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Sirens Newsletter – Volume 10, Issue 9 (August 2018)

Posted on August 31, 2018 at 9:00 am | Comments Off on Sirens Newsletter – Volume 10, Issue 9 (August 2018)

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In this issue:

 

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

The Book of Joan

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.

 

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT …

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

 

Sirens Newsletter – Volume 10, Issue 8 (July 2018)

Posted on July 31, 2018 at 9:00 am | Comments Off on Sirens Newsletter – Volume 10, Issue 8 (July 2018)

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In this issue:

 

GUEST OF HONOR: KAMERON HURLEY

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.

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!

Register or Purchase Tickets

 

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

The Memory Trees

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.

 

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT …

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

 

Sirens Newsletter – Volume 10, Issue 1 (November 2017)

Posted on November 15, 2017 at 9:00 am | Comments Off on Sirens Newsletter – Volume 10, Issue 1 (November 2017)

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In this issue:

 

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.

 

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT…

 

SIRENS REACTION THAT MADE US CRY

 

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

 

Sirens Newsletter – Volume 9, Issue 8 (July 2017)

Posted on July 31, 2017 at 9:00 am | Comments Off on Sirens Newsletter – Volume 9, Issue 8 (July 2017)

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In this issue:

 

GUEST OF HONOR: ZORAIDA CÓRDOVA

We’re interviewing each of our 2017 Guests of Honor about their inspirations, influences, and craft, as well as the role of women in fantasy literature, as befits this year’s theme of women who work magic.

Zoraida Cordova

Our interview with Zoraida Córdova addresses Latinx identity, being drawn to fantasy and magic from a young age, bruja magic and religion in Labyrinth Lost, and becoming a young adult author in the wake of We Need Diverse Books: “I feel more comfortable writing POC protagonists now because it’s in the zeitgeist. I don’t want diversity to become another publishing trend. Because unlike vampires and dystopian novels, POC are real.”

Our focus on Zoraida and her work also featured a review of Labyrinth Lost by B R Sanders and a fantasy book list compiled by Zoraida herself!

 

ACCEPTED PROGRAMMING

Got your planner ready? Visit our Accepted Programing page for the full lineup of this year’s topics, summaries, and presenter biographies. Our brilliant presenters will be examining everything from witches to beauty, inclusion to activism, and so much more—in the form of papers, panels, roundtables, workshops, and afternoon classes. Thank you, presenters!

All presentations are available for sponsorship for $35 per presentation. You might choose to sponsor a friend or family member, or select a presentation on a topic that speaks to you, or show your support for underrepresented voices. Should you like to sponsor a programming session, we will include your name next to your chosen topic and in the program book, provided we receive your donation by August 15. Thank you for your support of our programming.

 

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.

 

INCLUSIVITY AT SIRENS

This month, we’re thrilled to share a post by s.e. smith, who often has to contend with questions like, “What is someone who’s not a woman doing at a lady conference?” Their response is perfect: “Sirens isn’t a lady conference. It’s a conference celebrating women in fantasy, and one where people of all genders participate in the conversation and work to push it further.” Read the rest of their post here.

 

REGISTRATION UPDATE

We have one registration remaining for 2017! If you’re planning to attend and haven’t registered yet, please do so immediately at this link—or pass it along to a friend.

 

HOTEL TALISA

All of the Sirens programming and events will take place at the Hotel Talisa, and we’ve negotiated a fantastic deal on standard room rates: $139/night for 1–2 people (plus tax and resort fee). But rooms are filling up quickly! We’ve already expanded our room block three times, but when these rooms are gone, you’ll have to book at the Hotel Talisa’s regular rates or find a roommate. Right now, we have only six rooms left in our room block for the conference dates. For more instructions on how to make your reservation, please visit our Hotel page.

 

AMY’S BOOK CLUB

The Forbidden Wish

In July, Sirens co-founder Amy Tenbrink read Jessica Khoury’s The Forbidden Wish, which she found “full of marvelous reader delights,” but also “troubling.” Read her review over on the blog and on Goodreads.

