LAcon V Program Preview, Part Two
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LAcon V Program Preview, Part Two

Part two of our Program Preview for LAcon V… you can check out the first part here.

Science, Tech, Engineering & Math (STEM)

From Brenda Cooper, STEM Programming:

Even as a positive futurist, I am often nearly overwhelmed with the multitude of challenges and changes we are facing at the same time: Climate change, pollution, plastics overload, AI, authoritarianism, money that floats up to billionaires, and more (name your crisis). If you’re feeling that same pressure, have we got a panel for you. Consider attending Polycrisis: Living Through Many Challenges At Once in-person Friday at noon or the virtual panel on Monday at 1:30. The Friday session will be streamed so that virtual participants can also attend.

In the panel, we’ll ask questions like: How do we prioritize when it all feels important? For example, do we pick political action or climate action? Can we do both? Is this as bad as it feels? How can we frame our thinking to pull a positive future that we want to live in out of these troubling times?

I urge you all to attend one or even both of these sessions, no matter which part of the polycrisis you’re the most passionate about!

From Leah Kesselman, STEM Lead in Chemistry and Biology:

As a scientist and a sci-fi fan, I’m excited to share the program we’ve been working on for the past year. I’m hoping to bring conversations about the latest research to speculative fiction fans and writers. My background is in chemical engineering and bioengineering, and I’ve focused on putting together panels on medicine, the natural world, and the life of a scientist. I hope that these topics will give participants insight into how science works – and ultimately build more discussions between researchers, writers and the public.

In terms of medical panels, I’m excited to discuss Cell Therapy 101 with other scientists, doctors and people with lived experience. Changing someone’s own living cells in order to treat a disease sounds sci-fi but is already happening. Best Whump Options: Injuries for Fiction has both in-person AND virtual programming slots if you’ve ever doubted whether injuries you’re giving your characters make sense or are even survivable. Nineteenth Century Medicine will be helpful for writers with worlds set in an earlier time than our own, while Medicine after the Apocalypse and SOS on the ISS will look into medical treatments in different future worlds.

I love learning about the natural world and I’m thrilled that Friends of the Island Fox will be here to teach us about the Channel Island Fox, including hands-on exhibits. I can’t wait to geek out about birdwatching at Birds for Nerds, and Evolution is an Arms Race should be a great source of strange nature facts. Poisonous Plants will be a fun introduction to why “all-natural” doesn’t always mean “good for you”, and Farming in Fantasy will be a good antidote with practical worldbuilding and real-world gardening tips. If you’re obsessed with fungi and/or slime molds, we have Fungus Among Us: Mushrooms for Good and Evil; Mycology in Spec Fic: Separating Fact from Fiction and Too Cool to be a Fungus: Slime Molds for the Win.

Need help with your research skills and strategies? You’ll get the rare opportunity to learn from University of California Librarians at Fact-Checking Your Fiction: Research for Speculative Worlds. For fun scientist slice-of-life stories we’ve got Tall Technical Tales: Stories from the Lab, Bench, or Field and AMA: Ask me Anything with a Scientist (or the virtual panel version) where experts will talk about their real life experiences. For a historical view, Grudges in Science will be amusing. I’m hopeful that we can continue the interesting discussions at SciComm and you: How do we use Science for Good? and SOS: Save our Science.

I can’t wait to connect with everyone in Anaheim next week, and I hope this gives you an overview of some of our bio-adjacent STEM programming.

In the Program Guide, select “STEM” in the Area dropdown.

Just For Teens

Sean Feng is our Teen Program Track Lead this year, and he is himself a teen who worked tirelessly on this programming while living in China and keeping up with all his school work. His ideas and creativity were inspiring, and I think we have a truly incredible teen program this year due to his efforts. We have everything from writing workshops about writing mysteries, horror, fractured fairy tales, poetry, world building, and even romance to panels on publishing as a teen, teens telling authors what they would rather be reading, what they can do to survive in a zombie apocalypse and more! We are even building a time capsule (bring your writing and art to include!) hosting dance parties and Jackbox gaming sessions.

If you are a teen, bringing a teen, or trying to convince your teen to join you, have them take a gander at the engaging and robust program that fills the schedule this year. They may not want to ever leave the teen room again!

In the Program Guide, select “Teen Program” in the Area dropdown.

Literary Program Tracks

Articles below written by Rebecca A. Demarest, Literature Track Lead; Olav Rokne, Military Track Lead; and Camille Hernandez, Poetry Track Lead.

Literature of the Future!

At WorldCon, we are always pushing the envelope and asking “What if?” and nothing better emulates that than our huge selection of science fiction based programs in the Literature Track. There are so many, it was hard to pick just a few to feature, but I am really excited about the huge variety that this selection hints at:

Workshops:

Magic and Dragons and Elves, Oh My! Fantasy Literature Panels

Who doesn’t want a satisfying escape to a fantasy realm where the good guys are fighting evil on a daily basis? Whether they are Second World, Urban, Contemporary, Historical, or one of the many more subgenres in Fantasy, our panels are celebrating works from far and wide. Have a gander at the extensive program, but these are some I’m particularly looking forward to:

Workshops:

Screaming Good Horror Panels

Horror is always one of my favorite genres to create programming for because of the incredibly broad range of things people fear and how that fear can be used not only for entertainment, but also for commentary whether social, cultural, or political. Below are the panels I’m most excited for as we approach the spooky season.

