Glasgow 2024 Worldcon

Emerging from my well to shame mankind tell you about my schedule for Glasgow 2024 Worldcon! Unfortunately, due to health and financial reasons, I won’t be able to attend in-person this year, but I will be on panels for their virtual track.

On Thursday, August 8th at 9:30 AM PDT/ 17:30 BST, I’ll be speaking on Creating a Language for Your World.

Saturday, August 10th at 11:00 AM PDT/19:00 BST, you can catch me on Blood is Thicker than Water: Found Family in SFF (Online Version).

As usual, you can find my upcoming events on the page with the same name.

Furthermore, now that I (finally) have access to Bluesky, I’m in the process of setting up a presence there that I hope to have ready by the time of the conference, what with all of my other social media presences having been dead for, uh, like well over a year now. I’ll post the link for that here once I getting it looking less like a bot account. UPDATE: Here it is: @jasminegower.bsky.social.

A round-up of where to find me on the World Wide Web

Photo by Spencer Goad: https://www.flickr.com/photos/spgoad/12998899453

I’m going to list the links first and then get to the sort of post-amble below. You can currently (as of 11/15/22) find me at the following social media addresses. As a point of order, I am not very active on any of them yet, but I can confirm that these accounts are, indeed, me:

As always, I can also be found at my editorial sub-site, as well as on Reedsy.

There are a few more places where you can check out stuff that I’m working on, though each of these is currently on a hiatus:

Now, on to the amble:

Like many authors and other creatives, I’ve been working the past week or so to make contingency plans in the (increasingly likely) scenario that Twitter becomes literally unusable in the near future. I do so with mixed feelings. On one hand, Twitter is the most active online gathering place for people in my field–it’s where I’ve connected with many friends, collaborators, readers, and just generally cool people. Twitter is also the site where #DVPit was run, the event in which my pitch for Moonshine was noticed by Angry Robot, leading to their request for a submission and eventually acquisition and publication of my book. So, that’s nice.

On the other hand, Twitter sucks.

I’ve always hated it–just the general premise and layout and culture of the whole damn thing. I’ve long held that Tumblr has always been the superior site to Twitter, but the infamous “porn” ban there chased away so many active users that my feed all but dried up, leaving me nowhere to go that was used by members of my online communities except Twitter. The most micro of blogging that everyone tries to use for long-form posting anyway, with constantly changing settings, infinite scrolling, and brands trying to be Quirky and Hip. I’m not glad to see the decimation of the communities that have built up on that platform over time, but I’m not sorry to have the excuse to jump ship myself. It just has never really been for me.

But that leaves me back to my post-Tumblr problem: where is everyone going? I’m not going to speculate on which platform has the best odds of becoming the “next Twitter”–I don’t have any special insight on the matter and, frankly, that’s not a question that interests me anyway. But from what I can see from the communities I’m interested in keeping in touch with, things are a bit scattershot at the moment. Mastodon seems to be the most popular Tw-alternative, but I’m interested in seeing what Cohost can do with the mission statement they’ve provided. And LinkedIn is…there. With people returning to Tumblr, I may resurrect my presence there, but I so far haven’t had time to commit to that yet, and I could possibly get more involved on TikTok again as well. Overall, I’m taking this opportunity to really reflect on what I’m getting out of social media (either personally or professionally), what I want to get out of it, and which platforms offer the best options for reaching those goals.

For now, the links I’ve provided above are where I’m going to focus my energy for the moment, and I’ll update here if/inevitably when that changes. The great news is, while it doesn’t do much in the way of interactivity, you can always trust that I’ll provide relevant Jasmine Updates on this site.

[UPDATED] WorldCon (Chicon 8) Schedule

UPDATE: I’ve been added to the panel Disability in Creativity: Making Art Within Specific Needs. Check out my updated schedule below or on my Upcoming Event page for all the details.

