MenuThe full schedule for the virtual Boskone 58 program is now available.
Boskone features a variety of special events each year. In addition to the events listed below, Boskone will also feature featured events for each of our guests that will range from interviews, demonstrations, and presentations. Our guests this year include:
- GUEST OF HONOR: Joe Abercrombie
- OFFICIAL ARTIST: Julie Dillon
- SPECIAL GUEST: Sheree Reneé Thomas
- MUSICAL GUEST: Marc Gunn
- HAL CLEMENT SCIENCE SPEAKER: Mike Brotherton and Christian Ready (Launch Pad Astronomy Workshop)
- NESFA PRESS GUEST: Ursula Vernon
Friday Highlights
3:30 PM
Welcome to Boskone
New to Boskone? Or returning after a long absence? Join us for a short discussion about what Boskone has to offer, learn some of the convention lingo, and meet new people. Then join our docent for a stroll around the con.
5:00 PM
Opening Ceremony: Meet the Guests
Welcome to Boskone, New England’s longest-running convention for fans and creators of science fiction, fantasy, and horror! Whether you are attending for the first time or the fifty-seventh, we invite you to join us in the Galleria to meet this year’s guests.
8:00 PM
Friday Concert with Musical Guest Marc Gunn
You’ll love hearing and even watching our Musical Guest ply his autoharp — beloved of unconventional songsters from Mother Maybelle Carter to Janis Joplin to Mark. (That’s musical evolution in action, folks). It shows he likes keeping his hands busy. (Strings and buttons, really?) Also, what does it tell you that he’s released 20+ albums with titles like “Scottish Songs of Drinking & Rebellion,” “Irish Drinking Songs for Cat Lovers,” “Firefly Drinking Songs,” and “Don’t Go Drinking With Hobbits”? It tells you Mark Gunn’s the world’s greatest Sci F’Irish musician, so raise a wee glass of Mudder’s Milk as he sings for yeh tonight!
Saturday Highlights
10:00 AM
Welcome to Boskone – Meet Up
New to Boskone? Or returning after a long absence? Join us for a short discussion about what Boskone has to offer, learn some of the convention lingo, and meet new people. Then join our docent for a stroll around the con.
11:30 AM
Hal Clement Science Guests Interview with Mike Brotherton and Christian Ready
Hal Clement (1922-2003) was a hard-SF pioneer, but also an astronomically correct painter of starscapes. Hal would have loved to hear Mike Brotherton and Christian Ready talk today. Mike’s an astronomy professor at U Wyoming, an SF writer himself, founder of the annual Launch Pad Astronomy Workshop for Writers — and kind of a quasar czar. Christian’s a former denizen of places like NASA’s Goddard Spaceflight Center, an instructor at Launch Pad — and someone who’s gotten paid for stargazing since age 13. Michael Swanwick may winkle out more about what’s going on with those funny lights in the sky.
1:00 PM
Guest of Honor Interview with Joe Abercrombie
The Guardian described the first of British fantasy writer Joe Abercrombie’s 11 books as “delightfully twisted and evil.” Lev Grossman compared another to “The Lord of the Rings as directed by Kurosawa.” His stories are almost always character-driven — and his characterizations favor the fairly fiendish. How fun! Today (since we couldn’t afford Glokta the Inquisitor), our Guest of Honor will be relentlessly questioned by horror writer Joe Hill. If Joe Abercrombie’s interviews are anything like his books, expect “an epic sweep of love and war, with vivid characters involved in crunching action, moving romance, and Machiavellian scheming” …
2:30 PM
Special Guest Interview: Sheree Renée Thomas
Sheree Renée Thomas has got it going on. She’s the brand-new editor of the revered Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. An award-winning fiction writer, poet, and editor, she recently published her first collection, Nine Bar Blues: Stories from an Ancient Future. She’s got a story in the Vandermeer’s magisterial 2020 monster The Big Book of Modern Fantasy (1945 – 2010) — and another in Marvel’s just-released Black Panther: Tales of Wakanda. And she’s prepping to co-host (with Malka Older) the Hugo broadcast from Washington, D.C., this summer. Luckily, Sheree’s taking her last free minutes to be interviewed by Andrea Hairston.
