Center for Fiction Monday & Thurs (& something good Weds at the Grolier Club, too!)

[Ellen Kushner]

One more panel this week for me at the Center for Fiction's Big Read:
On MONDAY I'm moderating an all-star cast (Samuel R. Delany, Andrea
Hairston, Steve Berman, Carlos Hernandez & Alaya Dawn Johnson)
discussing:

"Outsiders In/Of Science Fiction and the Fantastic"*
Monday October 24, 2011
7:00 pm
FREE/ RSVP:
http://www.centerforfiction.org/calendar/big-read-outsiders-inof-science-fiction-and-the-fantastic
or call (212) 755-6710
At The Center for Fiction / 17 E. 47th Street

I also encourage you to attend the final panel in the series, to be
held at the
RUBIN MUSEUM (150 West 17th St.) on THURSDAY at 7:00 - it's gonna be
smokin' hot**:
Writers and scholars discuss the earliest form of fantasy
storytelling through the novels of today.
Panelists: John Crowley, Hamid Dabashi, Andrew Quintman, Paul
Witcover and moderator Elizabeth Hand.
Tickets are $12 and include 6:15 p.m. tour of the exhibition
"Once Upon Many Times: Legends and Myths in Himalayan Art"
TIX & Info (& great graphics):
http://www.rmanyc.org/events/load/1385

And in between, on
Weds., Oct. 25 6-8 pm
why not drop by the elegant Grolier Club (47 East 60th Street) for a
Critical Fiction Symposium to celebrate the publication of a new book
by Wendy Walker? A new production by Temporary Culture (who did my
"The Man with the Knives" last year)! Details here:
http://criticalfiction.net/symposium.html

--Wait! Wait! One more thing! My friend & colleague, Chicago fantasy
writer/poet C.S.E. Cooney, has her New York premiere this weekend, as
part of Manhattan Theater Source's "Estrogenius" Festival of Short
Plays. Her
beautiful play "Selkie" reminds me of the short plays of W.B. Yeats.
http://estrogenius.org/

Have a great week!
Ellen
-------------------------
http://www.ellenkushner.com


*10/24 "Outsiders" PANEL DESCRIPTION:

To many people, "sci-fi" still denotes a world of spaceships piloted
by square-jawed white male captains. But while popular culture's back
was turned, the literature of the fantastic has gone way beyond
Hollywood to spearhead a deeply daring exploration of race and gender,
stretching the boundaries of what could be, and making it possible for
us to imagine alternative possibilities through the lens of
speculative fiction.

From Le Guin's own ground-breaking _The Left Hand of Darkness_ - which
swept both the genre's two great awards, the Hugo and the Nebula - to
Samuel R. Delany's gritty masterpiece _Dahlgren_ and beyond, readers
have found science fiction challenging preconceptions of gender and
race.

This panel will look at "outsiderness" in the world of science fiction
and fantasy.
http://www.centerforfiction.org/calendar/big-read-outsiders-inof-science-fiction-and-the-fantastic


**10/26 Rubin Museum:
"From Urdu Epic and Tibetan Sorcerers to Today: Fantasy in Tibetan
and World Literature"
--With moderator Liz Hand's permission, here are her preliminary
instructions to the panelists:

"As this is tied to the Center for Fiction/Big Read's celebration of
Ursula Le Guin's contemporary classic _A Wizard of Earthsea_, it seems
appropriate to have our discussion begin with the sorcerer, one of the
most ancient and universal figures in human history and art.

"This season is one of the cross-quarters of the ritual year in many
cultures, rich with with folklore and ceremonies that celebrate the
harvest and transitions between autumn and winter, life and death.
Sorcerers and shamans, holy men and women — supernatural figures of
many types — often possess the ability to make these liminal
crossings.

"As everyone on our panel will approach this subject from a quite
different perspective, I'd like to start by having each one [panelist]
share, campfire-style, a tale, legend or myth, that involves
sorcerers, sorcery, ritual magic, religion, mythology, and so on. We
have a very broad palette to draw from, so the choice is yours. We'll
have plenty of time for more expansive discussion and comments, as
well as questions from our audience."
http://www.rmanyc.org/events/load/1385

MORE INFO:
http://www.centerforfiction.org/events/the-big-read/