 

READ ALONG WITH FAYE

Vassa in the Night

For the Reading Challenge this month, Faye read Sarah Porter’s Vassa in the Night, a “dark and poetic” modern-day retelling of the Russian folktale “Vasilisa the Beautiful” set in Brooklyn. Read her review on the blog and on Goodreads.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT…


Interesting Links

 

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

 

Limited Number of 2017 Sirens Registrations Remaining

Posted on May 15, 2017 at 11:00 am | Comments Off on Limited Number of 2017 Sirens Registrations Remaining

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In 2009, in its inaugural year, Sirens welcomed its first attendees in Vail: nearly 100 people joined us to discuss and debate the diverse, remarkable women of fantasy literature, with a special focus on female warriors. High on a mountaintop, Tamora Pierce delivered the very first Sirens keynote address, sharing with attendees—well into the night—her very personal journey through fantasy literature.

In 2016, in its eighth year, Sirens welcomed its highest number of registrations ever: just over 100 people joined us in Denver to again discuss and debate the diverse, remarkable women of fantasy literature, this time paying particular attention to lovers and the idea that whom you choose to love—or not love—changes you and can help you change the world.

In the years in between, we have examined faeries and monsters, hauntings and rebels. We’ve had our first reunion, and welcomed hundreds of different people to Sirens, some only once and some many times. Our community, though sometimes small, is breathtakingly mighty.

 

2017 GROWTH

In 2017, nearly 150 people have already registered for Sirens! We are amazed. We are thrilled. We are, as you might expect, somewhat shocked.

Given this unprecedented growth, we must impose a registration cap on Sirens this year. We have carefully examined our available space in Vail, and we can accommodate only 190 registrations.

As of today, only 21 registrations remain available for Sirens in 2017. This number does not include registrations set aside for scholarship recipients and potential presenters. We are currently offering these 21 registrations on a first-come, first-served basis.

 

PRESENTERS

Sirens is currently holding a registration for every person who proposed programming to Sirens this year. We will hold these registrations for these potential presenters, regardless of whether the vetting board accepts their proposals, until the July 9 presenter registration deadline. On July 10, if any presenters have not registered, we will make those remaining registrations available to others on a first-come, first-served basis.

 

SCHOLARSHIPS

Sirens has already awarded its Con or Bust and financial hardship scholarships; these awards will not affect the number of registrations available. The scholarships for exemplary programming proposals will be awarded in June and, as we are already holding registrations for presenters, these awards will not affect the number of registrations available.

 

UPDATES

If we find that we have additional registrations available, we will make an announcement on this blog, on our Twitter, and on our Facebook page. Please also watch our Twitter for announcements of any individuals seeking to sell their registrations.

 

TICKETS

Our Sirens Supper is sold out for 2017. We have only two Sirens Studio tickets remaining, so if you are interested in attending the Studio, we encourage you to register as soon as possible. We continue to sell Sirens Shuttle tickets and do not yet anticipate any availability issues, but we will let you know if that changes.

 

QUESTIONS

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact us at (help at sirensconference.org). Thank you so much to everyone who has ever attended a Sirens—or who is registered this year for the first time—for helping build this brilliant community!

 

Sirens Newsletter – Volume 9, Issue 2 (January 2017)

Posted on January 26, 2017 at 9:00 am | Comments Off on Sirens Newsletter – Volume 9, Issue 2 (January 2017)

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In this issue:

 

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Happy New Year, Sirens! We hope you join us this year invigorated and resolute, with insightful, boundary-pushing, unabashed conversations on female and genderqueer identity in fantasy literature. If you need a place to get started, we recommend our Suggested Reading List and our 2017 Reading Challenge, a collection of titles that cover this year’s theme of women who work magic and fantasy literature in general.

 

SIRENS STUDIO

What if we were to tell you that our Sirens Studio faculty and workshop intensives would be live next month? Our Sirens Studio will take place on October 24–25, the Tuesday and Wednesday before the official start of the conference. Focused around two-hour, small-group workshop intensives on reading, writing, and career development, the Studio is a great way to do a deeper dive at a slower pace. We can tell you this right now: one current and three past Guests of Honor are among this year’s faculty.

 

SCHOLARSHIPS

As you know, Sirens awards scholarships each year to fans of color/non-white fans, exemplary programming presenters, and those with financial hardships. We’ll be doing a bigger push for scholarship donations in March, but please feel free to get a head start by donating here.

 

PROGRAMMING

We will be launching our programming series later this spring, but it never hurts to start brainstorming now. There will be a few changes to the submission process, including supplemental abstracts for panelists. Keep your eyes peeled for more information!

 

HOTEL REBRANDING

Important note! This year’s Sirens hotel, the Vail Cascade Resort and Spa, has completed their renovation for Spring 2017 and has been renamed the Hotel Talisa. We have updated the hotel page on our website with the change.

