This weekend is Octocon weekend! The full timetable is here. And general details here.  Liz Williams is GOH and a host of wonderful guests including C.E. Murphy, Celine Kiernan, Oisín McGann, Michael Carroll and me!

This is what I’ll be up to: (busy busy busy)

Saturday

11am Room 101 – putting away all those SFFH tropes

1pm – Realistic Relationships in SFF – What makes for a realistic relationship, and does a different world change what is realistic in a relationship?

3pm – LGBTQ in YA – What is the impact of having LGBTQ characters in Young Adult Books? What are the possible
pitfalls?

4pm – Reading – I’ll be reading from The Treachery of Beautiful Things (and maybe more)

6pm – What does the term strong female character actually mean? – We use the term all the time, but there seems to be a lot of disagreement as to what is and is not a “Strong Female Character”

Sunday 14th

(phew! A lie in)

Noon – Why so violent? – Why do so many stories resort to violence? Surely we can all just get along

1pm – Roots of Irish fantasy – Irish Myths and Legends go back thousands of years, and have been changed by interaction
with the Catholic Church, and the Catholic Church has been changed by the Irish people and our myths (I accidentally talked my way into this. Be warned, I have been doing research!)

5pm – Is there space for religion in Science Fiction? – Some see science as being about facts and figures, and believe that science fiction shouldn’t include relgion. We hope to explore these ideas.

I always have an awesome time at Octocon. (And collapse in a heap afterwards). But don’t forget that there is also the Friday night welcome drinks and the Dead Dog party on Monday!

Copies of The Treachery of Beautiful Things, Soul Fire, The Scroll Thief and Songs of the Wolf will be available in the Dealers room.

Come and say hello if you’re there. And come to the reading so I’m not talking to an empty room! Pleeeeeeease!