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Sirens Newsletter – Volume 10, Issue 10 (September 2018)

Posted on September 28, 2018 at 9:00 am | Comments Off on Sirens Newsletter – Volume 10, Issue 10 (September 2018)

Tagged: books, guests of honor, interviews, newsletters, support, volunteering

In this issue:

Volunteers Needed
In-Kind Donations: Auction Items
Upcoming Instruction Emails
Where Are They Now: Guests of Honor
Books and Breakfast: Spotlight on Lovers
Amy’s Book Club
Read Along with Faye
In Case You Missed It …

VOLUNTEERS NEEDED

Volunteers are vital to Sirens. Our greatest need during the conference is for room monitors—the designated adult for the room! Typical duties involve helping presenters keep on time, closing the doors if the room gets full, and getting help for more involved troubleshooting. Shifts last for a morning or afternoon, for a few hours at a time.

For more details, please visit our volunteer page. If you’re a returning volunteer, you don’t need to fill out the form—just follow the directions in the email sent through the Google Group to claim a shift or two.

IN-KIND DONATIONS: AUCTION ITEMS

Wakanda carvings, a magical adventure kit, a whale of a quilt—these are just some of the items in our auction this year! If you are planning to donate auction items, you’ll need to complete our new in-kind donation form no later than Monday, October 1. (If you are donating multiple auction items, please note that you must complete the form multiple times.) More information is available on our auction page.

UPCOMING INSTRUCTION EMAILS

In the coming weeks, we’ll be sending important instruction emails to registered attendees on how to meet the Sirens Shuttle, check in for the Sirens Studio and Sirens, and find the Sirens Supper—which is in a new location this year! Presenters will also receive communications from the programming team.

If you’re riding the Sirens Shuttle and you have not yet provided us with your flight information, please write to (help at sirensconference.org). We’ll track your progress toward Sirens and make sure that you haven’t run into any delays along the way.

WHERE ARE THEY NOW: GUESTS OF HONOR

To celebrate our conference theme of reunion, we continue to reflect on past conferences and check in with our past Guests of Honor to see what they’ve been up to these days. In 2015, our theme was rebels and revolutionaries, and our Guests of Honor were Rae Carson, Kate Elliott, and Yoon Ha Lee. Read the full post.

In 2016, our theme was lovers, and our Guests of Honor were Renée Ahdieh, Laurie J. Marks, and Kiini Ibura Salaam. Read the full post.

BOOKS AND BREAKFAST: SPOTLIGHT ON LOVERS

Sirens veterans know that we choose a variety of popular, controversial, and just plain brilliant books related to our theme, and invite attendees to bring their breakfast on conference mornings and discuss the selections. View all our 2018 selections—with four themes to match our reunion year!—including our picks for 2016’s lovers theme featuring Roshani Chokshi’s A Crown of Wishes and Ellen Klages’s Passing Strange.

AMY’S BOOK CLUB

Sirens co-founder Amy read Laura Esquivel’s Like Water for Chocolate this month: “a scalding, blistering work of fiery passions and violent anger and ultimately, literal conflagration.” Read her review on the blog and on Goodreads.

READ ALONG WITH FAYE

Are you, like Faye, sprinting to the 2018 Reading Challenge finish line? So close! Melissa Bashardoust’s Girls Made of Snow and Glass had a premise she loved: “the queen stepmother and the princess are pitted as rivals, but realize they are more similar than they are different. They eventually recognize each other’s strength and power, and rule the realm together.” Read her thoughts on the execution on the blog and on Goodreads.

GUEST OF HONOR: VIOLET KUPERSMITH

We’re interviewing each of our 2018 Guests of Honor about their inspirations, influences, and craft, as well as the role of women in fantasy literature, as befits their corresponding reunion theme.

You won’t want to miss our illuminating interview with Violet Kupersmith about her family’s experiences and legacy, ghosts, folklore, the Vietnam War, and genre: “In so many ways, the Ghost is the perfect metaphor for the immigrant: both are liminal beings, hovering between worlds, and here, both are feared and other-ed. And I think that there’s something fitting about using a literary genre which is often unfairly dismissed as silly or lowbrow to tell stories about a marginalized people. Each is able to empower the other.”

Also, our feature on Violet includes Alyssa Collins’s review of Violet’s collection of short stories, The Frangipani Hotel, our Book Friends feature, in which we suggest books that would pair well with Violet’s work, and finally, a list of hauntings books selected by Violet herself.

MEET THE 2018 SIRENS PROFESSIONAL SCHOLARSHIP RECIPIENTS

Two educators, a librarian, and a bookseller chat jobs, books, and what they’re looking forward to at Sirens. Meet Traci-Anne Canada, Nia Davenport, Alexandra Pratt, and Sami Thomason, this year’s—and our first ever—professional scholarship recipients!