 

SIRENS BENEFIT ANTHOLOGY SEEKING SUBMISSIONS

Last year, a few of our attendees did the tremendous job of compiling, editing, and publishing Queens and Courtesans, a benefit anthology with all proceeds donated back to Sirens. This year, their anthology, Witches and Warriors, is currently seeking submissions, particularly across all areas of intersectional feminism. For more details, please visit the submission link.

 

AMY’S BOOK CLUB

The Mistress of Spices

Sirens co-founder Amy Tenbrink kicks off a new year of her book club with Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s The Mistress of Spices, which she considered “a beautifully crafted folktale of an indomitable woman who battles her own magic to aid her people: the Indian immigrants of modern-day Oakland.” Check out her review, coming tomorrow, on the blog and Goodreads.

 

READ ALONG WITH FAYE

All Our Pretty Songs

Communications staffer Faye Bi returns with her quest to complete the 2017 Reading Challenge! First up is Sarah McCarry’s All Our Pretty Songs; she found the “modern Orpheus and Eurydice retelling fused with sex, drugs and rock and roll… ultimately about friendship and love, though not the way one might suspect.” Check out her review on the blog and Goodreads.

 

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

 

Sirens Newsletter – Volume 9, Issue 1 (December 2016)

Posted on December 21, 2016 at 9:00 am | Comments Off on Sirens Newsletter – Volume 9, Issue 1 (December 2016)

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In this issue:

 

BELATEDLY

Sirens is a wonderful, amazing, demanding endeavour! While we adore it, it takes the vast majority of our staff’s time in September and October—which leads to a rebound effect in November and December as we catch up on the rest of our commitments to work, families, and friends. We’ll be back in earnest in January, but in the meantime, if you encounter sometimes significant delays in our returning communications, we hope you’ll forgive us.

 

THANK YOU

To all of you who attended and supported Sirens in 2016—thank you! Thank you for bringing your backgrounds, experiences, reading lists, opinions, and wisdom to our community. Thank you for speaking and listening, for discussing and disagreeing, and for doing so with respect and with inclusiveness. Thank you for presenting, for donating, for buying books and t-shirts and auction items. Thank you for leading Books and Breakfast discussions and helping presenters. Sirens is richer and more vibrant because of each of you.

A special thank you to our splendid 2016 guests of honor, Laurie J. Marks, Renée Ahdieh, and Kiini Ibura Salaam, who inspired us with their words—and their willingness to speak true, no matter how hard.

 

SIRENS IN 2017

Our 2017 Sirens website is live! Please visit www.sirensconference.org to learn about this year’s theme of women who work magic: witches, sorceresses, spellcasters, mages, illusionists, and more. Too often, women in fantasy literature are everyday humans navigating a world of wonder; for 2017, we’ll examine women who both have power and wield it. Zoraida Córdova, N. K. Jemisin, and Victoria Schwab will join us as our guests of honor.

Also this year, we’re returning to the recently-renovated luxury hotel, the Vail Cascade Resort and Spa in Vail, Colorado. The conference will run October 26–29, 2017, with the Sirens Studio on Tuesday and Wednesday, October 24–25, and the Sirens Supper on Wednesday, October 25. The Sirens Shuttle will run from the Denver International Airport on Monday night prior to the Studio and on Wednesday and Thursday afternoons; the return trip for all shuttle-riders will depart Vail at noon on Sunday, October 29. (We’re hoping to have Studio faculty announcements out early in 2017—so don’t purchase those plane tickets quite yet! Also, please note that due to renovations, hotel reservations are on hold until the end of the year; we’ll let you know the moment you can reserve a room.)

Registration is currently $190, and will remain that price until the end of the year. The Sirens Studio, the Sirens Supper, and the Sirens Shuttle tickets can be purchased separately. We hope you join us next October!

 

QUIET TIME

As we mentioned above, until the end of the year, the Sirens staff will be quieter than normal as we rebuild and ready ourselves for 2017. Our programming and volunteering systems are closed for maintenance, though we encourage you to keep up-to-date on all the news through our website, Twitter, and newsletter. We’re planning features on our guests, travel, programming, and theme, plus more informal Sirens meet-ups throughout the year. Feel free to grab a graphic to show your support! Of course, if you have any questions, suggestions, or feedback, please email us at (help at sirensconference.org).

We’d also like to remind you that, for a variety of reasons, if you have questions about Sirens, the best place to ask us is by emailing us at (help at sirensconference.org). As an all-volunteer organization, we are not always diligent about checking our social media—and the people who do check it often don’t have the answers that you’re seeking. Thanks for your help and understanding!

