2020 has been a difficult year for events and conventions, which led to Estcon being the biggest event of the summer for me. My write-up and photographs were featured in the November issue of Locus Magazine and you can read all about it at the Locus online magazine: https://locusmag.com/2020/11/estcon-2020-report/
Attending a science fiction convention from a tent was definitely not what I expected to be doing this summer but my presentation went well and I had a great time.
I was excited by the opportunity to take part in the Exoplanet Demographics conference hosted by the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute at IPAC/Caltech over the 9-13th of November.
The organisers of the virtual conference were surprised by the amount of interest they received from science fiction writers and decided to do a Collaborative STEAM public outreach project, soliciting science fiction stories, poetry and art inspired by the discoveries being presented during the conference.
I was given the abstract of a presentation by Juliette Becker entitled The Origins of Multi-Planet Systems with Misaligned, Nearby Companions. Inspired by the details of the discovery (at least those that I understood), I wrote a short-and-sweet science fiction story called “The Missed Connection”.
This was published in the Wednesday edition of the Heavy Metal Jupiters and Other Stories e-zine edited by Jessie Christiansen and Heather Clitheroe.
I’m doubly excited to discover that the author of the research talk said that she loved my story!
I absolutely love the story Sylvia Spruck Wrigley wrote about my #ExoDem research talk. I won't spoil it, but Rocky the sentient asteroid has a bad time because he makes some assumptions about STIP geometries! Link: https://t.co/c6eZhcYwbr https://t.co/7lguTpCzDC
— Juliette Becker (@jcbastro) November 11, 2020
This was a great initiative and I am proud to have been a part of it.
I wrote a long update as I’ve been terrible about posting news.
The past six weeks have been a whirlwind and I’ve just finally had a chance to sit down and take a deep breath. Some of my friends have talked about how much more free-time they have during the pandemic, because they aren’t going out and they are working from home. Somehow, this hasn’t happened to me at all, even though I’m not travelling.
You can read all about it here: What I was Doing While I Wasn’t Here
I’ve been very lucky to be able to work on a number of excellent documentaries and I’m excited to share that, despite not being able to travel, this is still happening. Last week, I met with a Tallinn camera crew who filmed me doing a COVID-safe interview via Zoom. The producer and I talked for three hours about an accident they are featuring on the television series which inspired me to write the Why Planes Crash books and which is still my my favorite crash show. The episode will probably end up with me saying about three words in the final version but it was exciting all the same. It’s also an unbelievable sequence of events that I’m glad to see being covered. I’ll tell you more as soon as it is out and I am able to share the details!
I’m thrilled that my article on Old Women in Science Fiction has appeared in Nature magazine!
I wish I’d tried harder to mention Chrisjen Avasarala in Caliban’s War and Ofelia Falfurrias in Remnant Population but I struggled with the space limitations.
You can read the full article here: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03618-w
Here are some of my recent posts about life in Estonia that that you might have missed:
Life is always interesting…
I’m very excited that I will also be presenting in Belfast at TitanCon. This is the 2019 Eurocon and takes place the weekend after Worldcon. It promises to be a great convention and I’m really looking forward to it.
I will also be taking part in Literature Night on Thursday night and hopefully reading something completely new!
I can recommend the panel on Game of Thrones: Series Retrospective which is taking place on Friday in the Waterfront room at the Hilton. I’m moderating and have already had a conversation with the panelists, who have a lot of very interesting things to say about it all!
You can see the entire programme on Grenadine: https://sites.grenadine.co/sites/titancon/en/titancon2019
I now have my schedule for Worldcon at Dublin and it looks great!
Here’s the official programming:
15 August 2019 13:30 – 14:20
Presenter: Throwing Grandma out the Airlock
Odeon 5 (Point Square, Dublin)
17 August 2019 12:00 – 12:50
Moderator: Invisible Work: Mothers and Caretakers in SFF
Wicklow Hall 1 (CCD)
19 August 2019 10:00 – 10:50
Panellist: Anniversary: Alcock and Brown
ECOCEM Room (CCD)
19 August 2019 13:00 – 13:50
Autographing
Level 4 Foyer (CCD)
I’m very much looking forward to this; also my first EVER trip to Ireland!
I’m thrilled to have been featured in the July issue of Reaktor magazine, with a detailed interview and five of my flash fiction stories.
Triin Loide asked me a broad range of interesting questions and never let me get away with an easy answer in Intervjuu: Sylvia Spruck Wrigley.
And five stories which have never before been seen in Estonian:
I’m flattered to have made my debut in Reaktor in such a big way!
I’m excited to announce that I’ve been invited to present at Finncon 2019 which takes place next month in Jyväskylä.
I’ll be speaking about old women in science fiction at 15:00 on Saturday, the 6th of July. The academic track has a theme of AI Meets Tolkien: Non-Human Minds in Speculative Fiction and on that subject, I’ll be questioning what happens to an aging population when know-how can be downloaded and experience can’t compete against artificial intelligence. Please come and join me in the Opinkivi building in room OPK141.