CONFERENCE SCHEDULE AND PROGRAMMING SUPPORT

The conference schedule for 2018 is live! But are you ready to make your decisions about what to attend? Click here to check it out.

If you see a presentation you particularly love or a presenter you want to support, there’s still time to sponsor our programming sessions; the cost is $35 per presentation. Thank you again for all your support!

TICKETS UPDATE

At this time, the Sirens Supper is sold out. Please check our Twitter for updates from attendees who may want to transfer their tickets.

The Sirens Studio currently has 5 spots remaining. Learn more about our pre-conference Sirens Studio here.

Sirens also offers a $115 round-trip shuttle from Denver International Airport to Beaver Creek, significantly cheaper than commercial shuttles which can cost upwards of $200. We encourage you to buy your ticket soon, even if you don’t have flights yet!

Purchase Tickets

HOTEL RESERVATIONS

We are quite close to filling our block at the Park Hyatt for the third time. If you have not yet made your hotel reservation, please do so as soon as possible. We have only a few rooms left on the main nights of Sirens, and on October 1, the hotel will release all remaining rooms. Any reservations made after that date will not receive the Sirens discount. For more instructions on how to make your reservation, please visit our Hotel page.

WHERE ARE THEY NOW: GUESTS OF HONOR

To celebrate our conference theme of reunion, we continue to reflect on past conferences and check in with our past Guests of Honor to see what they’ve been up to these days. In 2012, our theme was tales retold, and our Guests of Honor were Nalo Hopkinson and Malinda Lo. Read the full post.

2013 was our first reunion year, revisiting warriors, faeries, monsters, and tales retold; our Guests of Honor were Guadalupe Garcia McCall, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Ellen Kushner, and Robin LaFevers. (Robin is returning to Sirens this year!) Read the full post.

In 2014, our theme was hauntings, and our Guests of Honor were Kendare Blake, Rosemary Clement, and Andrea Hairston. (Rosemary is returning to Sirens this year!) Read the full post.

PERSONALIZED BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS

Registered attendees, watch your inboxes for the August attendee news email! For the second time, Sirens co-founder Amy Tenbrink, who has read over a thousand fantasy books by women and nonbinary authors, will be offering personalized book recommendations—but only to the first 50 people to sign up!

AMY’S BOOK CLUB

Check out Sirens co-founder Amy Tenbrink’s rumination on reader, writer, and Lidia Yuknavich’s The Book of Joan, which she found “largely experimental, vaguely feminist, with thinly explained worldbuilding, a non-traditional narrative structure, shifting points of view… and tenuous timelines.” Full review on the blog and on Goodreads.

READ ALONG WITH FAYE

This month, Faye read Mary Rickert’s The Memory Garden as she surges to finish the 2018 Sirens Reading Challenge! She enjoyed the book’s &ldquo’poetic language, plant symbolism, strong female relationships, rich descriptions of food, and subtle hints of magic,” but there is still more to unpack. Read her full review on the blog and on Goodreads.

SIRENS REVIEW SQUAD

Friend of Sirens Casey Blair wants to sing the praises of Somaiya Daud’s Mirage from the rooftops! “I love its rich setting, a fantasy Morocco-inspired culture in a world with intergalactic travel. I love how deeply that culture suffuses every part of the story: the prose woven through with poetry, the complicated female friendships and family relationships…” Read her full review here.

GUEST OF HONOR: KAMERON HURLEY

Our incredible interview with Kameron Hurley covered everything from ambitious worldbuilding to personal history, creative versus promotional energy, the writerly life, what revolution looks like for her, and World of Warcraft: “I enjoy playing a defensive character, known as a tank, who can endure an incredible amount of damage and whose role in a multiplayer instance is to protect the rest of the party … This is the same mindset I’ve taken to approaching my writing life. The rejections, the failures, are all hits. I’m a tank. My purpose is to endure until the end.”

Our feature on Kameron also includes Manda Lewis’s review of The Stars Are Legion (in which she called the book “pungent”), our Book Friends feature which suggests books we feel would complement Kameron’s rich body of work, and a revolutionary book list curated by Kameron herself!

ACCEPTED PROGRAMMING

Quills at the ready! Check out our Accepted Programming page for the full lineup of this year’s topics, summaries, and presenter biographies. In one of our richest years of programming yet, our presenters will examine everything from found families to distressing damsels, counterpart cultures to writing as self-care, and so much more—all in the form of papers, roundtables, panels, workshops, and afternoon classes. Thank you, presenters!

All presentations are available for sponsorship at $35 per presentation. You might choose to sponsor a friend, select a topic that speaks to you, or support an underrepresented voice.

