Apparently somebody didn't warn 'em in time and I'm going to be doing four panels at this year's WesterCon at the Town and Country Resort and Conference Center in San Diego.
The con runs from July 3 to 5; my panels are:
Friday, Jul 3, 2015 10:00AM
No More Evil Priests in Red (Sunrise in Meeting House)
Understanding faith in a secular world. It's easy to depict organized religion as evil, led by greedy rapist scumbags and followed only by the drones and sheeple, but this trope hasn't been cutting edge for the past forty years. In setting up evil priestly straw men for our postmodern heroes to blow away, authors too often overlook why brilliant people like Boethius could walk smiling to execution, St. Francis could try to protect the animals everyone else wanted to eat, or Hildegard von Bingen could write awe-inspiring music and plays. Let's talk about books that depict the complexities of religious faith in interesting, insightful ways. Timothy Cassidy-Curtis, Buzz Dixon, Eytan Kollin, Bradford Lyau, Sherwood Smith
Friday, Jul 3, 2015 12:00PM
How Does YOUR Writing Vary in Different Lengths? (Pacific Salon Three)
How does your writing change between, i.e., short story v. novel length? John DeChancie, Buzz Dixon, Heather Rose Jones, Lisa Kessler, David D. Levine, Fred Wiehe
Saturday, Jul 4, 2015 12:00PM
Expanding Our Horizons of Inclusion: Race, Sex, Gender...What's Next? (Pacific Salon Four and Five)
Buzz Dixon, Daryl Frazetti, Jude-Marie Green, Ginn Hale, Isabel Schechter
Sunday, Jul 5, 2015 12:00PM
The Bore of the Worlds: Why Would Aliens Fight Us? (Sunset in Meeting House)
Is Stephen Hawking smart to be terrified of alien invasions, "Berserker" robots, and overachieving computers? The vast majority of planets will not have sentient life (if life at all); galactic resources are so common as to be free for the taking without annoying any other species; territory is meaningless in a galaxy of 100 billion suns; and the likelihood is that any spacefaring planet would have the equivalent of "replicators" and "holodecks." That takes care of all terrestrial reasons for warfare. So what could lead to interstellar war -- anything? Or will the aliens just ignore us as "mostly harmless?" Buzz Dixon, Cody Goodfellow, Larry Niven, Alan Pollard, Janine Young
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