Annalee Newitz @ Women & Children First

pic by CNSC member
Paul Callan (Flickr)

Back in September, Annalee Newitz did a reading at Women & Children First from her newly-launched novel, Autonomous. Brief notes below!

Newitz was joined by partner, fellow io9-cofounder, and All the Birds in the Sky author Charlie Jane Anders for the discussion. After reading  some introductory sections from Autonomous, which follows a scientist-turned-pharmacy-pirate and the robot/human pair of agents sent to stop her, Newitz took questions from the audience:

Taking a few questions about the process of writing the novel, and writing fiction instead of nonfiction:

• Autonomous started while both Newitz & Anders were still working on io9. She started working on it kind of as if it were nonfic, interviewed scientists in relevant fields. The novel is set in a definite near -future (2144), and relies on a fairly well-defined central device, the fictional concentration drug "Zacuity", so Newitz turned to a few different specialists to try to both flesh out the ideas and also avoid "smack your own face" fact errors. She also talked about her own disenchantment with the academic research world informing the novel.

Printer's Row Lit Fest & CAKE Outing

This coming weekend holds two cool events in Chicago:

The Printer's Row Lit Fest, a huge bookish celebration on and around Printer's Row downtown. Hundreds of booksellers of all kinds, all the local presses and groups, and tons of authors doing talks and signings. Check the schedule for more.

The Chicago Alternative Comics Expo (CAKE!) is a celebration of alternative, indie, underground comics/graphics/zines of all kinds, and is a good fun. Lots of locals, lots of international artists, lots of illustrious webcomic folks you may know of! CAKE is at the Center on Halsted in Lakeview.

Both events run both Saturday and Sunday and are primarily free and open to the public--Printer's Row does have some ticketed events.

I'm seeing if I can rustle up some Think Galactic, Chicago Nerds, and other bookish SF/F types to meet up on Sunday--wander Printer's Row for a bit and catch a talk with Annalee Newitz, Charlie Jane Anders, Dan Sinker, and Kameron Hurley, then head up to CAKE for a bit. Probably some food/drinks in between or after, too.

Shoot me a message or check out the Facebook event if you want to tag along.