Sponsor Programming

We will include your name next to your chosen topic in the program book, provided we receive your donation by August 15. Thank you for your support of programming at Sirens!

SIRENS SUPPORT

For other ways to support Sirens, we accept monetary donations of any amount, as well as items or services for our auction. Please visit this post to learn more about how we use your support to help keep the price of Sirens as low as possible.

WHERE ARE THEY NOW: GUESTS OF HONOR

To celebrate our conference theme of reunion, we continue to reflect on past conferences and check in with our past Guests of Honor to see what they’ve been up to these days. In 2011, our theme was monsters, and our Guests of Honor were Justine Larbalestier, Nnedi Okorafor, and Laini Taylor. Read the full post.

REGISTRATION AND TICKETS UPDATE

We currently only have 6 tickets remaining for the Sirens Studio. If you’d like to register or purchase a ticket, we recommend you do it soon!

HOTEL

Before you know it, Sirens will be just around the corner, and we strongly recommend you book your hotel room at the Park Hyatt at Beaver Creek as soon as possible. Please click here for reservations information. If you’re looking for a roommate, please tweet at us @sirens_con and watch our Twitter account for other attendees also looking!

BOOKS AND BREAKFAST

Sirens veterans know that we select a variety of popular, controversial, and just plain brilliant books related to our theme—and invite attendees to bring their breakfast on conference mornings and discuss them. View our 2018 selections, and check out our new spotlight on rebels and revolutionaries, Tomi Adeyemi’s Children of Blood and Bone and Carmen Maria Machado’s Her Body and Other Parties.

AMY’S BOOK CLUB

For this month’s book club, Sirens co-founder Amy Tenbrink reads and reviews Kali Wallace’s The Memory Trees, which she considers “one of the best examples of both a non-ghost hauntings book, but also a fantasy book where the magic and the impossible provide another avenue of exploration.” More thoughts on the blog and on Goodreads.

READ ALONG WITH FAYE

Communications Director Faye Bi reads the most delightful first Wollstonecraft Detective Agency book, The Case of the Missing Moonstone, as part of her 2018 Sirens Reading Challenge this month: “Freaking adorable. Positively charming. If these books were animals, they’d be big-eyed puppies, ones that I would want to snuggle forever.” Read her full review on the blog and on Goodreads.

GUEST OF HONOR: ANNA-MARIE MCLEMORE

Earlier this month, we spoke to Anna-Marie McLemore on lovers, found families within the LGBTQ+ community, her lyrical, transcendent writing style, and, as a Latina queer woman, not having the option to leave politics out of her art: “I want to write fairy tales for my communities. I want to write stories that are honest—in all their blood and history—and also hopeful—in placing LGBTQ+ characters and characters of color at their centers, in giving them space to claim the magic that belongs to them.”

Our feature on Anna-Marie also includes a review of When the Moon was Ours by B R Sanders, a list of books we feel would be friends with Anna-Marie’s books (in a new feature titled “Book Friends”), and a fantasy book list curated by Anna-Marie on the lovers theme!

WHERE ARE THEY NOW: GUESTS OF HONOR

This fall will mark our tenth year of Sirens. With our conference theme of reunion, it’s the perfect chance to reflect on past conferences and revisit some old friends. In this series, we check in with our past Guests of Honor to see what they’ve been up to these days. In 2010, our theme was faeries, and our Guests of Honor were Holly Black, Marie Brennan, and Terri Windling.

Read the Full Post

REGISTRATION AND TICKETS UPDATE

Our Sirens Supper is sold out, and we currently only have 8 tickets remaining for the Sirens Studio. If you’d like to register or purchase a ticket, we recommend you do it soon!

To individuals who have submitted programming proposals, a reminder that you have until July 10, 2018, to register and be paid in full for this year’s conference.

PROGRAMMING

After the presenter registration deadline of July 10, we’ll be revealing this year’s highly-anticipated presentations on our Twitter and on the Accepted Programming page! If you proposed programming and missed the email with the result of your proposal, please email (programming at sirensconference.org) right away. Thank you again to everyone who proposed programming, whether it was your first or tenth time, for another wonderful year of presentations!

SIRENS BOOKSTORE, ATTENDING AUTHORS, AND BOOK DONATIONS

A few years ago, we began stocking our own bookstore as a fundraiser for Sirens. This allows us, in defiance of the commercial market among many other benefits, to stock our bookstore exclusively with fantasy books written by, or featuring, amazing women. Bookstore stocking is well underway for this year’s conference!

If you are an attending author with published books, we’d like to make sure your books are in our bookstore! Please email Amy at (amy.tenbrink at sirensconference.org).

