I know this sounds a bit loony but….
Last summer, Richard Nash proposed a talk about the Novel in 2050 for South by Southwest (SXSW). As usual, the geeks at SXSW voted it down (this happens to many worthy panel ideas). Then I thought, these questions are good; why not have the same session anyway and have it in some room somewhere at South by Southwest? Even if Richard Nash isn’t there to run it, I’m sure there will be enough literary geeks at SXSW to keep a good discussion going.
So I wrote a little announcement about it. If any readers plan to make it, you may run into some familiar names on Teleread. Richard Nash has a prior commitment, but he says he will show up anyway. (Read Chris Meadows’ article about Richard Nash here and an audio interview David Rothman did with him last year).
It will be on Sunday March 14 at 2:00 PM at South by Southwest. Location TBA. It could be awesome, or it could totally suck.
South by Southwest attracts more people in web design/multimedia/politics than in publishing, but a lot of literary/freelance types end up showing up. SXSW will have a handful of interesting panels, including one or two about the iPad.
See also: Chris Meadows about whether ebook conferences create a kind of ebook elite. Also, some artists have started to do live illustrations of SXSW panels which can be stunning to look at. See these panels and Honoria Starbuck’s amazingly fun abstract drawings. (The picture you see was for last year’s Aristotle on Twitter panel).
How do we find out where the panel discussion will be?
I’ll be there with my startup Pocket Tales pitching in the Accelerator Competition on Monday. Pocket Tales is a social reading game for kids. We’d love to have some publishing/eBook types come cheer us on.
Brennan, Location is TBA. Check my URL for updated info. BTW, I might stream/record the session for remote listeners. Maybe I’ll write something up afterwards.