and Commentary | Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland and Through The Looking Glass were spawning parodies and third-party sequels practically as soon as they were published, including multiple political commentaries. People write fanfiction for a lot of reasons, but fanfic as a format is particularly well-suited to commentary on popular works. What can we learn from transformative works like fanfic about the state of genre fiction, and how can we adapt techniques found in fanfic to challenge ourselves to make the most interesting choices in our original work? | Christine Knight, Stephanie Morris, Liz Derrington, Dessa Lux, Sunny Moraine | |
| Saturday | 2:00 PM | 2:50 PM | Saugatuck | Limitations of Space | There are still parts of the Universe that will be forever inaccessible to us , no matter the technology. Let’s talk about what we will never find there! | Bob Trembley, Connie Trembley, Karen Burnham, Annalee Newitz | |
| Saturday | 2:00 PM | 2:50 PM | KidFusion | It’s a Mad Mad Tea Party | Join us for a fruit carving demonstration by our special guest, Jesse, as he prepares a masterpiece for our tea party. There may even be some other special guests in attendence! | Jesse Healy/KidFusion Staff | |
| Saturday | 2:00 PM | 2:45 PM | The Chessboard | Frogriders, | Deep in the forests of the North lives an enchanting elf tribe called the Frogriders. Each spring, they hold a tournament in which their four major squads perform a mock battle. Whoever best manages to capture valuable units and make clever use of their special abilities will take the victory! | Jim S | |
| Saturday | 2:00 PM | 3:00 PM | The Chessboard | Timeline | Timeline: is a card game played using cards. Each card depicts an invention or event on both sides, with the year in which that invention was created on only one side. Players take turns placing a card from their hand in a row on the table. After placing the card, the player reveals the date on it. If the card was placed correctly with the date in chronological order with all other cards on the table, the card stays in place; otherwise the card is removed from play and the player takes another card from the deck. | William K | |
| Saturday | 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 | |
| Saturday | 2:00 PM | 6:00 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 | |
| Saturday | 2:00 PM | 6:00 PM | The Chessboard | The Bear Essentials | Netherstorm A bear has been causing all sorts of havoc near your local village. Time for some heroes to come forth and deal with this problem! | We Hate Bards | |
| Saturday | 3:00 PM | 3:50 PM | Charlevoix | Improv Flash Fiction | Fast paced and quick witted , authors create stories in real time , “”round robin”” style , using prompts from the audience. | Jackie (Literary Escapism), Ken Schrader, Lee Harris, Sarah Gailey, Suzanne Church | |
| Saturday | 3:00 PM | 3:50 PM | Interlochen | Reflecting on Reboots and Reinterpretations | Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland and Through The Looking Glass have been adapted countless times–sometimes in ways that are faithful to the source material, and sometimes with new interpretations (such as Tad Williams’s Otherland and Micheline Hess’s Malice in Ovenland). How do writers balance familiarity with novelty when rebooting or adapting classic stories? What makes a good retelling work for readers, and what are our favorite examples? | Dominik Parisien, Jessi Cole Jackson, Julia Rios, Sarah E. Gibbons | |
| Saturday | 3:00 PM | 3:50 PM | Isle Royale | Mad Scientist Lab | Build basic circuits for flashing lights and sounds. A hands on approach. | Reid Minnich | |
| Saturday | 3:00 PM | 3:50 PM | Keweenaw | Reading: Max Gladstone and Amal El-Mohtar | Amal El-Mohtar, Max Gladstone | ||
| Saturday | 3:00 PM | 3:50 PM | Manitou | SubPress Chat | Come join production manager Geralyn Lance and learn more about what makes Michigan-based Subterranean Press so special to the SFF field and to Confusion. Ever want to know what goes into producing a limited edition or selecting art for a dust jacket? Geralyn’s got you covered. Want to know about this year’s special guests sponsored by SubPress at Confusion? Ditto. She’ll also be previewing what books SubPress has coming in 2017 and giving away a few special books to lucky audience members. Don’t miss this chance to get the inside scoop on a unique publisher. | Geralyn Lance | |
| Saturday | 3:00 PM | 3:50 PM | Marquette | Workshop: Actually, You Can Sing | Learn and practice the simple things singers do. | Mark Bernstein | |
| Saturday | 3:00 PM | 3:50 PM | Petoskey | Forgiveness and Redemption Narratives In Genre Fiction | Stories of terrible people seeking redemption and making amends can create powerful emotional resonance–but done wrong, they risk excusing inexcusable behavior. Who are our favorite evildoers turned heroes, and what makes their redemption work for readers? How do we built satisfying character arcs that end in forgiveness? And what role do race and gender play in redemption narratives? | Angus Watson, Bryon Quertermous, Marie Bilodeau, Merrie Haskell, Tracy Townsend | |
