I'm taking my ease this week in Montpelier, Vermont, which is rapidly becoming one of my favorite places.

Next weekend, we'll be at Readercon in Boston, and here's what I'm told I'll be doing.

Friday 12:00 Noon, ME/ CT: Discussion (60 min.)

The Sycamore Hill Conspiracy, or How Bad Stories Go Good.  Gregory Frost (L) with Richard Butner, F. Brett Cox, Andy Duncan, Theodora Goss, Gavin J. Grant, James Patrick Kelly, John Kessel, Jonathan Lethem, Michaela Roessner, Christopher Rowe, et al

How did one particular peer workshop started by John Kessel in Raleigh, NC way back in 1985 produce remarkable and frequently award-winning fiction?  What's it like to workshop a story when everyone in the room is an invited author of note?  Does a workshop at this level use the standard Clarion techniques, or does it have its own style? Veterans of the Sycamore Hill conference tell all.  [Since there are far too many SycHillers at the Con to fit on a panel, the plan is to have a bunch of them sit in a half-circle in front of the panelist's table and have plenty of contributions from the audience.]


Friday 6:00 PM, Salon G: Panel

Cyberpunk Goes Post-al.  M. M. Buckner, Nina Harper, Matthew Jarpe, James Patrick Kelly (L), Christopher Rowe

James Patrick Kelly and John Kessel have recently co-edited Re-Wired: The Post-Cyberpunk Anthology. How have stories written in a cyberpunk vein evolved since the subgenre originated?  By precedent, the prefix "post" could have one of two meanings: a reactionary successor (as in post-modernism) or a contemporaneous stylistic expansion (as in post-punk).  Do either of these meanings apply?  If not, have the stories nevertheless evolved far enough from the original model to warrant the prefix?  Or are they really just "late cyberpunk?"  And if that's the case, does the use of "post" indicate some kind of attempt at distancing from the subgenre even as we continue to write and read it?


Saturday 10:00 AM, ME/ CT: Panel

The Rebirth Of The Non-Theme Original Anthology.  Mike Allen, Ellen Datlow (L), David G. Hartwell, Kit Reed, Christopher Rowe

It started in the fall of 2006 with Salon Fantastique: Fifteen Original Tales of Fantasy, edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling.  Last year saw the publication of no less than four anthologies with annual designs: The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction edited by George Mann, Fast Forward 1: Future Fiction From the Cutting Edge edited by Lou Anders, Eclipse 1: New Science Fiction and Fantasy edited by Jonathan Strahan, and Mann's The Solaris Book of New Fantasy.  This year has seen a second Solaris SF volume and Datlow's The Del Rey Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy--each including a handful of stories by Readercon 19 guests.  What role has the non-theme anthology played in the history of the field?  What's behind the recent resurgence?


Saturday 2:00 PM, VT: Group Reading (60 min.)

The Del Rey Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy Group Reading  Nathan Ballingrud, Laird Barron, Elizabeth Bear, Ellen Datlow, Jeffrey Ford, Barry N. Malzberg, Christopher Rowe

Readings from the anthology (subtitled Sixteen Original Works by Speculative Fiction's Finest Voices) edited by Datlow and published in April by (who else?) Del Rey books.


Sunday 12:00 Noon, Vinyard: Kaffeeklatsch

Charles Oberndorf; Christopher Rowe


Sunday 1:30 PM, NH / MA: Reading (30 min.):
Rowe reads from his novel-in-progress Sarah Across America.