One of my favorite conventions is this coming weekend! 4th Street Fantasy takes place in St. Louis Park, Minnesota, where everyone knows how to drive and everyone comes for deep dives into literature. There is only one track, so everyone gets to hear every word. Panels often build on discussions that came up earlier, and the final panel of the weekend is a result of the most interesting discussions elsewhere.
If you're in Minnesota, please drop in!
I have the privilege of being on two panels this weekend. You can find me talking on these.
Sunday
2:00 PM – Monster Mash and Smash
Claire Eddy, Catherine Lundoff, Vivian Shaw, John Wiswell (M), Fred Yost
Writers and readers are endlessly fascinated with monsters.
Other-izing faceless hordes has clear racist underpinnings, and we have a
multitude of examples of gritty, difficult monster stories that
challenge how well we think of ourselves—and we also have countless
stories of monsters we would die for, monsters who make us die laughing,
and monsters who challenge us to think better of ourselves. What is it
about monsters that makes us so hungry and excited for their stories?
What makes them fun? Why are we driven not just to tell stories that
contain monsters but that are about monsters? Why do we love to come up
with and endlessly learn about (proven clearly by Pokémon evolutions and
D&D Monster Manuals) bizarre creatures that don’t exist? Why do we
cheer for Godzilla, adopt the Babadook as an icon, and crave the
perspective of Grendel’s mother? This panel will discuss how we use
stories to own our own monstrosity and claim outsiders, and how writers
make it so the incorporation of monsters into their stories can be
validating, awesome, and full of wonder and delight.
Sunday
11:30 AM – A Consideration of Death in Fantasy
Elizabeth Bear, Robyn Bennis, K.A. Doore, Monica Valentinelli, Django Wexler (M), John Wiswell
What exactly has good old death given to fantasy literature over the
years? Let’s look not so much at the meta question of reader reaction to
“death” and endings, but on how writers use death within a text, and
the power of what it can do, from fictional death coinciding with the
ending or transformation of an entire narrative (e.g., Morpheus’ death
leading to the actual end of the 75-issue original run of SANDMAN) or
to, conversely, how it functions simply as another marker in the long
walk up the mountain of story. In particular, this panel will consider
death’s role in fantasy: rituals and ceremonies surrounding death,
building consequences and lasting effects for surviving characters and
grappling with mortality when magic is real, the disparities in approach
between death as plot device and death as symbolic and magical concept
threaded through fantasy narratives, and cultural concepts of revenge
fantasy.