| Saturday | 3:00 PM | 3:50 PM | Saugatuck | Fossils | Learn about Fossils in Michigan and Nationwide. Dive deep into the Late Devonian period , play in the Late Pleistocene period, get silly in the Silurian period, and cogitate in the Carboniferous periods. | Connie Trembley | |
| Saturday | 3:00 PM | 3:50 PM | St. Clair | Fan GOH Induction | The Fan Guest of Honour Introduction and Induction is a traditional ConFusion event, wherein any attending Fan GoHs of years past welcome the new Fan GoH to the club. | Nisi Shawl | |
| Saturday | 3:00 PM | 3:50 PM | KidFusion | Crafty Time | Decorate a set of coasters or trivets to take home. Supplies included, depending on materials used, items may need time to dry | Serena Loftis | |
| Saturday | 3:00 PM | TeenFusion | Teen Iron Artist | An art competition for teens, judged by teens | |||
| Saturday | 3:00 PM | 5:00 PM | The Chessboard | Path of Light and Shadow | The Realms lay divided, their former wonder lost and forgotten. The Tyrant Queen has seized the throne, forcing the rightful heirs deep into exile. You are the sons and daughters of the once-great houses: Foxway, Gorga, Mherzeen, and Spyre. Under the tutelage of advisors, you have gathered your followers, your conscripts. The time has come to take back what is yours. | Jim S | |
| Saturday | 3:00 PM | 4:00 PM | The Chessboard | Boss Monster | Juggle two competing priorities: the need to lure Heroes at a faster rate than your opponents, and the need to kill those Heroes before they reach your Boss. | Tim S | |
| Saturday | 4:00 PM | 4:50 PM | Charlevoix | Reading: A. T. Greenblatt, Marissa Lingen, Izzy Wasserstein | A. T. Greenblatt, Izzy Wasserstein, Marissa Lingen | ||
| Saturday | 4:00 PM | 4:50 PM | Interlochen | Examining Whiteness in Speculative Fiction | When speculative fiction is so often addressing the human condition–and what it means to be human–it’s vital that we acknowledge that life on Earth isn’t the same for all of us. Many speculative works portray the experience of being white as if it is a universal human experience, without stopping to examine what whiteness means now or what it will mean in the future. How does (and how should) science fiction address whiteness as a specific, rather than universal, experience? | Mishell Baker, Natalie Luhrs, Pablo Defendini, Shweta Adhyam, Stephanie Morris | |
| Saturday | 4:00 PM | 4:50 PM | Isle Royale | Nasa Spinoffs | Since 1976 , NASA has featured an average of 50 technologies each year in the annual publication. Of these 1000 , what has changed lives daily? What can we expect in the future? | Andrea Phillips, David D. Levine, David John Baker, Karen Burnham | |
| Saturday | 4:00 PM | 4:50 PM | Keweenaw | Let’s Talk: Biology | A lighthearted talk on a hard science topics with smart and funny people. Let’s Talk: Biology features: Eating bugs , how birds help humans and what you will find in the depths of Lake Erie. | Christine Knight, Heidi Trudell, Daniel Dugan, Dr. Julie Lesnik | |
| Saturday | 4:00 PM | 4:50 PM | Leelanaw | 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? | Dan Moren, John Chu, Lucy A. Snyder, Marie Bilodeau, Ryan Van Loan, Charlie Jane Anders | |
| Saturday | 4:00 PM | 4:50 PM | Manitou | The Science of Beekeeping | In this age of colony collapse disorder , learn about the biology of the honey bee , bee health and the scourge of Varroa destructor , and a recent breakthrough in honey harvesting that has beekeepers buzzing. | Jen Haeger | |
| Saturday | 4:00 PM | 4:50 PM | Marquette | Bringing the Music Home | Organizing a house concert or music circle. | Maggi Rohde, Susan Moerdyk, Tim Ryan | |
| Saturday | 4:00 PM | 4:50 PM | Petoskey | Works We Love and What We Wish We Could Change About Them | Many stories we love contain critical plot elements that frustrate us–such as the memory wipes in The Dark is Rising and Doctor Who and the treatment of Susan in the Chronicles of Narnia. How do these stories inspire us to write and edit differently, and bring different kinds of stories to life in our own fiction and media? | Cherie M. Priest, Denise M. Beucler, Kate Elliott, Navah Wolfe, Patrick Nielsen Hayden | |
| Saturday | 4:00 PM | 4:50 PM | Saugatuck | Luke Ski Talks “Mighty MagiSwords”! | Comedy Guest Of Honor “the great Luke Ski” has been working the past 2.5 years on the Cartoon Network TV series “Mighty MagiSwords”! At this panel he’ll talk about what it’s like to work on the show at CN, show his storyboard drawings, behind the scenes animatics, talk about recording voices for the show, screen a full episode he wrote and storyboarded, and answer your fan questions. Anyone who shows up in full costume as a “Mighty MagiSwords” character will get a free custom made drawing from Luke Ski! | Luke Ski | |
