Sirens Schedule for 2026

Faculty and Community Presentations

 

Wednesday, March 18

Conference Opening Presentation
7:00 p.m., Ballroom C
Please join us for the official start to Sirens

Keynote Presentation
7:00 p.m., Ballroom C
What’s Old to a Vampyre?, Jewelle Gomez

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Thursday, March 19

Morning Joy!
9:00 a.m., Ballroom B
Journal Making, Bethany Powell
Record and reflect on new experiences and revelations in a new notebook! There will be art supplies and collage materials galore to personalize your journal and have it reflect your inner experiences as you journey through Sirens! As we create and decorate our own unique covers we can discuss journaling techniques and templates that can be used to get the most out of these pages.

Keynote Presentation
10:00 a.m., Ballroom C
What’s Next? The Future in History and Current Practice, Layla Azmi Goushey

Lecture
2:00 p.m., Temple
Fear in the Body, Sarah Gailey
Where does fear live in you, and how can you learn to treat it as a welcome guest? We’ll explore the way the brain processes information into fear, how fear affects the brain and body, and how we can use that knowledge to move ourselves safely through experiences of media and life. This presentation will touch on narrative analysis, sensory processing, memory, and the nervous system.

Roundtable Discussion
2:00 p.m., Church
Lesbians Aren’t Monsters, S.M. Mack
Cute and unassuming lesbian and lesbian-coded couples litter the background of today’s speculative fiction, but an outsized amount of the recent speculative fiction centering lesbian romantic relationships feature actual, literal monsters, including blob monsters, lake monsters, and spider-women. What is so horrifying about lesbian romance that warrants this deep cultural terror? How do we go about countering this fear—or should we lean into it? Join us to discuss!

Presentation and Discussion
2:00 p.m., York
Imagining Abolition: Justice Work Between Realities, Bethany Powell
When we question the world around us or imagine another one, a major concern is justice. From the public executions of grimdark fantasy to the PI vigilantes of urban fantasy, how people seek justice takes up a lot of imagined real estate. How does the framework of a prison industrial complex touch on our lives, and how does imagining different systems offer liberation? This hybrid presentation will focus on group discussion with some short presentations to kick off the conversation.

Lecture
3:00 p.m., Temple
On Worldbuilding, Kelly Barnhill
Join Kelly Barnhill for a faculty presentation on worldbuilding.

Field Trip Meetup and Departure Point
3:00 p.m., Church
Preserving Marginalized Voices: Visiting the Yale Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Jennifer Shimada
We will meet in the Church room and walk 0.5 miles to the Yale Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library together (you can take a cab if needed). The presentation by Moira Fitzgerald from Yale starts at 3:30 p.m. at the Beinecke. *This session is limited to 20 attendees.

Short Lectures
3:00 p.m., York
Asian Mental Health in Turning Red and K-Pop Demon Hunters, Faye Bi
Turning Red and K-Pop Demon Hunters both explore themes of Asian mental health. Mei’s panda and Rumi’s patterns act as magical manifestations of inherited family legacies and are initially seen as sources of shame and embarrassment. Guided by Jenny Wang’s Permission to Come Home, this presentation examines how these stories illustrate the diverse ways Asians in the diaspora reconcile carrying on family legacies and cultural traditions while remaining true to themselves.

Speculative Subjectivity and Recognition in Parable of the Sower and Iron Widow, Maile Chaplar
This lecture explores how female protagonists in Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower and Xiran Jay Zhao’s Iron Widow navigate and resist oppressive systems. Drawing on the work of theorists such as Jessica Benjamin, Judith Butler, Louis Althusser, and others, it examines how speculative fiction reveals the forces that shape identity and how those forces can be challenged and reimagined through acts of recognition and resistance within the speculative space.

Lecture
4:00 p.m., Temple
Protester Health and Safety Tactics 101, Diana Pho
Drawing from her decade of experience in organizing as a street medic, Diana Pho presents practical tips and first aid knowledge useful for people interested in helping to keep their friends and neighbors safe during these trying times.

Short Lectures
4:00 p.m., York
Queerness in Fairytales: How Asexuality Defies Heteronormativity in “Well Suited,” Kelsey Costa
Fairytales often have set structures and character tropes that communicate societal norms, but what if we turned this genre on its head with queer retellings? In examining the short story “Well Suited,” this session will cover the ways we can dismantle heteronormative ideas in classic storytelling, centering on the asexual experience.

