Annalee Flower Horne Panels Day Start End Title Description Location Panelists Saturday 10:00 AM 10:50 AM 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? CHARLEVOIX David John Baker, Marissa Lingen, Matthew Bin, Max Gladstone, Annalee Flower Horne Saturday 1:00 PM 1:50 PM Reading: Jim C. Hines, John Chu, Annalee Flower Horne CHARLEVOIX Annalee Flower Horne, Jim C. Hines, John Chu Saturday 4:00 PM 4:50 PM 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.) ST. CLAIR Amal El-Mohtar, Annalee Flower Horne, Annalee Newitz, Carl Engle-Laird, David Anthony Durham, 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, Sara Dobie Bauer, Sarah Gailey, Scott H. Andrews, Seleste deLaney / Julie Particka, Stacey Filak, Suzanne Church, Tracy Townsend Saturday 5:00 PM 5:50 PM 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. ISLE ROYALE Amal El-Mohtar, Annalee Flower Horne, Annalee Newitz, Delilah S. Dawson, Julia Rios, Nisi Shawl Sunday 11:00 AM 11:50 AM 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. KEWEENAW Annalee Flower Horne, Denise M. Beucler, Elizabeth Shack, Jessi Cole Jackson Sunday 12:00 PM 12:50 PM 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? PETOSKEY Dominik Parisien, Merrie Haskell, Mishell Baker, Yanni Kuznia, Annalee Flower Horne