cathschaffstump | Wiscon Pre-Game! (Reply)

I'll be at Wiscon this weekend, from Friday through Monday. I'll be happy to kibbitz with old friends and new, show off my 20-pound lighter self, talk writing, and buy lots of books that I'll probably take another year to get to. I'm excited to be involved in 3 events.

Event the first: Cultural Grammar of Experience.

Essentialisms aside, one's culture(s) creates a particular context of experience and understanding of the world. There is a grammar of seeing and perceiving that comes from being from a specific culture." One of the many things that inspires Hiromi Goto in her writing is her Japanese culture. References to Japanese folk legends and myths, inclusion of non-translated Japanese words in the text, are some ways that Goto destabilizes a reading that refuses to be "exotic". How have other writers of colour and Indigenous writers included their cultures into their speculative fiction tales? In what kinds of ways?

This I'll be on talking about student culture and the sub-cultures I've been involved with, plus making commentary on glowing examples of literature that meet these criteria. I also hope to talk about the creative writing efforts of some of Kirkwood's community of second-language writers.

Event the second: Clockwork Lasercorn