4:00 PM
Official Artist Discussion: Julie Dillon
They’re like dreams, if dreams were half so alluring. Flights of fabric float behind a purple-robed rider flanked by white-winged cranes. Armored women cross swords with overbearing men. A multiplicity of monsters rises under an unwary sailboat. An Amazon army marches abreast with banners and drums. She has wielded her dueling diagonals, popping colors, and lithe lines to conjure visions like these for Tor Books, Angry Robot, Penguin, Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, Uncanny, and more. How does she do it? Perhaps Errick Nunnally – author, designer, and fan – will find out in this discussion with our Official Artist.
5:30 PM
Boskone 58 Awards Ceremony
Saturday night’s extravaganza begins with the New England Science Fiction Association’s Award Ceremony, in which we present our annual Skylark and Gaughan awards. The Skylark Award honors the work and personal qualities of an exceptional contributor to science fiction. The Gaughan Award is presented to a talented up-and-coming / emerging speculative artist. We’ll also be announcing the winner of the NESFA Short Story Contest!
7:00 PM
Friday Concert with Musical Guest Marc Gunn
You’ll love hearing and even watching our Musical Guest ply his autoharp — beloved of unconventional songsters from Mother Maybelle Carter to Janis Joplin to Mark. (That’s musical evolution in action, folks). It shows he likes keeping his hands busy. (Strings and buttons, really?) Also, what does it tell you that he’s released 20+ albums with titles like “Scottish Songs of Drinking & Rebellion,” “Irish Drinking Songs for Cat Lovers,” “Firefly Drinking Songs,” and “Don’t Go Drinking With Hobbits”? It tells you Mark Gunn’s the world’s greatest Sci F’Irish musician, so raise a wee glass of Mudder’s Milk as he sings for yeh tonight!
Sunday Highlights
11:30 PM
NESFA Press Guest Interview: Ursula Vernon
Because you don’t make big money in the oddity creator racket, Ursula Vernon, or Wombat, or T. Kingfisher, or whomever she wishes to call herself for today, moonlights as an award-winning author, illustrator, podcaster, and gardener. Also she submits field sightings for identification to butterfliesandmoths.org. Today she may talk with Mur Lafferty about any, all, or none of that. Or her graphic novel Digger, or her kids’ book series Hamster Princess and Dragonsbreath, or coming up with last year’s best book title, A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking, or — since she’s our NESFA Press Guest — perhaps that enchanting NESFA Press volume of fairy tale theory and practice, The Halcyon Fairy Book.
11:30 AM
Art Portfolio Review by Official Artist Julie Dillon
Our Official Artist has graciously offered to perform portfolio reviews for some lucky artists wishing to get direction for honing their skills. Julie Dillon is a winner of four Chesley Awards and three-time Hugo award winner in the eleven or so years she has been a professional artist. Known for her cover art for books, magazines, and record albums, artists couldn’t find a better person to peruse your portfolio.
In order to have samples from your portfolio reviewed by Julie, you must submit digital photos of 4-6 pieces of art (paintings, sketches or digital) for Julie’s review. Space is limited to 5 artists. The portfolio review will be open to Boskone members in addition to the artists whose art will be reviewed by Julie. To submit art for the portfolio review, click this link. The due date for submitting your samples is January 31, 2021. You will be notified before Boskone whether your art has been selected to be part of this portfolio review.
4:00 PM
Feedback Session
This con is over, people. (Except for Dead Dog Filking—and of course teardown, where we’d love to have your help!) But we’re already working on Boskone 59. Help us get a good head start with reports on what went right (or wrong) this time, and how to achieve perfection next year.