The Boskone Mini Interviews bring you two program participants who are brand new to Boskone: Wesley Chu and Flourish Klink. We are very excited to have them join the February fun, and we hope you enjoy meeting them both. If you have any questions or you just want to say hello, feel free to post a note in the comments below.

Also, remember to pick up your Boskone membership today and book your hotel room before they sell out.

Wesley Chu

Wesley Chu is the bestselling author of the Tao series from Angry Robot Books. He won the 2015 John W Campbell Award for Best New Writer. His debut, The Lives of Tao, won the Young Adult Library Services Association’s Alex Award and was a finalist for the Goodreads Choice Awards for Best Science Fiction. His newest book, Time Salvager, published by Tor books, was released on July 7th, 2015. For more information, visit Wesley’s website, follow him on Twitter, and friend him on Facebook.

What are you looking forward to at Boskone?
I love literary conventions. It’s a blast to talk to readers and meet (and drink) with other authors. I usually have a standard rotation of conventions I attend every year, so it’s exciting to explore new conventions. Each one always has its own unique flavor.

This year, I’m super excited to meet Richard Anderson, the Official Artist. I had the privilege of having Richard create the covers for two of my books, Time Salvager and Time Siege (they’re freaking fantastic) so I’m pumped to finally get the chance to meet him.

What are you working on now? What excites or challenges you about this project?
I’m currently working on the first book in a new trilogy based in the Tao universe called The Rise of Io for Angry Robot Books.

I’m excited about this project because in my Tao books, we had Roen, the lovable loser, and Tao, the experienced and competent alien. In the Io, I flip the narrative. The readers are introduced to Ella, a scrappy street smart con woman, who is inhabited by Io, a Quasing of breathtaking incompetence and questionable morals. The two of them have to forge an uneasy alliance in order to survive the war between the Prophus and the Genjix.

From a fan perspective, what new book, film, TV show, or comic are you most looking forward to seeing/reading?
What upcoming movie/show/book am I most looking forward to? Okay, Star Wars: The Force Awakens is a no brainer so I’ll give another answer. Before I say another word, no judging, okay? Bygones be bygones and all jazz, but I’m really, really excited to see Zoolander 2.

What is your favorite Star Wars memory, scene, or line? What is it that that memory, scene or line that continues to stick with you today?
My favorite line from the Star Wars movie is from Han Solo.

Han: How we doing?
Luke: Same as always.
Han: That bad, huh?

Flourish Klink

My name is Flourish Klink. I’m a writer, producer and fangirl. I’ve been blogging in various places since 1999, most recently at Tank Lady. I grew up in the X-Files and Harry Potter fandoms. I’m currently into Outlander, Sleepy Hollow, and Elementary. I’m interested in the way that people use stories to figure out their own lives. I’m vegan. I’m Christian. I hold two black belts. I attended Reed College and MIT. I’m married to poet-programmer Nick Montfort. Some people call me Flor, Fleur, or Maddy (don’t try it). I was a partner in The Alchemists Transmedia Storytelling Co., and today I’m a partner in Chaotic Good LLC, a franchise development and production company. You might know me from Lincoln, NE; Sacramento, CA; Portland, OR; Cambridge, MA; or NYC.

What are you looking forward to at Boskone?
I’m looking forward to my first time at Boskone, so it’s hard to say exactly! Boskone has been an important convention for many of my friends for many years, but I’ve never made it, so I’m really excited to get to come for the first time. Lately I’ve gone to a lot of conventions that are more commercialized. Also, so I’m looking forward to getting a chance to get back to my fandom roots and spend time in a space that’s really by the community and for the community.

What event or experience stands out as one of those ‘defining moments’ that shaped who you are today?
When I was about five or six years old, I was very ill for a whole year, and my father brought home books that people at Tower Books in Sacramento, CA had recommended to him for me. One of them was The Lives of Christopher Chant by Diana Wynne Jones. I think that might have been the most defining moment of my life, because up till then I’d enjoyed fantastical stories but I’d probably been more engaged by books like Charlotte’s Web and A Little House on the Prairie.

I don’t remember if I read it right away (it would have been definitely old for me if I had). It was the book that got me into SF&F because at the local library Diana Wynne Jones was filed with the adult SF&F rather than in the Children’s section. So through seeking more DWJ, I experienced the grown-up books for the first time, and from there…that was pretty much all she wrote for my tastes thereafter.

What are you working on now? What excites or challenges you about this project?
I’m working on a lot of things! One that I’m most excited about is an ongoing project, my podcast with Elizabeth Minkel, Fansplaining. A lot of my job, working in the entertainment industry, is explaining fan culture to people who don’t have a lot of familiarity with it—and helping people make good decisions about what to do or what not to do with beloved shows and movies. But that means I spend a lot of time talking about the surface stuff: “No, not all people who consider themselves ‘fans’ think alike,” “Just because one’s a fan of something doesn’t mean they don’t have any critiques of it,” and so forth.

Fansplaining is a chance to talk about fandom in both a deeper and broader way. It comes out every two weeks (a transcript too) and we have guests from different parts of fandom—and guests who are fans but not “part of fandom,” like sports fans and music fans who don’t necessarily see themselves as having much in common with SF&F fandom, or even media fandom more generally. I think it’s a really important thing because the internet simultaneously makes it easy to find your tribe and also makes it easy to forget that there’s anyone out there who’s not part of your tribe. So, when people talk about “fans,” they usually just mean “their friends group.” Yet there’s some issues that all fans should be concerned about: copyright and trademark issues, the way we’re portrayed in media, which particular fandoms are considered “cool” and which ones are considered creepy and what that means, and so on. Fansplaining is intended to bridge those gaps. Or that’s the hope.

I’m also working on a variety of fanfic projects, but curiously enough, my most recent fandom is One Direction—not likely to be a big hit at Boskone! (Although I’m sure there’s some secret Directioners out there… come out of the woodwork, y’all!)

What is your favorite Star Wars memory, scene, or line? What is it that that memory, scene or line that continues to stick with you today?
I wrote a book report on The Courtship of Princess Leia when I was in fifth or sixth grade (does that novel even count as being part of Star Wars any more now that the Extended Universe has been decanonized?). I remember very distinctly trying to express to everyone why it was the very coolest thing. Nobody else understood why I was so obsessed. I remember my teacher trying to convince me that perhaps I should read something else, something that was a little more literary, something that would actually challenge my reading skills. But never mind what she said; that was the first time I’d really geeked out on something, and even if nobody else understood why I was so interested in it, I wasn’t going to be dissuaded! (Although looking back on it, man, that book wasn’t great; my teacher was right, I could’ve found something better… oh well.)

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Register for Boskone today. Join us February 19-21, 2016

Registration Rates:

• Adult rate: $50
• College student rate: $35
• K-12 student rate: $25
• Friday: $25; Saturday: $45; Sunday: $25