SwanCon XI – The Programme (part 1)

being pages 18 and 19 of the SwanCon XI programme/con book. Transcription by Anna Hepworth


Friday

TIME MAIN HALL
10 am Days of future passed: Autobiographical words by SF authors
Grant Stone examines autobiographical works by SF authors for incriminating overtones.
11 am Challenger memorial service
A non-denominational interfaith service of memorial for all those who have died in the space programmes.
12 noon Lunch
1 pm Opening Ceremonies
Con Chairthing E. Harding introduces people and makes pronouncements.
2 pm GoH interview
Grant Stone interviews C.J. Cherryh.
3 pm Pardon me, but you’re stepping on my Prime Directive
In which Westrek members prove that mediafen do not, in fact, have cubical eyeballs and flat heads. An intellectual discussion of Star Trek, possibly with silly bit.
4 pm Conan as Messiah
A paper by Ian Nichols, embodying a deconstructuralist approach to Conan.
5 pm Trial of Sacred Cows
Is J. Retief guilty of Xenophobia and Conduct Prejudicial to Interbeing Chumship? Does the Doctor reguarly entice young persons into police boxes and there display his Tardis? Does the edictor of ANZAPA discriminate against the illiterate or the merely boring?
6 pm Are equal roles a novelists’ bandwagon?
Does the recent plethora of heroine-protagonists of SF novels mean authors are leaping on a bandwagon? C.J. Cherryh, Gina Goddard, Jean Weber and Sally Beasley discuss.
7pm Dinner
8 pm ASFR launching
The Australian Science Fiction Collective launch a revived Australian Science Fictin Review. Drinks are on them.
9 pm An SF family? I hope not
Jack Herman’s misanthropic Fan Guest of Honour Speech
10 pm Extraterrestrial contacts; what does humanity get out of them?
Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, say no more! Michelle Hallett, Greg Turkich and Janeen Webb discuss aliens: messiahs, invaders or a new perspective on humanity?

Saturday

TIME MAIN HALL
9 am Fan physical fitness
SwanCon pioneered this idea. Barb de la Hunty and Geoff Jagoe put the rest of us mere mortals through our paces.
10 am Business meeting
Normally dull and earnest, there promises to be blood on the floor at this one. The two-year bidding rule for national conventions will be debated. Maybe the Constitution will be abolished. Maybe we’ll seceded. Who knows?
11.30am Black; a play
By Stephen Dedman. The title describes the humour, the lighting, or both.
12 noon Doctor Who panel
In which several learned fans of the Other Good Doctor comment on various aspects, with videos.
1 pm Lunch
2 pm Cherryh reading
C.J. Cherryh reads from her works, with assistance from anybody she wants.
3 pm Is there life after the hitchhiking dragons of Dune meet the robots of Battleship Earth?
Persons of various alignment including two authors consider whether the novel is dead, or just resting. Or perhaps even nailed to its perch…
4 pm Penetration of the fan mafia
Or: how to chat up that fan with two propellor beanies. The panel debates whether fans exclude others from their society and what measures are necessary to break down the barriers.
HUCKSTERS’ ROOM (masquerade set-up in main hall)
5 pm SF in the English syllabus
Various teachers and ex-teachers show how we can win their hearts and minds by getting them in early, and how to go about it.
6 pm Sf Perfect Match
A game show with Paul Stevens. Meretricious, tacky and in terrible taste.
7 pm Dinner
7.30 pm Masquerade changing
MAIN HALL(again)
8 pm on Masquerade
This is one of the things we do well at Swancons. The costumes are usually good value, and the entertainment is – well, what can one say? We’d like people to make and effort to wear something in the way of costume, even if not entering, and there should be a box of assorted costume-creating stuff available before the masquerade starts. Dance till you puke afterwards, to the strains of Jules”the Rev” Warner. Bar service, and possibly nibbles, available.

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