The Toronto SpecFic Colloquium is a one-day event featuring lectures, readings and discussions from major Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror authors as well as scholars and industry professionals.
This year’s Guest of Honour is MARGARET ATWOOD !
Speaking on “SF in my Life and Art“: In a journey through pictures, Margaret Atwood traces her relationship with SF in all its dimensions, from her childhood superheroes — 2 flying rabbits on a distant planet — to the present day. Both as reader and as writer, she’s had a strange romance.
Margaret Atwood recently won the 2016 Kitschies Red Tentacle Award for “The Heart Goes Last“, a funny and devastating’ dystopian vision of the future
With additional guest speakers & topics:
Special guest Andrew Pyper: “WHAT’S IN THE TRUNK? How To See the Characters We Write - And Ourselves - By Way of Secrets”
Peter Chiykowski: “How to Punch Like a Three-armed Mutant: A Specfic Writer’s Guide to Fighting Dirty in Comics, Comedy and Storytelling”
A.M. Dellamonica: “How We Became LV-426: Climate Change & Terraforming”
Michael Rowe: “21st Century Ghosts: On Suspension of Disbelief in Supernatural Fiction in the Age of Cell Phones, Facebook and Twitter”
Peter Watts: “ScArt” Books will be sold by Bakka Phoenix Books and ChiZine Publications.
The Annual Toronto SpecFic Colloquium is run by the Chiaroscuro Reading Series, and sponsored in part by the Toronto Arts Council and the Ontario Arts Council.
“The Toronto SpecFic Colloquium is hosted by the Chiaroscuro Reading Series and sponsored by Toronto-based press, ChiZine Publications.
Emerging from early magic realism, mythology and fable, from the work of science fiction authors who cut their teeth during the 1950’s golden age of pulp science fiction, and from the disturbing literary forays of horror writers inspired by Shelley, Poe, and Stoker, Canadian speculative fiction has begun to move in strange and provocative new directions, becoming something altogether different from its American counterpart and wholly itself.
We believe that Canadian authors may well prove to be the kind of rejuvenating force necessary to revitalize the “pulp” genres of fantasy, science fiction and horror writing.
As Canadian publications including Neo-Opsis, OnSpec, Ideomancer, Challenging Destiny, the long-running Tesseracts collections, and our own ChiZine Publications become increasingly prominent markets for speculative fiction, we want to establish a dialogue between senior and junior authors, between authors and editors, and between authors and readers in order to encourage the growth of this important literary domain.”
Schedule 2016
9:30 am – Registration Opens – Coffee, Tea and Water Available
9:50 am – Sandra Kasturi and Angela Keeley, Chair – Opening Remarks
10:00 am – A.M. Dellamonica – “ How we became LV426 ”
10:45 am - Peter Chiykowski – “How to punch like a three-armed mutant: A specfic writer’s guide to fighting dirty in comics, comedy and storytelling.”
11:30 am – BREAK (10 minutes)
11:40 am – Michael Rowe – “21st Century Ghosts: On Suspension of Disbelief in Supernatural Fiction in the Age of Cell Phones, Facebook and Twitter””
12:25 pm – Peter Watts – “ScArt”
1:10 pm – LUNCH (1.5 hours) 2:40 pm - Andrew Pyper – ”What’s in the Trunk”
3:25 pm – BREAK (5 minutes)
3:30 pm – Margaret Atwood – “SF in my Life and Art” (Keynote Address)
5:00 pm – Angela Keeley, Chair – Closing Remarks
5:05 pm – Kari Maaren presents “Can Lit!”
5:10 pm – Signing with Margaret Atwood
Innis Town Hall (University of Toronto)
2 Sussex Ave
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
This was a marvellous meeting of great minds in the fiction of the fantastic and a large part of it was due to Margaret Atwood’s charming and humble presentation. Showing her moniker dry wit and entertaining insights, Atwood traced her personal history with science fiction and speculative writing.