| Saturday | 4:00 PM | 4:50 PM | St. Clair | Autograph Session (4 PM) | Come meet your favorite authors, artists and musicians and have them sign things! (Please limit your signing requests to 3 items per person.) | Amal El-Mohtar, Annalee Flower Horne, Annalee Newitz, Carl Engle-Laird, Delilah S. Dawson, Diana Rowland, Dominik Parisien, Dyrk Ashton, Ferrett Steinmetz, James Breakwell, James L. Sutter, Jason Sanford, Jason Sizemore, Jim Butcher, Jim C. Hines, Julia Rios, Mark Oshiro, Michael J. DeLuca, Michael R. Underwood, Monica Valentinelli, Mur Lafferty, Nisi Shawl, Patrick S. Tomlinson, Sarah Gailey, Scott H. Andrews, Seleste deLaney / Julie Particka, Stacey Filak, Suzanne Church, Tracy Townsend | |
| Saturday | 4:00 PM | 4:50 PM | KidFusion | Game On! | Join our friend, Meri as she brings a selection of games kid friendly games including Dixit and Hey That’s My Fish. | Meri Orosz | |
| Saturday | 4:00 PM | 5:50 PM | TeenFusion | Open Room | |||
| Saturday | 4:00 PM | 5:00 PM | The Chessboard | Mystic Vale | Players take on the role of Druidic clans trying to cleanse the curse upon the land. Each turn, you play cards into your field to gain powerful advancements and useful vale cards. Use your power wisely, or decay will end your turn prematurely. Score the most victory points to win the game! | Tim S | |
| Saturday | 4:00 PM | 7:00 PM | The Chessboard | Ora et labora | In Ora et Labora, each player is head of a monastery in the Medieval era who acquires land and constructs buildings – little enterprises that will gain resources and profit. The goal is to build a working infrastructure and manufacture prestigious items – such as books, ceramics, ornaments, and relics – to gain the most victory points at the end of the game. | Mike D | |
| Saturday | 5:00 PM | 5:50 PM | Big Top | Concert: Tom Smith | Tom Smith | ||
| Saturday | 5:00 PM | 5:50 PM | Charlevoix | Is That An Anti-Hero Just a Jerk? | Anti-heroes have an enduring place in science fiction and fantasy. They can provide explorations of the nature of heroism or hilarious counterpoints in comedic work. But some alleged anti-heroes are really just jerks. At what point does a character’s alleged heroism become an excuse for terrible behavior like misogyny and murder , rather than a complex reflection on the flawed nature of humanity? And why are anti-heroes overwhelmingly white guys? Is there space for people of all genders and races to be seen as heroic in spite of deep flaws? | Carl Engle-Laird, James L. Sutter, Kelsi Morris, Patrick S. Tomlinson | |
| Saturday | 5:00 PM | 5:50 PM | Interlochen | Social Media for the Creative Community | So you’re an artist with 25,000 FB friends and a killer Deviant Art gallery. Is that enough? What works and what doesn’t in getting fans engaged in your creative work? What new approaches look good to you? | James Breakwell, Rachel Quinlan, Matt Feazell | |
| Saturday | 5:00 PM | 5:50 PM | Isle Royale | Star Wars: The Last Jedi as a Cast Study in Storytelling | Our panel of writers discusses the structure, pacing, characters, themes, and world-building in Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Also the swords, floaty rocks, and tiny fluffbeasts. | Amal El-Mohtar, Annalee Flower Horne, Annalee Newitz, Delilah S. Dawson, Julia Rios, Nisi Shawl | |
| Saturday | 5:00 PM | 5:50 PM | Keweenaw | Disney Rules Genre Film | With the acquisition of 21st Century Fox’s film and television studios, Disney has brought the X-Men, Deadpool, and Fantastic Four into the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s orbit. Between that, Pixar, and Lucasfilm, is Disney the only game in town when it comes to genre blockbusters? Can Warner Brothers, Sony, and the rest still compete? | Michael R. Underwood, Mari Ness, Seleste deLaney / Julie Particka, Stacey Filak | |
| Saturday | 5:00 PM | 5:50 PM | Leelanaw | Reading: Dyrk Ashton, Tracy Townsend, Sarah Hans | Dyrk Ashton, Sarah Hans, Tracy Townsend | ||
| Saturday | 5:00 PM | 5:50 PM | Manitou | Michael Kucharski’s Shakespeare Tarot | Detroit artist Michael Kucharski gives a graphic presentation on the creative process behind his new Tarot deck featuring Shakespeare characters. | Michael Kucharski | |
| Saturday | 5:00 PM | 5:50 PM | Petoskey | Making Money in Fandom: Why and Why Not | We all like to express our love of fandom in different ways but not all of us like to get paid for it. Find out why our panelists do what they do for a profit or not. | Dessa Lux, Jason Sanford, Sunny Moraine, Mark Oshiro | |
| Saturday | 5:00 PM | 5:50 PM | St. Clair | 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.) | 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, David Anthony Durham | |
| Saturday | 5:00 PM | 7:00 PM | KidFusion | EVENING BREAK | KidFusion is closed for two hours in the evening. | ||
| Saturday | 5:00 PM | 5:45 PM | The Chessboard | Karuba | This is a tile-laying race game with players starting with boards that are identical, and one player drawing tiles that they all will use. They race to get their explorers to temples first and earn points. Along the way they can collect additional points by collecting items off the paths they create. | Jim S | |