 

2017 READING

To keep you busy while we’re out, our 2017 Suggested Reading and Reading Challenge are also live! Check them out, get busy buying or borrowing books, and check back in January for the return of Amy’s Book Club and Read Along with Faye (who did finish the 2016 Challenge!).

 

SUCCESS STORIES

We’ve had many story ideas, personal projects, and career moves sparked by conversations at Sirens. Have you started or changed jobs? Published a book or paper? Gone back to school? Tell us! Shout your good news at the rooftops over at (help at sirensconference.org).

 

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT…

 

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

 

Sirens Newsletter – Volume 8, Issue 5 (August 2016)

Posted on August 31, 2016 at 1:30 pm | Comments Off on Sirens Newsletter – Volume 8, Issue 5 (August 2016)

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In this issue:

 

INVERNESS HOTEL
In 2016, Sirens’s hotel is again the Inverness Hotel and Conference Center, a Destination Hotels resort in south Denver. Everything Sirens will take place at the Inverness, from our pre-conference Sirens Studio and Sirens Supper to our programming, to our Ball of Enchantment, and to our Sunday breakfast and auction. For Sirens, the Inverness is where you want to be.

We strongly recommend making your reservations at the Inverness Hotel as soon as possible, both so that you have the best shot at reserving a room in our block and so, if you miss our block, you’ll have the best chance to get a room off the waitlist. If you are running into issues with availability making reservations online, please call the hotel at (303) 799-5800, and if you still have trouble making a reservation, please email us at (help at sirensconference.org). Check out our latest hotel post for pictures, amenities, discounted rate information, and tips on finding a roommate.

 

TICKETS
Tickets for the Sirens Shuttle and Sirens Studio are still available. The Sirens Shuttle offers discounted group transportation to and from Denver International Airport, for you and any friends or family who’d like a ride too. The Sirens Studio, features two days of workshop intensives (for readers, writers, and professionals), discussion, networking opportunities, and flexible time for you to use however you wish. If you’d like to join us for some—or all—of these, tickers can be added to a registration until registration closes on September 17. Tickets for these events are unlikely to be available at the door.

 

BRING A FRIEND!
If you’ve already registered for Sirens, check your inboxes! Last week, we sent a promotional code to all registered attendees that entitles the user to a $10 discount. It can be used only once, and your friend needs to register between now and September 17, 2016. We can’t wait to meet them!

 

SUPPORT SIRENS
At Sirens, we’re committed to keeping the cost of attendance as low as possible for all attendees. Because of that commitment, we run an unusual budget structure: the costs of presenting Sirens far exceed our registration revenue. Each year, exceptionally kind individuals, many of them on our staff, cover approximately half that gap through thousands of dollars in donations, necessary to make a space that discusses and celebrates the remarkable women of fantasy literature real.

And you can help. Please click the links for more information:

Narrate Conferences, Inc., the presenting organization behind Sirens, is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization. Therefore, all donations to Sirens are eligible for tax deduction in accordance with U.S. law.

 

ATTENDING AUTHORS
If you are a published author attending Sirens, please let us know. We’d like to make sure we have your books available in our bookstore—and if you’d like, a place for you in our author signing time. Please send an email to Amy at (amy.tenbrink at sirensconference.org).

 

GUEST OF HONOR INTERVIEWS
We’re interviewing our Sirens 2016 Guests of Honor about their inspirations, influences, and craft, to the role of women in fantasy literature as befits our 2016 focus on lovers and the role of love, intimacy, and sex. We can’t wait for you to meet them this October!

From our interview with Kiini Ibura Salaam on what makes a Kiini heroine: “I love people who live boldly. I think we all have parts of us that want to be free. Those are the characters that fascinate me most as well—characters who have impact, who have strong identities, who are pushing against the forces that would control them.”
 
 
 
 

From our interview with Renée Ahdieh on heroes and villains in her novels: “I tend to enjoy writing in spaces of moral grey. The world in which we live is really not as black and white as we’d like to believe it to be… Every choice—every experience—has risk and reward. And those risks/rewards are never as clear-cut as we wish they were.”

 
 
 

Our interview with our third 2016 Guest of Honor, Laurie J. Marks is coming next month, so stay tuned!

