I'm about to fly of to Lunacon on Tuesday -

...but already the next con down the pike is in, and here's what I'll be doing at Norwescon in April (they also included a list of parties and receptions and whatnot but I'll take those off and just give you the actual programming - if we're at the same party, I'll just see you there...):

Norwescon 32 Itinerary For: Alma Alexander
 
Thursday
 
Story-Crafting From Your Subconscious               5:00 PM          Cascade 9
Do your characters surprise you? Is your outline giving you fits? Do strange things keep happening in your narrative? Find out why that's a good thing, in this light-hearted program item.
Josh Palmatier, Wolf Lahti, Alma Alexander, Rhiannon Held, Ted Butler
 
Reading:  Alma Alexander                                       6:00 PM          Cascade 3
Cybermage – Book 3 of the YA "Worldweavers" trilogy - Rated G
Alma Alexander
 
 
Friday
 
Creating Emotion-Driven SF/F                               10:00 AM       Cascade 7
Speculative fiction is often called the fiction of ideas, but wonderful ideas will never see print unless they create an emotional impact.  Learn to begin with emotion and then wrap the story around character to affect the reader.
Brenda Cooper, Jeff Soesbe, Alma Alexander, Grá Linnaea, Warren Hammond
 
Writing Magic 101                                                    11:00 AM       Cascade 9
What rules you need to establish when writing with magic in a story?
Renee Stern, Kevin Radthorne, Jen Brozek, Alma Alexander
 
Plot, Setting, and Characters: Who's on First?      4:00 PM          Cascade 9
Do you create wonderfully realistic characters, but then find your plots wandering around lost, searching for a resolution?  Are the worlds you create lush and vibrant, but your characters speak like they're all clones?  Come for a hands-on discussion of how to find the proper balance that will bring everything together in your stories.
Kevin Radthorne, Ken Scholes, Erin Tidwell, Wolf Lahti, Alma Alexander
 

Saturday
 
How do you name your characters?                        9:00 AM         Cascade 8
This is a sweeping generalization, but naming conventions in SF tend to be conservative, at least for human characters.   The way an author handles names says something about the assumptions underlying a story (including the root assumption that sentient creatures are individuals), while the very sound of a character's name may add to the sense of the milieu, as fantasy writers well know. How could names also include such alien possibilities as clan, hive, guild, chemicals, colors…and other distinguishers?How many stories do we read set in distant futures or other worlds in which people have names that sound like my neighbors' (two names to a customer, family name last)? This is not realistic because it assumes the continued cultural dominance of a US or Western-centered world indefinitely.
Alyx Dellamonica, Alma Alexander, Kim Ritchie, Leah Cuttter
 
Writing the Young Female Protagonist                  10:00 AM       Evergreen 3
>From Podkayne of Mars to Alanna of Tortall, young girls have often been vivid and well-loved characters in science fiction and fantasy. How does one write such a character? If you yourself are not a young girl, how can you get into the mindset to make your character believable?
Brenda Cooper, Alma Alexander, Rosemary Clement-Moore, Dierdre Phoenix, Mike Moscoe
 
Autograph Session 2                                                 Noon               Evergreen 1 & 2
Grab your books!  Our Guests of Honor and many of our pros will be available for autographs.
R.A. Salvatore, Geno Salvatore, Todd Lockwood, Alma Alexander, Carol Berg, Paul Chadwick, Brenda Cooper, Jim Glass, Mark Henry, Jak Koke, Lisa Mantchev, Juliana McCorrison, Joshua Palmatier, Kevin Radthorne, The Reverend en Fuego, Mary Rosenblum, Lorelei Shannon, G.Robin Smith, Bruce Taylor, Christine Winters, Janine Ellen Young
 
Writer's Workshop: #1                       6:00 PM          Baker
Elven Twilight
Erin Tidwell, Alma Alexander, John Pitts, Carol Berg
   
Sunday
 
Writers Workshop: #2                                    10:00 AM       Rainier
Frost Bites
Kim Ritchie, KL Young, Paul Melko, Alma Alexander



As you can see I will be quite the busy little pro...