| Saturday | 6:00 PM | 6:50 PM | Big Top | Robots vs. Fairies Reading | Join us to listen to authors from the Robots vs. Fairies anthology from Saga Press read from their work! | Dominik Parisien, Jim C. Hines, John Scalzi, Max Gladstone, Navah Wolfe, Sarah Gailey | |
| Saturday | 6:00 PM | 6:50 PM | Isle Royale | Reading: Mark Oshiro | Past Fan GoH Mark Oshiro reads from some of his own work! | Mark Oshiro | |
| Saturday | 6:00 PM | 6:50 PM | Manitou | Drawing on Real Rituals For Fictional Magic | A presentation on how historical cultures, particularly Hittites, have used “magic” rituals in the real world–and how we might draw on those magic systems as inspiration for fiction. | Dr. Hannah Marcuson | |
| Saturday | 6:00 PM | 6:50 PM | Petoskey | Design Is Easy! (Or So Every Client Says) | Three professional designers come together to discuss all they love about the work, and all the things you never knew went into it, beyond just colors and typefaces. Or maybe they’ll just recall all the times they heard the words in the title of this panel. | Gail Cross, Pablo Defendini, Steve Buchheit | |
| Saturday | 6:00 PM | 6:50 PM | Saugatuck | Science of Death | The mechanisms and forensic aspects of death. Expect a couple references to where the worms go in and out. | Diana Rowland, Dr. Julie Lesnik, Sarah Grieve | |
| Saturday | 6:00 PM | 6:50 PM | St. Clair | Masquerade Muster | Mandatory for all competitive entries in the Masquerade. Assemble to muster for the parade, be viewed by the judges, and have optional workmanship judging done. Competitors may enter as Novice, Journeyman, Master or Junior levels. Please be on time. Exhibition entries may attend the Muster or just join the parade, ending at the Masquerade. Pre-Registration for the Masquerade is STRONGLY encouraged. Sign up at OPS. | ||
| Saturday | 6:00 PM | 7:50 PM | TeenFusion | Dinner Break | |||
| Saturday | 6:00 PM | 7:00 PM | The Chessboard | Istanbul | There’s hustle and bustle at Istanbul’s grand bazaar as merchants and their assistants rush through the narrow alleys in their attempt to be more successful than their competitors. Everything must be well organized: wheelbarrows must be filled with goods at the warehouses, then swiftly transported by the assistants to various destinations. Your goal? Be the first merchant to collect a certain number of rubies. | Jason M | |
| Saturday | 7:00 PM | 7:50 PM | Atrium | Lunar Observation | Did you hear about the great new restaurant on the moon? The food is excellent , but there’s no atmosphere. Come see it for yourself! | Bob Trembley | |
| Saturday | 7:00 PM | 7:50 PM | Big Top | Masquerade | Come see – or show off – the best costumes of the night! Judges will scrutinize. Crowds will cheer. Audiences will swoon. Honors will be awarded. Luke Ski will entertain during the judging break! | Luke Ski | |
| Saturday | 7:00 PM | 7:50 PM | Marquette | Concert: Bill Roper | |||
| Saturday | 7:00 PM | 12:00 AM | Saugatuck | Artemis Bridge Simulator – Royal Manticore Navy, HMS Ajax and HMS Roland Hosting | A multiperson team event where you work together to fly a star ship and protect your quadrant from enemy ships. 25 minute sessions starting on the hour and half hour. Sign your team up the RMN Fan Table, after 10 AM. One reserved session per per badge number. | ||
| Saturday | 7:00 PM | 12:00 AM | KidFusion | Pajama/Pizza Party | THIS IS A PAID EVENT. Come ready to party in your pajamas! We will have Pizza, pop, popcorn along with movies, games and crafts. Register for this event at Registration by 12:00 PM Saturday. (5 HOURS) | KidFusion Staff | |
| Saturday | 7:00 PM | 8:00 PM | The Chessboard | AttrAction | Mix of skill and luck, plus the strong force of the magnets, produces exciting and unexpected twists! | Ska | |
| Saturday | 7:00 PM | 9:00 PM | The Chessboard | Betrayal at House on the Hill | Explore the creepy old mansion, that sounds like a fun time (especially for your evil friend)! Will you defeat the monsters that dwell within and your betrayer or will you never be heard from again? | Sam O | |
| Saturday | 7:00 PM | 11:00 PM | The Chessboard | Escape from the Forest of Lanterns | Dungeons and Dragons 3.5- A mysterious magic book has transported the heroes to the Forest of Lanterns and turned them into small children! In order to escape from this magical demiplane, they must find the Warty Witch who lives in a cottage made of candy at the heart of the forest. | We Hate Bards | |
| Saturday | 7:00 PM | 11:00 PM | The Chessboard | Lair of the Necro Dancers | Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 Valiant heroes, do you have the moves to defeat the wicked lich with sweet dancing style and his undead legion of solid necromatically changed dancers of doom? | We Hate Bards | |
| Saturday | 7:00 PM | 9:00 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 | |
| Saturday | 8:00 PM | 8:50 PM | Big Top | Concert: Luke Ski | Stick around after the Masquerade and enjoy a concert from our Comedy Guest of Honor, Luke Ski! | Luke Ski | |