 

BOOKS AND BREAKFAST
Each year, Sirens selects a variety of popular, controversial, and just plain brilliant books related to our theme—and invites attendees to bring their breakfast during the conference and have an informal conversation about those books. For 2016, we’ve kicked Books and Breakfast off early—so all of you have time to choose a couple books and read! This year, we’ve also launched a program to get these books into your hands prior to Sirens.

For extra motivation, we’re giving away copies of each Books and Breakfast book—two each month! Congratulations to @strixbrevis on Twitter for winning July’s Giveaway. Check out how you can win Joplin’s Ghost and There Once Lived a Girl… in our post here.

 

AMY’s BOOK CLUB

Star-Touched Queen

Sirens co-founder Hallie Tibbetts subs for Amy this month in Amy’s Book Club! Check out her review of Roshani Chokshi's The Star-Touched Queen, on the blog and Goodreads, which she found to be a “lyrical story that incorporates Hindu myth into a romantic, lush read.”

 

READ ALONG WITH FAYE

BoySnowBird

Read along with Faye as she completes the 2016 Sirens Reading Challenge! This month she read Helen Oyeyemi’s Boy, Snow, Bird, which she loved for how it delved into the implications of racial passing if not for gender. Check out her review on the blog and Goodreads.

 

SIRENS REVIEW SQUAD

Sorcerer to the Crown

Kayla Shifrin discusses and critiques revolution, political symbols and YA heroines in Alaya Dawn Johnson’s The Summer Prince. Check out her full review over on the blog.

 

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT…

 

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

 

Inverness Hotel: It’s Where You Want to Be

Posted on July 28, 2016 at 2:20 pm | Comments Off on Inverness Hotel: It’s Where You Want to Be

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In 2016, Sirens’s hotel is again the Inverness Hotel and Conference Center, a Destination Hotels resort in south Denver. Everything Sirens will take place at the Inverness, from our pre-conference Sirens Studio and Sirens Supper to our programming, to our Ball of Enchantment, and to our Sunday breakfast and auction. For Sirens, the Inverness is where you want to be.

This year, we encourage you to make your hotel reservations early. Last year, the Inverness was sold out for some of the nights of Sirens, and several attendees had to spend some time on the wait list for rooms. Don’t let that be you!

inthebar atthespotteddog

 
 
If you’re already planning to book a room at the Inverness for Sirens, here’s what you need to know:

  • Discounted Sirens Rate: $135/night, regardless of occupancy (plus tax and resort fee)
  • Discount Code: 2Q20U2 (enter in the Group Field when making online reservations)
  • Discounted Dates: October 15, 2016, to October 25, 2016
  • How to Make a Reservation: Book online or call the hotel at (800) 346-4891 (Also, if you’re finding that the online system says that the Inverness is sold out, please call the hotel to make your reservation; chances are, our allocated rooms in the reservations system are sold out, but the hotel may still have rooms available at our discounted rate.)
  • How to Find a Roommate: Tweet and include @sirens_con so we can retweet, or post on our Facebook page

1bed 2beds

 
 
If you’re still planning your travel for Sirens—or you’re still deciding on Sirens—let us convince you! The Inverness features:

  • A gorgeous, renovated lobby
  • New, comfortable spaces for chatting, writing, reading, and charging electronics
  • Both single-bed and two-bed guest room options, as well as accessible options, all of which have either mountain or resort views
  • A coffee shop and three restaurants, two of which now offer light options
  • Exercise options, including a gym, a pool, tennis courts, and a 3-mile walking/running path
  • A fabulous spa, with massages, skin treatments, and salon services
  • A gift shop full of Colorado souvenirs, such as local jewelry
  • Dedicated conference space for Sirens

atthepool atthejacuzzi

 
 
Also, in exchange for our use of the hotel’s conference center and a discounted guest-room rate for our attendees, we’ve committed to filling a certain number of the hotel’s rooms. By staying at the Inverness, you’ll help us meet our hotel commitments and keep the cost of Sirens lower for everyone.

If you have any questions or concerns about Sirens—including about hotel reservations or issues you’ve encountered in the reservations process—please write us at (help at sirensconference.org).

Sirens Newsletter – Volume 8, Issue 1 (November 2015)

Posted on November 23, 2015 at 9:00 am | Comments Off on Sirens Newsletter – Volume 8, Issue 1 (November 2015)

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In this issue:

 

SIRENS IN 2015
Thank you, thank you, thank you for making Sirens in 2015 utterly amazing.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts, for wrestling with tough questions, for celebrating successes, for commiserating on struggles, and most of all, for recognizing the depth and breadth of work related to women in fantasy literature. Thank you for welcoming newcomers and connecting with old friends. Thank you for contributing to (and buying from!) our auction and our store; every penny is appreciated.