In many ways, our bookstore operates like any other bookstore: we acquire new books for sale just like anyone else. But in two ways, our bookstore is different. First, the Sirens community frequently donates new books, just to make sure that the bookstore includes them in its inventory; sometimes these attendees work for publishers or are donating books that they’ve written, but often, these attendees simply want to help make our bookstore as amazing as possible. Second, we have a used section of our bookstore where we offer gently used fantasy books for $5 each. That section of our bookstore is stocked entirely through donations.

If you would like to donate books to our bookstore, please send your books to the following address, to arrive no later than August 1, 2018. (And remember, if you’re shipping only books, the USPS media mail option is terrifically cheap, but terrifically slow, so please leave time for your package to arrive.)

Sirens
c/o Narrate Conferences
P.O. Box 149
Sedalia, Colorado 80135

BOOKS AND BREAKFAST

Hauntings

The Memory Trees by Kali Wallace
An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon

Rebels and Revolutionaries

Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi
Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado

Lovers

A Crown of Wishes by Roshani Chokshi
Passing Strange by Ellen Klages

Women Who Work Magic

The City of Brass by S. A. Chakraborty
Spellbook of the Lost and Found by Moïra Fowley-Doyle

Please check out the first Books and Breakfast post on the blog, here.

AMY’S BOOK CLUB

This month for her book club, Sirens co-founder Amy Tenbrink reviews Nicky Drayden’s The Prey of Gods: “To envision a realistic world, set in the near future, that includes both sentient AI and a living mythology, and then to envision that world saved by an almost random group of often-marginalized people is an act born of tremendous ambition.” More thoughts on the blog and on Goodreads.

READ ALONG WITH FAYE

Communications Director Faye Bi reads Carmen Maria Machado’s Her Body and Other Parties for her reading challenge this month, which she describes as “punch-you-in-the-face, unabashedly feminist. Darkly hilarious. Sex-positive. Queer. Smart as hell. More often than not, brutal … [these stories] know exactly what they are and do not have the time—or patience—to beat around the bush.” Read her full review on the blog and on Goodreads.

SIRENS REVIEW SQUAD

Our Logistics and Art Director Manda Lewis reviews Cass Morris’s debut, From Unseen Fire, the first of her Aven Cycle trilogy; she found Morris’s historical research of a Romanesque republic particularly noteworthy: “I was easily pulled into the world with her rich descriptions of the city, its people, the architecture, the food, and even the fabric!” Read her full review here.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR PROPOSALS

Thank you to everyone who submitted programming proposals! We received a record-breaking number of proposals this year, and the vetting board is hard at work reviewing your work. Decisions will be emailed by June 11, as will programming scholarship awards. All presenters must be registered for Sirens and paid in full by July 10, and we will announce this year’s programming shortly thereafter.

REGISTRATION AND TICKETS UPDATE

We are already half sold out for Sirens this year and the Studio and Supper tickets are almost gone! We currently have only 13 tickets remaining for our Sirens Studio and five tickets remaining for our Sirens Supper. If you’d like to register or purchase a ticket, you may do so in our registration system.

SCHOLARSHIPS

We’re thrilled to report that not only did we raise more funds for scholarships than ever before, we received more applications for those scholarships than ever before! Scholarships for publishing professionals and those with financial hardships have already been awarded, as have most of the scholarships for people of color awarded through Con or Bust—but one scholarship for a person of color is still available. Please visit Con or Bust to apply.

WHERE ARE THEY NOW: GUESTS OF HONOR

This fall will mark our tenth year of Sirens. With our conference theme of reunion, it’s the perfect chance to reflect on past conferences and revisit some old friends. In this series, we check in with our past Guests of Honor to see what they’ve been up to these days. In 2009, our theme was warriors, and our inaugural Guests of Honor were Tamora Pierce, Kristin Cashore, and Sherwood Smith.

Read the Full Post

SECOND STUDIO CAREER INTENSIVE ANNOUNCED

We’re excited to announce the topic and summary of our second Sirens Studio career intensive, Rhoda Belleza’s “Hard Stops”! You can check out the full list of workshop topics, summaries, faculty biographies, and all the information over on our Sirens Studio page. Again, we have only 13 tickets remaining for this year’s Studio, so please get yours soon!

PRIVACY POLICY UPDATED

Like seemingly every other company on the planet, Narrate Conferences, the 501(c)(3) organization that presents Sirens, has updated its privacy policy, which applies to Sirens. Notably, while the General Data Protection Regulation of the European Union applies to only certain individuals, Narrate’s new privacy policy extends the rights and protocols required by the GDPR to everyone. As this new policy applies to you by virtue of your continuing to use our website, register for Sirens, and so forth, you do not need to do anything to receive the benefit of this new policy. In contrast, MailChimp, the company that we use for our newsletters, requires that you update your settings in order to continue to receive our monthly Sirens newsletters in your inbox. To do so, please see the email we sent you earlier this week. If you have any questions or concerns, please email (legal at narrateconferences.org).