Workshops (all require signups):

Literature Based in History

Sometimes we like repeating history–but only when we get to write a new outcome! History is rife with amazing opportunities for stories, whether we’re drawing inspiration from myths or setting stories in time periods long past. We’re excited by the offerings we have planned for you this year in the Historical Literature track and wanted to share these highlights with you:

Looking Beyond the Western Gaze: Non-Western Literature

We wouldn’t be truly WorldCon if we didn’t appreciate truly international work, and that’s why we love our Non-Western Literature. Due to the exciting and robust virtual options this year for LAcon, we have the opportunity to feature creators from around the globe, and not just those who can travel to us this year. Take a look at just some of the incredible panels you can watch this year:

Speculative Romance

Given the rising popularity of speculative romance, we’ve introduced a whole new literature track just for the love stories! A small sample of my favorite panels coming up at LAcon are below covering a wide range of topics. But rest assured, we’re here to talk about the plot first and foremost. Right? RIGHT?!

Panels to keep an eye on:

Workshops:

Language is a Multiverse: Poetry Track

You know that feeling when you walk into a library and it smells like sweet vanilla, raw earth, and a hint of worn leather? I think it’s kind of like a lighthearted giddiness mixed in with a youthful anticipation; but what does it feel like if you were to hold that levity between the gaps of your fingertips? What words would you use to describe it?

How do you want to explain the sensation of petrichor? Does it feel like a heaping dose of nutrients mixed in with a bottle of wonder and a sprinkle of that “fresh start” feeling? Does petrichor strut or float or is it endlessly roaming? Does it taste like a bluish grey on your tongue?

What could you become if you lingered a bit longer in the creative birth canal of awe and significance? How does it feel to behold every layer of this entire universe in the gap between your collarbones?

Who are you when put up to the light of wonder? What does language become when you collaborate with it and learn to wear your sentences like a masquerade gown?

I like to think of poetry as the art of expanding language to catch up to our capacity for wonder. This is the intention that was put into creating the poetry track for LA Worldcon. This year’s poetry is centered around asking questions and gaining new ways to expand our understanding of language.

As we enter our third year of the Hugo Poetry Awards, we’ve purposefully created a track that leads us into the future of speculative poetry. Many of our sessions are inclusive writing workshops led by incredible poets and educators who are passionate about the future of poetry. From sonnets to scifikus, ekphrasis to epics, writing with nuance and building new worlds with verse – there are endless possibilities for speculative poetry writing and an infinite number of ways we can write poetry together. We’re looking forward to seeing you all at LA Worldcon and exploring the vastness of language in this ever changing universe.

In the Program Guide, select “Poetry” in the Area dropdown.

Military Track Philosophy

When I was asked to take on the Military Science Fiction track of programming for LAcon V, I approached it with a little bit of trepidation. On one hand, Military Science Fiction is a vibrant and vital part of the genre discourse, but on the other hand it’s hard to reconcile the glorification of combat with the progressive values that many in the World Science Fiction Society community hold dear.

When beginning this task, I actually started thinking about some of the great works of military science fiction, and the political ideas that underpin them. They are far more nuanced than the “Ho-rah Semper-Fi” stereotypes of the genre. I’m thinking about Dorsai, The Forever War, The Light Brigade, … and yes, even Starship Troopers. Inevitably, these are works that ask questions about the allocation of power within a society, and between cultures.

So what sorts of discussions would highlight the more interesting aspects of these types of works? What questions are worth debating with regards to military science fiction? What conversations aren’t happening often enough?

The result is a small bit of the LAcon program that I’m genuinely proud of having a hand in crafting. In the Military Fiction track, you’ll find Acceptable Casualties: Military SFF’s Empathy Deficit, a panel where we’re going to talk about how genre works all-too-often imagines enemies as beings unworthy of empathy. You’ll also find Religious Wars in Speculative Fiction, a panel in which we look at how authors have grappled with real-world sectarian violence in fictionalized forms. And you’ll find Leftist Military Science Fiction, which talks about explicitly progressive works in the subgenre.

You’ll find panels looking at questions of equity and of ethics, of culture and of class. You’ll also find some panels built around silly puns, because I just love puns.

Some might complain that this approach to discussion of Military Science Fiction is overtly political, but I’d respond with a quote from Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz, who famously opined “politics is war by other means.” How do you escape from politics when dealing with something so fraught?

In the Program Guide, select “Military Fiction” in the Tag dropdown.

We hope you’ve enjoyed this preview of what LAcon V has to offer.  See you at the convention!

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