| Saturday | 8:00 PM | 8:50 PM | TeenFusion | Trivia for Chocolate for Teens | Know a lot about Science Fiction? How about anime? Confident in your knowledge? Want to earn chocolate for knowing things? Then come visit us as we test how much you know and our ability to throw. | ||
| Saturday | 8:00 PM | 9:00 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 | |
| Saturday | 9:00 PM | 9:50 PM | Club Lounge | Friends of Bill W | |||
| Saturday | 9:00 PM | 9:50 PM | ConSuite | Pizza and PJs Party for Adults! | Grown-ups love a good pajama party, too! Wear your PJs and come enjoy some pizza! You must be an adult (18+) or accompanied by adult. | ||
| Saturday | 9:00 PM | 12:50 AM | TeenFusion | Teen Movies, Munchies, and More! | Come hang with us for the evening. We have games, movies, pizza, and fun! | ||
| Saturday | 9:00 PM | 10:00 PM | The Chessboard | Spyfall | Spyfall is a party game unlike any other, one in which you get to be a spy and try to understand what’s going on around you. It’s really simple! | Jason S | |
| Saturday | 9:00 PM | 11:00 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 | |
| Saturday | 9:00 PM | 11:00 PM | The Chessboard | Arkum Horror | The year is 1926, and it is the height of the Roaring Twenties. Flappers dance till dawn in smoke-filled speakeasies drinking alcohol supplied by rum runners and the mob. It’s a celebration to end all celebrations in the aftermath of the war to end all wars. | William K | |
| Saturday | 10:00 PM | 10:50 PM | Keweenaw | Let’s Talk: Cells | A lighthearted talk on a hard science topics with smart and funny people. Let’s Talk: Cells will cover Cellular Chemistry, CRISPR and Cat Memes | Daniel Dugan, Derek Künsken, Alison Eastman, Justine Graykin | |
| Sunday | 9:00 AM | 1:00 PM | The Chessboard | The Bear Essentials | Netherstorm A bear has been causing all sorts of havoc near your local village. Time for some heroes to come forth and deal with this problem! | We Hate Bards | |
| Sunday | 9:00 AM | 1:00 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 | |
| Sunday | 9:00 AM | 11:00 AM | 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 | |
| Sunday | 10:00 AM | 10:50 AM | Charlevoix | Missing and Deleted Scenes in the Age of the Internet | On the advice of artist John Tenniel, Lewis Carroll dropped an entire chapter from Through The Looking Glass. That chapter was almost lost to history until a galley turned up in a Sotheby’s auction. These days, writers have a lot more options for their missing scenes, including sharing them as promotional freebies on their websites or including them in newsletters or crowdfunding platforms. Can scenes that ultimately didn’t strengthen the work still merit sharing with readers? What makes a missing scene a good candidate for sharing with readers vs. consignment to the recycling bin of history? | Bryon Quertermous, David D. Levine, Jim Butcher | |
| Sunday | 10:00 AM | 10:50 AM | Club Lounge | Kaffeeklatsch with Fan GOH Nisi Shawl | Join our Fan Guest of Honor for coffee, tea, and conversation. Limited to 10 participants. Sign up at OPS. | Nisi Shawl | |
| Sunday | 10:00 AM | 10:50 AM | Isle Royale | Poetry In Novels | Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland and Through The Looking Glass include lengthy poems, placing them in a long tradition of long-form fiction that incorporates poetry into the work. How does writing poems for prose fiction differ from writing poems that stand alone? What distinct techniques does it require? Where do poems within stories exist in the landscape of genre poetry today? | Amal El-Mohtar, Clif Flynt, Jeff Pryor, Josef Matulich, John Winkelman, Mari Ness | |
| Sunday | 10:00 AM | 10:50 AM | Leelanaw | Fandom in the Family | You grew up with fandom being a part of your life and now you want to involve the kids. But making them terrified of weeping angels might not be the best way to go. Come find out how to make sure your kids become productive, insightful, and best of all, nerd class citizens. | James Breakwell, Jackie (Literary Escapism), Stacey Filak, Vanessa Ricci-Thode | |
| Sunday | 10:00 AM | 10:50 AM | KidFusion | Wake Up Yoga | Learn some yoga poses to get your day started | KidFusion Staff | |
| Sunday | 11:00 AM | 11:50 AM | Charlevoix | Heroes and Mental Health | When writing mentally ill heroes , authors not only have to portray characters with sensitivity and the right amount of realism , but also work against social stigmas that will have their characters labelled as whiny, dramatic, wooden, or otherwise unlikeable. Who are our favorite mentally ill heroes, and how do authors bring them to life in an engaging and sympathetic way? | Dominik Parisien, Jim C. Hines, Mishell Baker, Mur Lafferty, Sarah Gailey, Shweta Adhyam | |
| Sunday | 11:00 AM | 11:50 AM | Club Lounge | Kaffeeklatsch with Media GOH James Breakwell | Join our Media Guest of Honor for coffee, tea, and conversation. Limited to 10 participants. Sign up at OPS. | James Breakwell | |
| Sunday | 11:00 AM | 11:50 AM | Isle Royale | Reading: David D. Levine and Stephanie Morris | Reading: David D. Levine and Stephanie Morris | David D. Levine, Stephanie Morris | |
