The theme for World Fantasy Convention 2017 (which will take place November 2-5 in San Antonio, TX) is “Secret Histories,” and the WFC programming team wants to hear your ideas. Toastmaster Martha Wells tweeted the link to a submission form, through which you can submit up to two ideas pertaining to next year’s theme.
The guidelines are short and to-the-point:
Our theme is Secret Histories – The Use of History in Fantasy. If you have an idea or suggestion for a program item, whether related to our theme or not, we’d love to hear about it. We anticipate having this form available through the end of the year. Feel free to come back and share other program ideas.
The open-ended nature of the prompt lends itself to a variety of ideas. We could envision Robert Jackson Bennett and N.K. Jemisin expanding on their conversation from the Brooklyn Book Festival about how they interrogate history in their work: considering the context of history being written by those who have taken control, examining the veracity of written versus oral history, and more. We could also see more than one of Michael Livingston’s Medieval Matters pieces providing fodder, from Parke Godwin’s take on King Arthur to how to properly wield a torch.
Guests of Honor for World Fantasy 2017 include Karen Joy Fowler, Gregory Manchess, David Mitchell, and Gordon Van Gelder, with more to be announced.
