My Lunacon Schedule

This year's Lunacon -- the New York City area local SF/Fantasy convention -- will be held the weekend of March 19th at its perfect home in the Hilton Rye Town up in Westchester county. I'll be there part of the time -- late Friday afternoon through sometime Saturday evening -- since I'm off for a family trip for most of that Sunday and Monday.

And, if you'll be there, you might see me on the following program items:

Comics as Ethical Literature
Friday, 9:00 PM - 10:00 PM
When people think of comics, they generally think of violence, superpowers, and big-busted women. However, is there is room in the genre for moral quandaries and ethical questions, wedged somewhere between the leather catsuits and the spandex uniforms? Is so, are they the domain of independent comics, or can major titles like X-Men and Superman address those issues, too? Which is more important--spreading a message or staying in business?
Alexandra Elizabeth Honigsberg, Hal Johnson [M], Andrew Wheeler, Alex Wittenberg

Don't Change a Thing!
Saturday, 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Some writers begin to reject editorial input when they become "big-names", or are suddenly able to sell sub-par work on name recognition alone. Often, the quality of their writing suffers for it. How do editors make writers better? Is it possible to self-edit successfully?
Peter Heck, Eddie Schneider, Josepha Sherman, Gordon Van Gelder, Andrew Wheeler [M]

The Economy and The Genre
Saturday, 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM
How has the economic situation affected the publishing industry, specifically, the sci-fi/fantasy genre? Where do we go next? Is there a solution beyond'wait for everything to get better?'
Jim Belfiore, Peter Liverakos [M], Susan Shwartz, Andrew Wheeler, Gordon Van Gelder

You Want to Do What With the What?
Saturday, 10:00 PM - 11:00 PM
Raunchy robotic romps, sybaritic shape-changing, time travel threesomes... you know you want to use that fictional technology/superpower for something kinky. When genre fiction invents some new ability for purposes of plot or flavor, they don't always envision all the possible... implications of that power. Which works have actually gone there? Which really should (or shouldn't). What would we do with that shiny new toy?

Amy Chused, Bill DeSmedt, Bruce Dykes, Ian Randal Strock [M], Andrew Wheeler

Alternatively, if you want to avoid me, the above schedule will also help suit your purposes.