AMY’S BOOK CLUB

This month for her book club, Sirens co-founder Amy Tenbrink reads Jacqueline Carey’s Miranda and Caliban as it interrogates Shakespeare’s The Tempest: “I wanted more pointed criticism, more explicit condemnation of Prospero’s abuse and control of both Miranda and Caliban… That said, I’ve been considering lately that simple truth-telling might be its own form of feminism.” Read her thoughts on the blog and on Goodreads.

READ ALONG WITH FAYE

For the 2018 Reading Challenge, this month Communications Director Faye Bi picked up Cassandra Khaw’s Food of the Gods, which she found “truly absurd… But if you love wordplay, clever mythology, copious descriptions of food, a plethora of witticisms and a bumbling, yet somehow endearing hero, you’ll overlook the out-of-left-field plot and enjoy the onslaught of detail.” Read her full review on the blog and on Goodreads.

SIRENS REVIEW SQUAD

Bookstore Coordinator Amanda Hudson read Tomi Adeyemi’s Children of Blood and Bone, which she loved for its “wondrous worldbuilding,” save for an “unexpected use of a popular trope… children forced to fight other children in a tournament or arena setting until only one is left alive, explicitly for the entertainment of adults.” Read her full review here.

GUEST OF HONOR: VIOLET KUPERSMITH

Due to a very happy personal circumstance, Zen Cho will no longer be able to attend this year’s Sirens. Instead, the incomparable Violet Kupersmith will join us as our Hauntings guest this October! Violet is the author of The Frangipani Hotel, a collection of supernatural short stories about the legacy of the Vietnam War, and a forthcoming novel on ghosts and American expats in modern-day Saigon.

We’ve been enthusiastically recommending The Frangipani Hotel every year at Sirens since it was released. Her ghost stories are simultaneously retold Vietnamese folktales, an indictment of the Vietnam War, and an exquisite exploration of loss—of culture, of country, of family, of self. Her settings are palpable, her characters all-too-human, and her work brilliant, incisive, and subversive.

Please join us in welcoming Violet to Sirens! We have updated our reading lists and website, and you can read Violet’s full biography on our Guests of Honor page.

PROGRAMMING PROPOSALS DUE MAY 6

You have only seven days left to propose programming for this year’s Sirens! We hope that you’re considering submitting a proposal or two. You voice is valid and valuable, whether you’re new to Sirens or a ten-year veteran, and whether you’re a reader, scholar, librarian, farrier, secret-keeper, or heroine!

We are accepting proposals until May 6. For full information and instructions, please see our Programming Proposals page, as well as our series of blog posts on 2018 Programming, featuring programming types, tips, tricks, and general advice.

Have questions? Looking for a co-presenter? Need more inspiration? Check out the #SirensBrainstorm tag on Twitter; every Monday we tweet out fresh ideas free for the taking. We’ll also be hosting one more programming chat on our Chat page, which will be live at the scheduled time:

Tuesday, May 1, 9–11 p.m. Eastern (6–8 p.m. Pacific)

APPLY FOR SIRENS SCHOLARSHIPS

Due to the tremendous generosity of the Sirens community, we have 12 scholarships to award this year: three for people of color, three for exemplary programming proposals, three for those with financial hardships, and three for librarians, educators, and publishing professionals. The deadline for financial hardship and professional scholarships is May 13. For more information, visit our Scholarships page.

Each scholarship includes a conference registration and a round-trip shuttle ticket. Please spread the word! If you’re eligible for a scholarship, we very much hope that you’ll apply. Everyone needs a helping hand or some extra encouragement sometimes, and we’re so grateful to the Sirens community for making this support possible.

TICKETS UPDATE

Studio and Supper tickets are nearly sold out! We currently have only 14 tickets remaining for our Sirens Studio and six tickets remaining for our Sirens Supper. If you’d like to purchase a ticket, you may do so in our registration system.

SIRENS MEET-UPS

Though nothing replaces attending Sirens in October, we occasionally host casual get-togethers for the Sirens community throughout the year. It can be a great way to introduce us to your friends (and vice versa), share a meal or a cup of tea, and chat about books with fellow Sirens community members! Here are the meet-ups in Denver and New York:

Denver: Saturday, May 5, 2–4 p.m. Mountain
New York City: Saturday, May 19, 2–4 p.m. Eastern

Please note that attendees must pay for their own drinks and food. RSVP to Jennifer at (jennifer.shimada at sirensconference.org). Please see our post for the full details.

AMY’S BOOK CLUB

Sirens co-founder Amy Tenbrink talks personal reading quirks, reluctant heroines, and dazzling world-building in her book club pick this month—S. A. Chakraborty’s The City of Brass—which she called, “in many, many, ways … a tour de force.” Read her thoughts on the blog and on Goodreads.