And a hearty thank you to our 2015 guests of honor—Rae Carson, Kate Elliott, and Yoon Ha Lee—who regaled us with engaging, informative, heartfelt, and funny keynotes.

Guest of Honor Kate Elliott - Thursday, October 8, 2015.Guest of Honor Yoon Ha Lee - Friday, October 9, 2015.Bedtime Stories at Sirens in 2015. From top to bottom: Rae Carson, Yoon Ha Lee, and Kate Elliott.Guest of Honor Rae Carson - Saturday, October 10, 2015.

 

SIRENS IN 2016
Our website for 2016 is up! You can find it, as always, at www.sirensconference.org. We hope you’ll visit to find out more about next year’s theme, lovers: In fantasy literature, as in the real world, whom we choose to love changes us—and helps us change the world. Renée Ahdieh, Laurie J. Marks, and Kiini Ibura Salaam will attend as our guests of honor.

We will remain at the Inverness for another year, and Sirens will be held October 20–23, 2016, with the pre-conference Sirens Studio on Tuesday, October 18, and Wednesday, October 19, and the Sirens Supper on Wednesday, October 19. The Sirens Shuttle will run on Monday, October 18; Wednesday, October 19; Thursday, October 20; and on Sunday, October 23, for the return trip to Denver International Airport. Registration for the conference is currently $190, and will remain at that price until the end of the year. Studio, Supper, and Shuttle tickets can be purchased separately.

For now, our programming and volunteering systems remain closed for some maintenance, but we’ll be sure to shout the news when they’re available again. You can still get all the news on our website, and we’ll be featuring more on our guests, travel, programming, and theme throughout the year. In the meantime, feel free to grab a graphic to show your support. We hope you can join us next October!

 

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE: QUESTIONS
If you have questions, please email us at (help at sirensconference.org), and we’ll make sure your question goes to someone who can answer it. We know that questions come up when you’re on social media, but our social media team doesn’t have the answers for most questions, and most social media channels don’t allow us to answer accurately, fully, securely, or quickly, at least not while we remain a volunteer-run conference. Thanks for your understanding! Our operators are standing by….

 

QUIET TIME
Between now and the end of the year, we’ll be a little quieter than normal; with the hectic preparation for Sirens over, and the new website up and ready for registrations, we think of these few weeks as “summer vacation” for Sirens. We do always love to hear about interesting links and fantasy releases, though, and if you run into any problems or questions, you can always email us at (help at sirensconference.org).

 

TELL US ABOUT IT: SUCCESS!
We know that many story ideas, personal projects, and career moves have started at Sirens. Sometimes, those ideas and changes have been successful immediately; at other times, those sparks took years to grow into a flame. If you’ve got a story to share about how attending Sirens is connected to a success you’ve had, we’d love to hear about it, and we’d love to have you share it. Please email (help at sirensconference.org) by December 1. Many thanks!

 

READING CHALLENGE
If you’re looking for a bit of structure for your Sirens reading, or you simply love a challenge, you’re in the right place. Each year, our staff reads a wide selection of fantasy works written by women, some within our theme and some more broadly. This year, we invite you to take our challenge!

To take the challenge, read 25 books according to the rules on our Reading Challenge page. And keep track: we’ll be waiting for you with a button next October.

 

SUGGESTED READING
If you’re not up for a challenge, but want some new fantasy selections to read, we have gathered a wide-ranging collection of books for our 2016 suggested reading list—not just the works by this year’s guests of honor, but fantasy by and about women that connect to this year’s lovers theme.

Also, Amy will be running her book club on our Goodreads group again this year. Each year, she selects a book a month from the suggested reading list that she hasn’t already read. She reads and reviews, and you’re welcome to join in the conversation. The books for 2016 are already up over at Goodreads.

 

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT…

Testimonials: Inspired by Sirens–Edith Hope Bishop

Testimonials: Inspired by Sirens–Artemis Grey

Testimonials: Inspired by Sirens–Yoon Ha Lee

Testimonials: Inspired by Sirens–Nivair Gabriel

Suzi Rogers Gruber: Fantasy Works Featuring Women Who Fight Back

Missing the book releases and interesting links? Keep an eye out—we’ll be catching up on autumn news soon!

 

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

 

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Presented by Narrate Conferences, Inc.

 

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