Ex post facto: Sirens 2013

[ahorbinski]

I spent the past weekend in Stevenson, Washington at the Sirens conference with a group of wonderful people discussing women in fantasy literature--readers, writers, and characters. This was my fourth time attending Sirens, and it's a truly amazing time. I hope you'll think about attending next year! I doubt I'll be able to be there due to the pressure of dissertation research, but I plan to return as soon as I can.

I actually moderated a panel at Sirens this year:

Sisters Are Doin’ It for Themselves: Women in History and in Fantasy and YA
Andrea Horbinski, Robin LaFevers, Guadalupe Garcia McCall, Gillian Chisom, Kate Elliott
Women have played a variety of crucial roles in societies around the world since the beginning of recorded history, but popular understandings of those roles don’t always match historical reality. At the same time, there have been many women throughout history who transgressed social boundaries. How have folktales, fantasy, and young adult books depicted and reflected women in history? What can we learn about the past and about our own current moment from these depictions? This panel will explore these questions and many more.

rachelmanija has posted her notes from the panel. I thought it went really well, and that we could easily have spent another hour talking; thanks so much to my fellow panelists and to our wonderful audience!