Some of the Report-Out/Suggestions from My Arisia Panels

If you took my card at Arisia so that you could get the notes and/or book and movie suggestions from my panels, you may have already seen my post that I lost all of my notes due to technical/user error. (Never again will I take notes on my Google Nexus tablet--it's all paper and pen from here on.) 

With the help of some fellow panelists and audience members--and my memory--I'm able to provide SOME of the information I had collected. See below, by panel topic. I'm including panelist names, as they may have information on their blogs that you can refer to.

Read All the Things!

Panelists: Randee Dawn, Greer Gilman, Adam Lipkin (m), Suzanne Reynolds-Alpert, JoSelle Vanderhooft

The authors that were championed were: Jonathan Carroll, Angela Carter, Shirley Jackson, Octavia Butler, and Roger Zelazny. I championed Octavia Butler. The first works I read of hers were Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents. I'd recommend starting there. If you have any questions about other works by Butler, feel free to contact me.

Zombies, More Zombies, and Even More Zombies

Panelists: Gayle Blake, Jeanne Cavelos, Gail Z Martin, Suzanne Reynolds-Alpert (m), Barbara A Woodward

We talked about:

• The appeal of zombies-- the themes they tend to convey, and how those things connect to our modern world.

• What do zombies represent today?

• Zombie evolution--Shambling vs. sentient; personality or not (i.e. the movie Warm Bodies)

• Variations on the zombie theme (i.e. the Borg)

• Lesser-known zombie works.There were many great suggestions for zombie works, which I've lost. Some are: Dan Shamble PI, Dead Set, Spoiler

Spirituality in Fantasy and Science Fiction

Panelists: Erik Amundsen (m), Max Gladstone, Kate Kaynak, Daniel Jose Older, Suzanne Reynolds-Alpert

A lot of content came out of this panel. One of the books mentioned was A Canticle for Leibowitz, Chronicles of Narnia, also the Hyperion series. From my neo-Pagan perspective, I mentioned The Mists of Avalon and The Fifth Sacred Thing as works having influenced my spirituality. An audience member mentioned Dies the Fire.

I wish I could provide more... if any audience members or fellow panelists want to add more in the comments below, please do so!