Keynote Presentation
8:00 p.m., Ballroom C
Race and Robots: A Not-So-Brief History with a Not-So-Happy Ending, Micaiah Johnson

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Friday, March 20

Morning Joy!
9:00 a.m., Ballroom B
Friendship, Floss, and Fun, Manda Lewis
We’ll spend the morning making friendship bracelets with embroidery floss and diving into the magic of fiber arts. Join us to make your favorite style or learn a new pattern. We are teaming up with Art4Hearts, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to spread love to community members who are in need of care. They are spreading joy and hope through art, one bracelet at a time, and we invite you to do the same!

Keynote Presentation
10:00 a.m., Ballroom C
The Creative Act of Editorial, Diana Pho

Workshop
2:00 p.m., Temple
What Do We Mean By Tomorrow?, Jewelle Gomez
This workshop will address how we create new worlds and speculate about difference when we want to write stories. We’ll discuss and practice creating the elements that make speculative fiction energetic and profound. In sharing our ideas in the session, we can sharpen our thinking and broaden our imaginations.

Lecture and Roundtable Discussion
2:00 p.m., Church
Practicing Social Justice Through RPGs, Kristina Palmer
Building a more just world takes work, and the skills needed to have hard conversations and recognize injustice take practice. Role-playing games (RPGs) give us the opportunity to step into another role and to experience worlds both more and less just than our own. In this presentation (a combination of lecture and roundtable discussion), we will discuss RPGs as places to practice social justice skills in a safe community. We will also offer alternatives to Dungeons & Dragons that have a lower barrier to entry and are designed around creating empathy or having hard discussions.

Workshop
2:00 p.m., York
How to Solarpunk for Hope and Resilience, BrightFlame
Solarpunk is a movement and genre to create futures where all thrive. In this interactive workshop, we’ll apply a five-point solarpunk arc to create and take action aligned with the Earth. This session will provide a blueprint for being more effective in the world—a how-to manual for making choices so we don’t get stuck in dystopia. After running through the five points, we will apply them to our lives, our writing, our reading.

Conversation
3:00 p.m., Temple
Publishing and Racial Justice, Faye Bi, Micaiah Johnson
Join publishing professional Faye Bi and author and academic Micaiah Johnson as they discuss racial bias in contemporary publishing. In a conversation that will cover writing, acquisition, editorial, marketing, and even the role of the reader, Bi and Johnson will trace the ways regressive ideologies creep in and are upheld at every stage of the publication process—and make recommendations for a more inclusive literary landscape for all.

Practicing Play
3:00 p.m., Church
RPG One-Shot Campaigns, Kristina Palmer
Role-playing games (RPGs) give us the opportunity to step into another role and to experience worlds both more and less just than our own. They can also give us the opportunity to engage in joyful play and experience connection with others. During this time, you’ll have the opportunity to participate in a one-shot RPG, with no experience or preparation necessary!

Presentation and Workshop
3:00 p.m., York
Style and Symbolism in Warja Lavater’s Fairytale Art, Hallie Tibbetts
Warja Lavater, a twentieth-century Swiss artist, retold a number of fairy tales and fantastical stories through illustration. Her symbolic interpretations distill narrative arcs into saturated, highly graphic, and entirely wordless designs. This presentation will offer a look into her transformations of Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Kaguyahime, and other works, and ask: What can be drawn from the consolidation of expansive stories, and how might we augment and contract speculative plots? Copies of Lavater’s books will be available for inspection, and we’ll create our own pictogrammatic story outlines for tales familiar and newly invented.

Lecture
4:00 p.m., Temple
The High Strangeness of Slipstream, Layla Azmi Goushey
Slipstream is a genre where the surreal and the real intersect. Participants will consider unstable timelines, genre-blurring forms, and the mythological present in slipstream literature from around the world.

