I plan to be at DisCon III, the World Science Fiction Convention, December 15 to 19 in Washington, DC. I’m scheduled for two panels and one activity:

Stroll with the Stars, 9 a.m. Friday, Hotel Lobby. Meet up with facilitator Debra Nickelson for the now-traditional morning stroll. (I may not be a star, but I’ll get to hang out with people who are. I may have a fangirl moment.)

Translation Slam, 4 p.m. Friday in the Cabinet Room. Many of us enjoy reading speculative fiction in translation, but we might not appreciate the nuanced work that goes into creating it. In this translation slam, each panelist has translated a piece from its original language into English. They will share their translations with the audience and discuss their decision-making process and the nuances that went into their choices. I will discuss adapting beautiful Spanish prose to beautiful English prose. What makes something beautiful in one language makes it ugly in the other.

2020 Ruined My Novel! 2:30 p.m. Saturday in the Forum Room. The year 2020 was a giant curveball for the entire world. Everyone was affected in one way or another. What about authors? Our panelists will discuss what changes they had to make to their 2020 work-in-progress to accommodate all the weird things that were happening in the real world. In my case, I had a novel come out, Immunity Index, which I wrote before 2020, and it happened to feature a coronavirus epidemic.

In all, about 500 activities are scheduled for the convention, a little fewer than usual, but these are unusual times, and the convention committee has had to struggle mightily with forces beyond its control. I’m looking forward to meeting old friends, making new friends, and having fun with thousands of fellow fans of speculative fiction.