| Sunday | 11:00 AM | 11:50 AM | Keweenaw | Dressing A Fictional World | They say clothes make the man , but they also tell us a lot about his physical and social world. Come help a team of writers design a fictional world and determine how people in that world would dress , based on their climate , culture , technology , and resources. This is an audience-participation panel. | Annalee Flower Horne, Elizabeth Shack, Jessi Cole Jackson, Denise M. Beucler | |
| Sunday | 11:00 AM | 11:50 AM | Marquette | Tom Smith and Luke Ski Do Whatever! | Beloved bard of dorkness and uber-legend Tom Smith will bring his guitar. Barely-tolerated nerdy comedy musician and “Dr. Demento Show” dominator Luke Ski will show up with his iPod full of backing tracks plugged into speaker. What happens beyond that is anybody’s guess, including Tom’s and Luke’s. Think of it like one of those escape rooms. Your job: ESCAPE! Warning: Event may contain lethal amounts of puns, schticking, side-tangents, and continual non-stop pluggery for websites such as the Funny Music Project (http://www.thefump.com). | Luke Ski, Tom Smith | |
| Sunday | 11:00 AM | 11:50 AM | Petoskey | Your Cake Is In Another Castle | Carroll’s Through The Looking Glass sends Alice into a chessboard-world where she’s told that if she crosses the entire board, she’ll be crowned queen. It’s not until she reaches this goal that she learns it’s not what she really needs: the goal of chess isn’t to promote a pawn; it’s to put the king in check. When does moving the goalposts on a character feel like a satisfying next step, and when does it break the compact with the reader? | Amy Sundberg, Ken Schrader, Matthew Bin, Ryan Van Loan, Tracy Townsend | |
| Sunday | 11:00 AM | 11:50 AM | Saugatuck | Goodnight Sweet Cassini | On September 9 , 2017 , Cassini began its final orbit around Saturn. Let’s talk about the data collected and wax philosophic about our late and great satelite. | Bob Trembley, Connie Trembley, Karen Burnham | |
| Sunday | 11:00 AM | 11:50 AM | St. Clair | Origami for Adults and Kids | Join Lar deSousa in the art of fannish paper folding! | Lar deSouza | |
| Sunday | 11:00 AM | 11:50 AM | KidFusion | Sunday Morning Anime | Come and watch youth-appropriate anime friends. | KidFusion Staff | |
| Sunday | 11:00 AM | TeenFusion | Lunch Break | ||||
| Sunday | 11:00 AM | 12:00 PM | The Chessboard | sushi go party | Party platter of mega maki, super sashimi, and endless edamame. You still earn points by picking winning sushi combos, but now you can customize each game by choosing à la carte from a menu of more than twenty delectable dishes. What’s more, up to eight players can join in on the sushi-feast. Let the good times roll! | William K | |
| Sunday | 11:00 AM | 11:30 AM | The Chessboard | Santorini | Santorini is an accessible strategy game, simple enough for an elementary school classroom while aiming to provide gameplay depth and content for hardcore gamers to explore, The rules are simple. Each turn consists of 2 steps: Move and Build | Jason M | |
| Sunday | 11:00 AM | 1:00 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 | |
| Sunday | 12:00 PM | 12:50 PM | Interlochen | The Setting As Character | In Science Fiction and Fantasy , settings can literally come alive–be it via the talking flowers of Through The Looking Glass or the rage of Peter Quill’s creepy dad-planet in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2. In Ann Leckie’s Imperial Radch universe where ships have minds, main characters can be both people and places at the same time. Are living settings a science fiction/fantasy extension of the classic “Hero Vs. Nature” story? How do they exist in conversation with real-world beliefs about whether the world around us has a will of its own? | A. T. Greenblatt, Cassandra Morgan, David John Baker, Ferrett Steinmetz, Suzanne Church | |
| Sunday | 12:00 PM | 12:50 PM | Isle Royale | The Robots are Here! | 2018 is the year that robots officially took over. This panel will serve a guide on how to best appeal to your robot overlords. | Annalee Newitz, Curtis Potterveld, Tracy Townsend | |
| Sunday | 12:00 PM | 12:50 PM | Manitou | Do Not Be Satisfied With Stories: Narrative Structure and Expectations | A short PowerPoint lecture (all images or short clips! no boring text slides!) on how the expectations we bring to a story influence how we engage with the story, with a particular emphasis on how opening paragraphs (and opening sequences in films) often rely on familiarity and cultural knowledge to draw us in. Focus on science fiction and fantasy stories. | Kate Elliott | |
| Sunday | 12:00 PM | 12:50 PM | Petoskey | Good Days and Bad Days In Narrative Arcs | Disabilities in fiction are often displayed as binary and static: characters with wheelchairs are completely unable to stand or walk. Blind and Deaf characters have complete and bilateral vision/hearing loss. Depressed characters are barely functional. In the real world, disability exists on a broad spectrum, and a person’s place on that spectrum is rarely static. Disabled people have good days and bad days and experience a range of effects from their disability. Some people are able some days and disabled other days. How do we portray these more realistic ranges of ability and disability in fiction without the characters’ changing capabilities coming across as a plot contrivance? | Dominik Parisien, Merrie Haskell, Mishell Baker, Yanni Kuznia, Annalee Flower Horne | |