Practicing Play (continued)
4:00 p.m., Church
RPG One-Shot Campaigns, Kristina Palmer

Conversation
4:00 p.m., York
In It for the Long Haul: Building and Maintaining Community and Friendships, Ellen Kushner, Delia Sherman
Kushner and Sherman have been part of the fantasy community for decades, as writers, editors, and people who just like to hang out at conventions and shoot the breeze with whoever’s around. They met at a convention in Boston in 1985 (they think!) and have been a couple since 1992. Since then, they have traveled the world, mostly sleeping in the spare rooms or sofas of people they’ve met at cons. Someone once told Ellen, “You have the gift of friendship.” It’s true she puts a lot of energy into developing and maintaining friendships of all kinds—but it is Delia, she points out, that everyone always wants to talk to. Together, they are an unbeatable team, with a lot of years of socializing under their belts, and a lot of wisdom to pass on. How do you form connections with strangers in meat space? What’s too much, and what’s not enough? How do you build support systems that last? Both now in their seventh decade, these two elders have picked up a few tips they’d like to pass on.

Keynote Presentation
8:00 p.m., Ballroom C
Scary Tales for Scary Times, Lilliam Rivera

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Saturday, March 21

Morning Joy!
9:00 a.m., Ballroom B
Crafty Cartography, Manda Lewis
Join us for fantasy map making! We’ll be using pens, paper, markers, pencils, and rice in this hands-on craft where storytelling meets art. Sketch coastlines that feel ancient, pen mountains where legends might live, and name places that don’t exist yet—but could. Our morning joy will be part drawing, part worldbuilding, and part daydream. Come explore with ink and imagination!

Keynote Presentation
10:00 a.m., Ballroom C
How We Tell Stories When Our World Falls Apart, Kelly Barnhill

Keynote Presentation
2:00 p.m., Ballroom C
Why Are We Mermaids?, Stephanie Burt

Conversation
4:00 p.m., Temple
The Artist in Interesting Times, Stephanie Burt, Sarah Gailey, Lilliam Rivera
Sirens faculty will discuss creativity under duress. In moments of global, political, and personal strife, how do we continue making art? And—perhaps the more important question—why do we continue making art? We’ll discuss the vulnerability and responsibility of artists, the purpose of art to both audience and creator, and the way instability impacts the creative process.

Roundtable Discussion
4:00 p.m., Church
Hope and Joy in Cozy Speculative Fiction and Beyond, Jennifer Shimada
The stories of those with marginalized identities have often been restricted to narratives of trauma and struggle. Seeking stories of hope and joy is, therefore, an act of radical resistance. This roundtable explores cozy speculative fiction and other subgenres that envision states of rest and connection. Because “cozy” is deeply subjective—shaped by our identities and experiences—we’ll build community by discussing what it means to experience hope and joy through speculative fiction.

Lecture and Workshop
4:00 p.m., York
How to Dream in Picture Book Art, Nivair Gabriel
Illustrated children’s books, like Interstellar Cinderella or Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, use age-old visual principles to convey concepts like joy, fear, or possibility. Studying your favorites can give you the tools you need to convey visions of your own. After a quick primer on art theory, we’ll cut shapes out of colored paper and glue them into scenes that can jumpstart our next imagined story.

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Sunday, March 22

Keynote Presentation
9:00 a.m., Ballroom C
No Good People, Sarah Gailey

Conference Closing Presentation
11:00 a.m., Ballroom C
Sirens Staff
Please join us for final thoughts to close our conference, and our thanks, before organizing to depart from New Haven.

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Community Presenters

Please visit the faculty section of our website for their biographies.

Faye Bi is Senior Director of Publicity at Bloomsbury Children’s Books and a fifteen-year veteran of the book publishing industry. They have also served on the planning committees of various literary nonprofits, including Sirens, a conference dedicated to gender in speculative fiction. In 2020, they were named a Publishers Weekly Star Watch honoree. Faye has an honors degree in sociocultural anthropology from Columbia University and lives in Queens, NY, with their partner, toddler, and a well-mannered Australian kelpie.

BrightFlame (she/they) writes, teaches, and makes magic towards just, regenerative futures. In her feminist novel, The Working, a modern coven must thwart a looming eco-cataclysm and find the key to the bright futures we need. Her solarpunk is featured in noted magazines and anthologies—recently Bright Green Futures. Her acclaimed workshops for magical and mainstream audiences foster interconnection and resilience. She co-founded the Center for Sustainable Futures at Columbia University and is a member of the Climate Fiction Writers League and SFWA. She lives on Lenape territory (Turtle Island/US) with a human, a forest, turtles, fungi, and other nonhumans. https://brightflame.com

Maile Chaplar teaches English in an alternative education program, helping students find careers—or simply meaning—through reading and writing, just as she once did. After being expelled from middle school (inspired by the movie Thirteen), Maile found solace in literature and theory. Now pursuing an MA in English Literature at Southern Connecticut State University in New Haven, she is writing a thesis on recognition and subjectification—born from trying to understand being mixed-race, stitched together by half-siblings, 23andMe relatives, and the stories that make her make sense. When not teaching or writing, Maile is waitressing or underwater, scuba diving toward calm and dreaming of racing submarines—but that’s a different thesis entirely.

