I have been a panelist at BayCon for a good number of years and look forward to seeing what I’m assigned to each year. Well, my BayCon 2015 schedule has arrived and there are some interesting selections for sure.

1. The Indie Toolbox: Some tips for inexpensive or free tools that can get you from publication-ready manuscript to a professional released work on Friday at 1:30 PM in Camino Real

Join Margaret McGaffey Fisk as she shares her insights into what you need to grow your writer’s toolbox

My first panel is currently a solo panel. I’m preparing some information about how I use the tools I have to produce my TTO Publishing works. I’m planning on an open structure where the curious can drive the focus. There isn’t enough time to do an in-depth look at any one tool, much less the collection I have used and/or currently use, but the overview approach will allow those who attend to ask their specific questions rather than listen to me expound on some of the wonderful abilities of my tools. Expect to be asked some questions yourself as well. If others do join the panel, there will be the potential for compare and contrast discussions as there are many ways to walk this particular road. Regardless, it should be informative and fun.

2. Identity Crisis on Friday at 3:00 PM in Alameda
(with Colin Fisk, Lon Sarver (M), Jay Hartlove, Karen Brenchley)

When you wake up and reboot in the morning, how do you know you are you? What if you wake up a thousand years from now in a body carefully designed to “feel” like it’s “you.” How will that be different from what you do every day? Will it matter?

This is an amusing choice for me not just because my husband will be sharing the discussion. Back in college, I took a course on Virginia Woolf. One of the works we studied was Orlando, an early look at transgender in a lot of ways as Orlando begins a man and wakes up halfway through the book as a woman. I chose to write the next stage as a non-binary gender “tan” (pronounced with an “ah” as in fawn) for the character set in the far future. Myself on the other hand? Now that’s a slightly different question.

3. The Joy of “Vic Spec Fic” — Victorian Era Speculative Fiction on Sunday at 11:30 AM in Bayshore
(with Norm Sperling, Marie Brennan (M), Lillian Csernica, Jim Partridge, Brad Lyau)

Even without any steampunk trappings, the Victorian Era (or a fantasy world’s equivalent), is a rich landscape for imaginative fiction. We know about life in this era through the writings of authors as widely different as Charles Dickens and Arthur Conan Doyle. In this period someone could still be both a student of art and a student of science, before specialization took those fields in separate directions, but at the same time enough advances in technology had been made that it could become the era of steam and of Charles Babbage. In this era women had many constraints, yet it still had the example set by Ada Lovelace, Babbage’s programmer. And it’s also an era of exploitation, colonization, and grinding Dickensian poverty, and the moral quandaries that they raise. Hear authors and fans of historical settings discuss why the Victorian Era is such a great setting for science fiction and fantasy. With or without steampunk clockwork.

Charles Dickens is definitely one of my influences while my steampunk adventure series, though not quite traditional, definitely borrows on the ripe environment offered by the likes of Ada Lovelace, Charles Babbage, and other pioneers in the Industrial Revolution. I look forward to hearing what has drawn other authors to explore this time of advancement and social turmoil cloaked in high fashion and the appearance, if not always reality, of morals.

There is some space left in my schedule, in part I hope, so I will be able to secure one of the reading spots. They are not assigned ahead of time, though, so we’ll see. If not, I may offer to fill in where last minute changes left a panel short. Otherwise, I’m sure to be about at most hours, so catch me for a chat. I’m happy to explore practically any topic as I style myself an amateur philosopher and have an untamed sense of curiosity.

If you’re going to be in the Bay Area May 22nd-24th, stop by and see what’s going on. I know that weekend is quite busy with cons, but BayCon has a lot to offer. I hope to see you there.