Week in review

I know it’s only Thursday, but so far this week I’ve:

• Gotten a scientific paper accepted at Landscape Ecology
• Reviewed proofs for a second paper to be published in Photogrammetric Engineering & Remote Sensing
• Performed my first official acts as Associate Editor for the International Association of Vegetation Science
• Received a promotion
• Edit: Forgot one: Reviewed proofs for a textile history book chapter, thus completing the trifect of science, string, story.
• Gotten my panel schedule for Confluence (Pittsburgh, July 27-29)

Of those, I expect the only thing of general interest is that last one. I’ll be on four panels (full schedule here).

Fri 8:00 pm Willow – Don’t Make Me Sick – Ken Chiacchia; Susan Urbanek Linville; Kathleen Sloane; Sarah Goslee

Biologic and biomedical science fiction is still a lot of unused territory Why do we insist that it has to be space? And when we have the technology to make ourselves, or at least our characters better than before, why don’t we?

Sat 1:00 pm Willow – Half Past the Apocolypse – Tim Waggoner; Cathy Seckman; Sarah Goslee; Kenneth Cain

Dystopias: are they all worked out? What do the doomsday scenarios tell us about our ideas of entertainment? Is it time to swing the pendulum in a different direction? or is it too much fun to talk about how dreadful things are gonna get?

Sat 4:00 pm Oak – Editors: What do they Really Want – John Joseph Adams; Jeff Young; Eric Beebe; Danielle Ackley-McPhail; Sarah Goslee

Good question–here are a few, what do they have to say?

Sun 10:00 am Willow – They’re Coming to Get You, Barbara – Kenneth Cain; C. Bryan Brown; Jonathan Maberry; Sarah Goslee

Zombies have dominated the mainstream horror landscape for over a decade. Some people are sick to death (pun not intended) of them, while others look to the living dead as a necessary balance to twinkly, sparkly, moral-tastic vamps. Why do zombies work and why hasn’t even a good shot to the head put this trope down?

Doesn’t that look like fun? You should ALL COME.