READ ALONG WITH FAYE

Poisoned Apples: Poems for You, My Pretty

Communications Director Faye tried her hand at young adult poetry this month for her 2018 Reading Challenge pick, Christine Heppermann’s Poisoned Apples: Poems for You, My Pretty. “The book is a handsome tome, pocket-sized with art and text laid out just-so, and Heppermann is clearly talented, even if her poems don’t speak to my experience as a former teenage girl.” Read her full review on the blog and on Goodreads.

SIRENS SCHOLARSHIPS

Thank you to everyone who has already donated to our scholarship fundraiser! So far, we’ve raised 65% of our goal of $4,380.

We have already funded three scholarships for people of color, three for exemplary programming proposals, and one for those with financial hardships. If we meet our goal, we’ll provide another two for those with financial hardships and three for librarians, educators, and publishing professionals.

March 31 is the last day to donate toward this year’s scholarships, so if you can, please take a moment to chip in. Every amount helps us add more voices to Sirens!

Donate to Sirens Scholarships

If you need assistance attending Sirens, we hope you’ll apply for a scholarship. We’ll have application information on our Scholarships page starting next week!

Sirens logos 2014-2018, 2018 highlighted

2018 PROGRAMMING

All of Sirens’s programming—the dozens of hours of papers, lectures, panels, roundtable discussions, workshops, and afternoon classes presented at Sirens each year—is crafted, proposed, and presented by Sirens attendees. We hope that, this year, that will include you! From April 2 to May 6, anyone planning to attend Sirens this year, regardless of vocation, level of experience, or years at Sirens, is welcome to propose programming—and if selected, present that programming at Sirens. Our programming series provides an overview of the proposal process, an examination of each type of programming, and advice for preparing your proposal:

Since our 2018 theme is reunion, we discussed that theme and revisited our past four years’ themes on our blog for additional inspiration. If you’re new to Sirens, you can learn more about each theme at each of these links: reunion, hauntings, rebels and revolutionaries, lovers, and women who work magic. If you’re a returning attendee, we invite you to take a stroll down memory lane with us!

Have questions? Looking for a co-presenter? Need more inspiration? Check out the #SirensBrainstorm tag on Twitter; every Monday in April we’ll tweet fresh ideas free for the taking. In addition, we’ll be hosting two programming chats on our Chat page, which will be live at the scheduled times:

Saturday, April 7, 1–3 p.m. Eastern (10 a.m.–noon Pacific)
Tuesday, May 1, 9–11 p.m. Eastern (6–8 p.m. Pacific)

AMY’S BOOK CLUB

For her March book club, Sirens co-founder Amy Tenbrink muses on villainy in Julie C. Dao’s Forest of a Thousand Lanterns: “A villain story is, by definition, about the bad guy. Otherwise, the villain wouldn’t be a villain at all, of course, but a deeply conflicted heroine or even an antiheroine.” Read her thoughts on the blog and on Goodreads.

READ ALONG WITH FAYE

How’s that 2018 Reading Challenge coming along? For hers, Communications Director Faye Bi reads and reviews Sabaa Tahir’s popular An Ember in the Ashes, with ruminations on young adult literature, fantasy, and bestseller-dom: “It bothers me when people cast down young adult fantasy for being more simplistic and less rigorous than adult fantasy, with worldbuilding just the backdrop for the kissing, the angst, and the feelings.” Read her full review on the blog and on Goodreads.

SIRENS STUDIO WORKSHOPS ANNOUNCED

We’re thrilled to announce our reading, writing, and career development topics for this year’s Sirens Studio! Held on October 23-24, 2018 prior to the official start of the conference, the Studio offers small-group workshop intensives led by exceptional faculty in the morning; flexible time to read, write, or relax in the afternoon, and a film screening at night. New for 2018, participants will also be invited to a Studio attendees-only faculty reception.

Please click on the faculty biographies and course titles for more information on each workshop intensive:

Reading

Writing

Career

Read the Full Post

SCHOLARSHIP FUNDRAISING

As part of our mission, we specifically craft Sirens to include and amplify the many brilliant voices of our attendees. Tomorrow, we’ll be kicking off our fundraising campaign to help make attendance possible for people of color, exemplary programming proposals, those with financial hardships, and new this year, librarians, educators, and publishing professionals. We’ll have more information about how you can support our scholarships on our blog tomorrow!

PRICE INCREASE AND TICKETS UPDATE

On March 1, the cost of a Sirens registration will increase from $225 to $250.

Along with general registration for Sirens, tickets are available now for the Sirens Studio and the Sirens Supper. There are only 20 Studio and 11 Supper tickets remaining!

