Today we attended the 2012 Toronto SpecFic Colloquium at the Gladstone Hotel in Toronto, hosted by Chizine Publishing (ChiSeries).
The Gladstone Hotel was the perfect setting for this year's Colloquium. Although the weather outside was wet and cold, the atmosphere inside the newly renovated Queen West landmark was perfect. Old creaky hardwood floors, original brick walls, and glass doors - authentic artsy Queen West!
The program kicked off with a talk by Robert Runte about Canadian Science Fiction. A solid introduction to the day, as it tried to answer the question: What is Canadian SF? Runte offered a few trends - ambiguous endings, a focus on setting, themes of alienation and the observer as the 'hero', to name a few. While he cautioned about shoehorning oneself into these categories (it doesn't make you any less Canadian if you don't write that way), I definitely felt like he hit on two themes I keep coming back to in my own writing - that is, ambiguous endings and themes of alienation.
Helen Marshall was the second speaker and her presentation was focused on the coming of ebooks. She structured her talk around two main subjects - language and form. While there is no denying the popularity of txt spk, it doesn't seem to quite lend itself to story telling. Marshall did talk about poetry trying to take new forms, but poets have a difficult time giving up control of how their lines and poems look on the page, as it's undeniably part of the message. Further, she suggested that epublishing is pushing us towards a 'formless' literature that can be resized and reformatted without taking anything away from the prose. Finally, Marshall flirted a little with the idea of hypertext fiction (the new choose-your-own-adventure!) and even pointed out that some publishers were willing to give it a try, even if they didn't really know what it was or how to publish it. From a writer's perspective, there were some good takeaways from this talk - while we're mostly lost in our words, we should maybe keep language and form in the backs of our minds. For those wanting to take on self-publishing, it's especially important to think about how your story is going to look on the page and how to make it as accessible as possible.
After a short break (during which we went in search of tea), it was time for the guest of honour, Robert Shearman. As I have a poorly lacking knowledge of Doctor Who, I wasn't sure what to expect. I should never have worried - Shearman stole the show. He was humble, funny and genuine. He talked about his difficulties growing up with a speech impediment, how he found renewed confidence and passion in the theatre and how to find the 'weird' in any ordinary situation. His discussion about finding freedom in the structure of short fiction was especially moving. He was absolutely brilliant. I bumped into him later in the hall and told him that I thought he had done a spectacular job - he was so appreciative and sincere. Shearman is in town for the Colloquium, the World Fantasy Convention and SFContario. If you can catch him at any of these events, do so. It will be worth it.
Lunch followed and we sat down at the Gladstone restaurant. We had a great meal and fantastic conversation about the first half of the Colloquium. We all agreed that it was the best one yet!
Back to the room for the afternoon program. Peter Watts was up first with his talk on Hive Minds. If you've never seen Watts at a convention or speaking engagement, you're really missing out. After a brief introduction to his topic, he somehow linked it up to child molestation and punctuated his point with a picture of the Pope at Vatican City on the projection screen. There's really nothing I can say to explain it except maybe: "That's Peter." He's bloody fantastic. We've been to all three Colloquiums so far, and every time we end up discussing Watts' topic the most fervently afterwards. Sometimes he has you questioning free will, sometimes organized religion. Today, he took on neuroscience and fascinating topics like split brain syndrome and echopraxia. Watts is the kind of guy that can make you really consider having half of your brain anaesthetized just to find out what your right and left hemisphere personalities are like...
After a short break to switch laptops, Karin Lowachee did a presentation on children in warfare. While her topic included a discussion on one of my most favourite books - Ender's Game - I really felt like the momentum of the day slowed right down during her presentation. Lowachee graciously stepped in when one of the original guests could no longer attend, so maybe it was just a matter of having less time to prepare.
Finally we were down to the last break and last presenter of the day. Admittedly, I was most excited about seeing Scott Bakker's presentation. I am a huge fan of his incredibly twisted novel 'Neuropath' and I knew he'd give a fascinating talk. Bakker picked up right where Watts left off - braaaaaaiiins! He talked about the difference between our cyborg fantasies (not like that! /wink wink) and the reality of neuroscience. [On a side note, he totally botched his slideshow and it was incredibly endearing.] What especially intrigued me in his talk was the question of whether we really have a grip on free will, or if one hemisphere of our brain is just really good at lying to us. Bakker talked about an experiment where they asked split hemisphere patients to do something that engaged only one side of their brain. They then asked the other hemisphere why they had done it. While in reality the person had no idea, their brain had no problem coming up with a perfectly plausible lie on the fly. So you have to ask yourself, do you know the real reason why you're reading this, or is your brain just really, really good at lying to you?
So in the end, the day was an absolute success. And if you missed this year's Colloquium, head over to the ChiSeries website and get on the mailing list so you don't miss the next one!
--SJ
Today's Flavour Text:
"The jury's still out on if our stomachs are conscious and plotting against us." --Peter Watts