| Sunday | 12:00 PM | 12:50 PM | Saugatuck | Strong Female Characters and the Protags Who Harass Them | Princess Leia. Art3mis from Ready Player One. Zoe Saldana’s Uhura. Fiction is full of “strong female characters” who have to endure harassment campaigns from alleged heroes. In many cases they end up falling in love with their harassers. Their “strength” exists to present an obstacle to the male protagonist trying to conquer her, or as a foil for his wit. How do we create female characters whose strength serves their story, and write romances that portray female characters as respected equals rather than prizes to be won? | Cherie M. Priest, Delilah S. Dawson, Monica Valentinelli, Shweta Adhyam | |
| Sunday | 12:00 PM | KidFusion | AFTERNOON BREAK | KidFusion is closed for one hour in the afternoon. | |||
| Sunday | 12:00 PM | 12:50 PM | TeenFusion | Puzzlemania | Come make art or jewelry with puzzle pieces! | ||
| Sunday | 12:00 PM | 1:00 PM | The Chessboard | Samara | Travel back through history to a settlement called Samara, where you lead a group of builders. At the start of the game, they can build only a sandcastle, cave or huts. For more complex buildings, you first invest time in skills, strength, or new workers. Building special projects gives you benefits or hurts all your rivals. In the end you want to have the most prestigious buildings. | Jim S | |
| Sunday | 1:00 PM | 1:50 PM | Charlevoix | Q&A: Jim Butcher | Q&A: Jim Butcher | Jim Butcher | |
| Sunday | 1:00 PM | 1:50 PM | Interlochen | Hopepunk in the Age Of Resistance | Author Alexandra Rowland defines hopepunk as the opposite of grimdark: “Hopepunk says that kindness and softness doesn’t equal weakness, and that in this world of brutal cynicism and nihilism, being kind is a political act. An act of rebellion. Hopepunk says that genuinely and sincerely caring about something, anything, requires bravery and strength.” What are the stories that inspire us to reject cynicism and fight for the good in this broken world? | Brandon Crilly, Izzy Wasserstein, Michael J. DeLuca, Nisi Shawl, Stacey Filak | |
| Sunday | 1:00 PM | 1:50 PM | Isle Royale | Stories on Game Boards | The Chessboard in Lewis Carroll’s Through The Looking Glass makes a natural story setting, because every game of chess is a story of a battle between two warring factions and a journey across the board. Even outside of classic story games, like RPGs , we’re currently experiencing a renaissance of board and video games that use gaming as a form of literature. What makes games unique as a storytelling medium? What can you do as a storyteller with a game that you can’t do with prose fiction, comics, or film? | K. Lynne O’Connor, Kelsi Morris, Monica Valentinelli, Nathan Rockwood | |
| Sunday | 1:00 PM | 1:50 PM | Leelanaw | Imagining A Future Without Police | Policing is so deeply-rooted in our ideas about society that calls to abolish policing can seem disconnected from reality. Won’t there always be bad guys? How would we enforce the rule of law? Even future utopias like Star Trek still have police. But alternative methods of justice exist in the world. What would a city, space station, or extra-planetary colony of the future without police look like? How could they build and maintain collaborative instead of adversarial justice systems? | Addie J. King, Andrea Phillips, Angus Watson, Carl Engle-Laird, Pablo Defendini, Teresa Nielsen Hayden | |
| Sunday | 1:00 PM | 1:50 PM | Marquette | Whose Cartoon Is It Anyway? | Whose cartoon is It Anyway? It’s the Cartoon Network’s! The audience picks a cartoon plot, and artists jam to figure out what happens next! Comedy GoH Luke Ski narrates the story so that it makes sense. Or at least cartoon-sense. | Emily Zelasko, Lar deSouza , Matt Feazell, Luke Ski | |
| Sunday | 1:00 PM | 1:50 PM | Petoskey | Analogue Media in the Digital Age | Paper, vinyl, and film, oh my! What are the unique advantages to analogue media, and what’s just a deeply ingrained sense of how media “should” be? Is it not a book without the paper smell, or a song without the soft crackle of a needle on vinyl? | David Klecha, Gail Cross, John Winkelman | |
| Sunday | 1:00 PM | 1:50 PM | Saugatuck | To Mars! | NASA is finally ready to make humanity’s dream of sending people to Mars a reality. What challenges need to be overcome , and what is ready to go! | Bob Trembley, Connie Trembley, David D. Levine, Karen Burnham | |
| Sunday | 1:00 PM | 1:50 PM | KidFusion | Simple Science | Explore chemical reactions by making a lava lamp to take home | KidFusion Staff | |
| Sunday | 1:00 PM | 1:50 PM | TeenFusion | Tea Time with Kate Elliott | Join Kate Elliott in a madly entertaining panel full of tea and laughter and hats! | Kate Elliott | |