Kelsey Costa (she/her) is a Boston-based educator and writer of speculative fiction and creative nonfiction. Fairytales are part of her childhood memories and inspire her stories. She holds a BFA in Writing, Literature, and Publishing from Emerson College. She serves as Programs Chair Manager for the Women’s National Book Association Boston and as a first reader for khōréō magazine. Her nonfiction is forthcoming in Pangyrus and published in Ruminate Magazine.

When Nivair H. Gabriel was a kid, she wanted to be both a writer and an astronaut, so at age fourteen she wrote a novel and, at sixteen, went to MIT to study aerospace engineering. She has now flown in microgravity and edited books for young readers at Barefoot Books and Albert Whitman. She also reviews for Kirkus Reviews, guests on Our Opinions Are Correct, has consulted on Dungeons & Dragons, and has written for io9.com, the Daily Dragon, Fantasy Magazine, Marvels & Tales, and Weird Tales. She is currently building the inaugural list of Scattered Light Press.

Ellen Kushner’s cult novel Swordspoint introduced readers to the “fantasy of manners” genre, and to the city to which she has returned in two more novels and the collaborative prequel Tremontaine. A longtime performer and public radio host, she narrated all three as audiobooks for Audible. Her award-winning Thomas the Rhymer is a Gollancz “Fantasy Masterwork.” With Holly Black, she co-edited Welcome to Bordertown. She has taught writing at Clarion, Odyssey, and Hollins University. She lives in New York City with her wife, author and educator Delia Sherman, and a growing pile of theater and airplane ticket stubs.

Manda Lewis is currently a special event manager at a local museum, and she is also the caretaker of two younglings who have inherited her love of reading.

S.M. Mack is a 2019 MFA recipient in popular fiction from USM Stonecoast, the 2017 first place winner of the Katherine Patterson Prize for Young Adult Writing, and a Clarion 2012 grad. Her short fiction has been published in Fireside Fiction, Vine Leaves Literary Journal’s Best of 2015 anthology, and the Clarion class of 2012’s seven Rainbow Anthologies, among others. Find her online at @whatsmacksaid.bsky.social or her website at whatsmacksaid.com. Her novella Death Valley Blooms is part of Neon Hemlock’s 2025 Novella Series.

Kristina Palmer is a teen librarian in a public library system. She enjoys connecting people with stories and find that RPGs are a great way to get teens into the library, engaging with and even creating stories. She endeavors to find stories that highlight experiences outside of the cis, white, and heteronormative.

Bethany Powell works as a bookseller at the Odyssey Bookshop. Her speculative poetry and fiction has appeared in magazines like Asimov’s, Liminality, and Strange Horizons. She facilitates restorative writing workshops for women experiencing incarceration with Poetic Justice. You can find her published work at bethanypowell.com.

Delia Sherman writes short stories and novels for adults and young readers. Her short stories have appeared in numerous anthologies and many have been nominated for the Nebula and World Fantasy Awards. Her middle grade novel The Freedom Maze received the Andre Norton Award, the Mythopoeic Award, and the Prometheus Award. Sometimes she puts on her teaching hat, leading classes at Clarion, Odyssey, and summer sessions in the Hollins University Program in Children’s Literature. Though she can write almost anywhere, she prefers cafés and comfy sofas near a source of tea. She lives in New York City with her wife Ellen Kushner and many books, most of which at least one of them has read. Besides writing and reading other people’s manuscripts, favorite occupations are travel, knitting, cooking, and having fun adventures, as long as they don’t involve zombies or long-leggedy beasties.

Jennifer Shimada is a speculative fiction reader, tea drinker, academic librarian, and dog mom. She currently works at a graduate school of education in New York.

Hallie Tibbetts is a longtime volunteer for Sirens and a founder of Narrate Conferences. A former educator, she now spends her days editing books for all ages and imagining travel to fantastic worlds, where there might be magic dragons—or space dragons