I’m happy to announce that my schedule for Chicon 8 has been finalized! While I will only be attending the convention virtually, you will be able to find me around Airmeet and on the following panels:

[NEW!]
Panel: Disability in Creativity: Making Art Within Specific Needs
Airmeet 3
Thursday, September 1, 2022
1:00 PM CDT/11:00 AM PDT

Neurodiversity in SFF
Airmeet 3
Sunday, September 4, 2022
4:00 PM CDT/2:00 PM PDT

45 Panels in 60 Minutes
Airmeet 2
Monday, September 5, 2022
1:00 PM CDT/11:00 AM PDT

I’m stoked to be on all of these panels and excited to see everyone at the (virtual) con! You can find out more about the convention over on their website, and, as always, you can find information about all of my upcoming events over on the aptly-named Upcoming Events page.

New Article: “The best books with fantastical civic design” on Shepherd

For those looking for some new book recommendations this cozy season, I’ve written a list of my top five fantasy books that best incorporate civic & urban design into their world-building, now up on Shepherd, a new site for connecting readers to books. You can check out that article to see my recommendations, which include some of my all-time favorite books in general, to be honest.

And be sure to explore Shepherd for other book recommendation lists like mine covering all kinds of topics. Shepherd is still in beta, but there is still plenty there for readers to discover.

OryCon 2019

2019 Endeavour Award Finalist badge

OryCon is coming up this weekend in Portland, OR at the Jantzen Beach Red Lion Hotel. I will be there as a panelist as well as an Endeavour Award finalist for Moonshine.

If you want to catch the panel I’m on, it will be Exploring Publishing Options on November 10th at 11:15 AM. The Endeavour Award Ceremony will be on Friday, November 8th at 6:45 PM.

I’m very excited to have Moonshine selected as a finalist for the Endeavour Award. I’ve been attending OryCon for the past two years now, and as one of the smaller conventions I’ve been to, I really enjoy it’s laid-back atmosphere and homey feel. I’m generally a very low-energy person and highly prone to sensory overload, so even though I like conventions, most of them take a lot out of me, but OryCon has proven to be the sort of the convention that’s a comfortable speed for me. Having my work recognized there is a great feeling that really makes me feel a part of the Pacific Northwest SFF community.

Check my events page for all the panel and award ceremony details, or visit the OryCon site for the full convention schedule.

WorldCon 2019 Schedule

Dublin WorldCon just sent along my finalized panel schedule, so if you have a chance to attend WorldCon this year, you can find me at the following panels:

Making the asexual textual

Format: Panel15 Aug 2019, Thursday 21:00 – 21:50, Wicklow Hall-1 (CCD)

In the past, many asexual and/or aromantic characters in science fiction and fantasy stories have not been overtly identified this way. Should writers be more explicit in stating asexual and aromantic characters’ identity? How do asexuality and aromanticness shape and change the way characters and their relationships with others are perceived or written?

Wendy Metcalfe, Darcie Little Badger (M), Dr Edmund Schluessel (International School of Helsinki), Jasmine Gower

Gender and the writer

Format: Panel17 Aug 2019, Saturday 17:00 – 17:50, Wicklow Room-1 (CCD)

Gender defines and redefines how we think about ourselves, each other, and our characters. Our panel delves into the topic of gender, looking past the basics of diversity to examine the issues important to trans, nonbinary, and gender-nonconforming creators and readers.

Dr. J.S. Fields Ph.D., Vanessa Rose Phin (Strange Horizons), Dr Nick Hubble (Brunel University London) (M), Jasmine Gower, BE Allatt

 

You’ll also be able to find me at the Angry Robot table signing books at the following dates/times:

  • Friday, August 16 at 1:00-1:30 PM
  • Sunday, August 18 at 1:00-1:30 PM

I did get bookplates, so if you’ be at WorldCon and already have a copy of Moonshine that you want a signature for but don’t want to bring it to the convention, I’ve got you covered. I’ll also have some bookmarks up for grabs 🙂

Rebuilding jasminegower.com

I’m unclear what happened, exactly, but my website vanished! And my backups and restore options are failing me. So, I appear to be stuck starting over until I’m able to figure out how to get those backups to work–unless I can’t, in which case I suppose this is the budding start of my new website.

Thanks for your patience as I deal with this.

-Jasmine
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