| Sunday | 1:00 PM | 2:00 PM | The Chessboard | New York Slice | You’ve just been given a shot at being the head chef at the prestigious New York Slice pizza parlor. Now you and your fellow pizza chef wannabes have to make the most amazing pizzas…one slice at a time! | Jim S | |
| Sunday | 1:00 PM | 2:00 PM | The Chessboard | King of tokyo | You play mutant monsters, gigantic robots, and strange aliens—all of whom are destroying Tokyo and whacking each other in order to become the one and only King of Tokyo. | Jason M | |
| Sunday | 1:00 PM | 4:00 PM | The Chessboard | Race for the galaxy | Players build galactic civilizations by playing game cards in front of them that represent worlds or technical and social developments. Some worlds allow players to produce goods, which can be consumed later to gain either card draws or victory points when the appropriate technologies are available to them. These are mainly provided by the developments and worlds that are not able to produce, but the fancier production worlds also give these bonuses. | Mike D | |
| Sunday | 1:00 PM | 4:00 PM | The Chessboard | Goblin Well- | Join We Hate Bards as we bring Confusion 2018 to a close with one of our legendary Goblin Well Games. Poorly thought out characters, random dungeons, and the deaths, oh so many deaths. | We Hate Bards | |
| Sunday | 1:00 PM | 4:00 PM | The Chessboard | Goblin Well- | Join We Hate Bards as we bring Confusion 2018 to a close with one of our legendary Goblin Well Games. Poorly thought out characters, random dungeons, and the deaths, oh so many deaths. | We Hate Bards | |
| Sunday | 1:00 PM | 4:00 PM | The Chessboard | Goblin Well- | Join We Hate Bards as we bring Confusion 2018 to a close with one of our legendary Goblin Well Games. Poorly thought out characters, random dungeons, and the deaths, oh so many deaths. | We Hate Bards | |
| Sunday | 2:00 PM | 2:50 PM | Charlevoix | A Novel Look at the Short Story | Short stories require a different approach to pacing , character , world-building , exposition , and plot than longer works. Let’s explore the tools we use to convey important information to the reader when we have a lot fewer words to do it with. | A. T. Greenblatt, Amal El-Mohtar, Jessi Cole Jackson, Lucy A. Snyder, Scott H. Andrews | |
| Sunday | 2:00 PM | 2:50 PM | Keweenaw | The Liar , The Traitor , And The Reader | The Red Queen in Through The Looking Glass manages to deceive Alice without ever telling a lie. Betrayal tales are as old as fiction, and betrayers can make fascinating villains–and heroes. But characters who can’t be trusted require delicate handling. Readers often feel that protagonists were stupid not to see a betrayal coming. What does it take to get readers to identify with the deceitful–or the deceived? Who are our favorite betrayers in science fiction and fantasy, and why do they work? | Cassandra Morgan, -E, Dyrk Ashton, K. Lynne O’Connor, Jason Sizemore | |
| Sunday | 2:00 PM | 2:50 PM | KidFusion | Family Charades! | Kids–bring your parents along for a friendly game of charades to close out the weekend | Selina Firecat | |
| Sunday | 2:00 PM | 3:50 PM | TeenFusion | Open Room | |||
| Sunday | 2:00 PM | 2:45 PM | The Chessboard | Chrononaughts | Each player becomes a time traveler, with a unique identity and a secret mission. During the game, players travel backwards and forwards through history, doing all those things people have always dreamed of using a time machine to do | Cheryl O | |
| Sunday | 3:00 PM | 3:50 PM | Big Top | Closing Ceremonies | Come say goodbye to our Guests of Honor and Special Guests, and learn what we might have in store for you for next year! | Amy Sexsmith, Annalee Newitz, Gail Cross, James Breakwell, Jim Butcher, Kate Elliott, Luke Ski, Nisi Shawl | |
| Sunday | 3:00 PM | KidFusion | KidFusion Closes | Thanks for another great KidFusion year! | |||
| Sunday | 3:00 PM | 4:00 PM | The Chessboard | Hey That’s my fish | Players want to catch as many fish as possible with their waddle of penguins. Each turn, a player moves one penguin in a straight line over hex-shaped ice tiles with 1, 2 or 3 fish on them. The player then collects the hex from where the penguin started its movement from the table, thereby creating a gap which penguins can’t cross on future turns. When a penguin can’t move, it’s removed from play with its owner claiming the tile on which it stands. The player who collects the most fish wins. | Cheryl O | |
| Sunday | 4:00 PM | 4:50 PM | Big Top | Feedback Session | Give the ConCom compliments, ask questions, provide concerns. Review the con experience with the all-volunteer concom and staff, and find out how to join in the fun of planning ConFusion for next year! | Amy Sexsmith, Anna Carey, Brian Decker, Cylithria Dubois, David Klecha, Eric Guy, Allison Anderson | |
| Sunday | 5:00 PM | 5:50 PM | ConSuite | Dead Dog | Ring out the end of Friendship is ConFusion with the last of the last. We will be open until the food or our patience runs out! |