Buy Tickets

PROGRAMMING PROPOSALS

The deadline for programming proposals is approaching in May, so in March, we’ll be launching our annual programming series with tips, tricks and everything you need to know to submit a successful programming proposal, along with free-for-the-taking topic ideas on our #SirensBrainstorm hashtag. We’re also revisiting each Sirens theme; you can find our posts on Reunion and Hauntings over on the blog now, with Revolutionaries, Lovers, and Women Who Work Magic coming soon!

AMY’S BOOK CLUB

This month, Sirens co-founder Amy Tenbrink read and reviewed Lauren Groff’s The Monsters of Templeton in her book club: “Anyone from a small town will startle at Groff’s insightful depiction of both the unchanging sameness and the roiling, gossip-worthy drama.” Read her full review on the blog and on Goodreads.

READ ALONG WITH FAYE

In February, Communications Director Faye Bi read Jesmyn Ward’s highly acclaimed Sing, Unburied, Sing for the Reading Challenge, which impressed with “its lyrical, economical prose, its somewhat archetypal but expertly drawn characters, and its deft handling of the many challenges plaguing black communities in the rural south.” Read her full review on the blog and on Goodreads.

WHAT SIRENS IS . . . AND WHAT IT ISN’T

The more people who come to Sirens, the more ideas there are about what Sirens is . . . and what it isn’t. We’re kicking off 2018 by addressing both some core tenets and some common misconceptions about our conference. For example, did you know that everyone’s voice, no matter their vocation, identity, perspective, or familiarity with us, is equally important at Sirens? Conversely, did you know that Sirens is not a writers’ conference, though many writers find it valuable? Nor does it consider itself a “feminist” conference for women, though many of its attendees are women who claim the word “feminist.” Whether you’re new to us or a multiple-time attendee, we think this will be helpful.

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FOURTH GUEST OF HONOR, STUDIO FACULTY ANNOUNCED

Leigh Bardugo, author of Shadow and Bone, Six of Crows, and Wonder Woman: Warbringer, will be joining Zen Cho, Kameron Hurley, and Anna-Marie McLemore as guests of honor for this year’s conference! Leigh will represent women who work magic in our 2018 theme of Reunion. Visit our Guests of Honor page to learn more.

s.e. smith will be joining our Sirens Studio faculty for 2018, leading a reading intensive. We’ll have full summaries coming next month, but you can check out all of our faculty biographies now on our Sirens Studio page.

TICKETS UPDATE

Along with general registration for Sirens, tickets are also available for our pre-conference events, the Sirens Studio and the Sirens Supper. We’ll have information about specific Studio workshop intensive topics in February, so stay tuned.

Buy Tickets

AMY’S BOOK CLUB

Did you know that Sirens co-founder Amy Tenbrink reads 150 books a year? This month, she read Ausma Zehenat Khan’s The Bloodprint for the Sirens Book Club: “While this story is purportedly Arian’s, it’s really the story of every rebel against an authoritarian regime who has found that their fight is against not only the regime, but their own people’s fear, blindness, carelessness, and ignorance.” Read her full review on the blog and on Goodreads.

READ ALONG WITH FAYE

Are you planning on tackling the 2018 Reading Challenge? If you’d like some company, Communications Director Faye Bi reviews a book from the challenge each month. She adored Isabel Greenberg’s The One Hundred Nights of Hero, which she deemed a “brilliant, irreverent, pure delight of a graphic novel . . . perfect for long winter nights in a cozy reading chair and a big mug of tea.” Read her full review on the blog and on Goodreads.

THANK YOU

From the bottom of our hearts, thank you to all who attended and supported Sirens in 2017. Whether you followed our conversations on Twitter, attended for the first time, or have been with us since the beginning, we are thrilled to have each of you as a part of our community—a community of brilliant, passionate, and increasingly inclusive readers.

Thank you for bringing your opinions, experiences, expertise, and reading recommendations. For submitting programming, donating your time, funds, or skills to our Sirens programs and auction, for buying loads and loads of books, and if you were a new attendee this year, for taking a chance on us.

A special thank you to our three formidable 2017 guests of honor: Zoraida Córdova, N. K. Jemisin, and Victoria Schwab. You are proof that women do, and always have, worked magic.

SIRENS IN 2018

Our new Sirens website is live and open to the public! To learn more about our 2018 theme of reunion and our exploration of our past four themes: hauntings, rebels and revolutionaries, lovers, and women who work magic, please visit: sirensconference.org. Zen Cho, Kameron Hurley, Anna-Marie McLemore, and a soon-to-be-announced fourth guest will join us as our guests of honor. Our tremendous Sirens Studio faculty include Rhoda Belleza, K. Tempest Bradford, Dr. Kinitra Brooks, Zoraida Córdova, Dr. Andrea Horbinski, Justina Ireland, Anne Ursu, and a fourth reading intensive instructor to be announced soon.

As we shared earlier this year, we’ll be returning to the beautiful Park Hyatt Beaver Creek Resort and Spa in Beaver Creek, Colorado. The 2018 dates to note are:
October 23–24: Sirens Studio
October 24: Sirens Supper
October 25–28: Sirens

The Sirens Shuttle will run from Denver International Airport on Monday evening, October 22 prior to the Sirens Studio as well as on the afternoons of October 24 and October 25. All shuttle-riders will depart Beaver Creek on Sunday, October 28. In 2018, for the first time, both one-way and round-trip shuttle tickets are available.

Registration is currently $225 and will remain at that price until February 28. We hope to see you next October!

BOOKS, BOOKS, BOOKS, 2018 EDITION

Our 2018 Suggested Reading is now on the website, and so is our much-loved Reading Challenge! If you missed Amy’s Book Club and Read Along with Faye last month, worry not—they’ll be back in January for a new year of reviews and commentary.

QUIET TIME

Between now and the end of the year, the Sirens staff will be quieter than usual as we rebuild and prepare for 2018. Feel free to stay up to date on all our news through our website, our Twitter, our Facebook, and our newsletter.

SIRENS REACTION THAT MADE US CRY

Rook Riley

Questions? Concerns? Please email general queries to (help at sirensconference.org) and questions about programming to (programming at sirensconference.org).

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VOLUNTEERS NEEDED

IN-KIND DONATIONS: AUCTION ITEMS

UPCOMING INSTRUCTION EMAILS

WHERE ARE THEY NOW: GUESTS OF HONOR

BOOKS AND BREAKFAST: SPOTLIGHT ON LOVERS

AMY’S BOOK CLUB

READ ALONG WITH FAYE

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT …

GUEST OF HONOR: VIOLET KUPERSMITH

MEET THE 2018 SIRENS PROFESSIONAL SCHOLARSHIP RECIPIENTS

CONFERENCE SCHEDULE AND PROGRAMMING SUPPORT

TICKETS UPDATE

HOTEL RESERVATIONS

WHERE ARE THEY NOW: GUESTS OF HONOR

PERSONALIZED BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS

AMY’S BOOK CLUB

READ ALONG WITH FAYE

SIRENS REVIEW SQUAD

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT …

GUEST OF HONOR: KAMERON HURLEY

ACCEPTED PROGRAMMING

SIRENS SUPPORT

WHERE ARE THEY NOW: GUESTS OF HONOR

REGISTRATION AND TICKETS UPDATE

HOTEL

BOOKS AND BREAKFAST

AMY’S BOOK CLUB

READ ALONG WITH FAYE

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT …

GUEST OF HONOR: ANNA-MARIE MCLEMORE

WHERE ARE THEY NOW: GUESTS OF HONOR

REGISTRATION AND TICKETS UPDATE

PROGRAMMING

SIRENS BOOKSTORE, ATTENDING AUTHORS, AND BOOK DONATIONS

BOOKS AND BREAKFAST

AMY’S BOOK CLUB

READ ALONG WITH FAYE

SIRENS REVIEW SQUAD

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT …

THANK YOU FOR YOUR PROPOSALS

REGISTRATION AND TICKETS UPDATE

SCHOLARSHIPS

WHERE ARE THEY NOW: GUESTS OF HONOR

SECOND STUDIO CAREER INTENSIVE ANNOUNCED

PRIVACY POLICY UPDATED

AMY’S BOOK CLUB

READ ALONG WITH FAYE

SIRENS REVIEW SQUAD

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT …

GUEST OF HONOR: VIOLET KUPERSMITH

PROGRAMMING PROPOSALS DUE MAY 6

APPLY FOR SIRENS SCHOLARSHIPS

TICKETS UPDATE

SIRENS MEET-UPS

AMY’S BOOK CLUB

READ ALONG WITH FAYE

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT …

SIRENS SCHOLARSHIPS

2018 PROGRAMMING

AMY’S BOOK CLUB

READ ALONG WITH FAYE

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT …

SIRENS STUDIO WORKSHOPS ANNOUNCED

Reading

Writing

Career

SCHOLARSHIP FUNDRAISING

PRICE INCREASE AND TICKETS UPDATE

PROGRAMMING PROPOSALS

AMY’S BOOK CLUB

READ ALONG WITH FAYE

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT …

WHAT SIRENS IS . . . AND WHAT IT ISN’T

FOURTH GUEST OF HONOR, STUDIO FACULTY ANNOUNCED

TICKETS UPDATE

AMY’S BOOK CLUB

READ ALONG WITH FAYE

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT . . .

THANK YOU