For more details, please keep reading—and if you’d like to purchase a ticket to one or both events, you may do so here. We do offer a $10 discount for those purchasing tickets to both the Sirens Studio and the Sirens Supper.

Sirens Supper

If you’ll be in Denver on the evening of October 19, 2016, perhaps you’d like to join us for dinner. Each year, our conference staff hosts a dinner for a limited number of attendees, and you’re welcome to join us. We love having a chance to chat with people before Sirens starts. We hope to see you there!

Menu: butternut squash soup; assorted greens with strawberries, orange segments, cilantro lime dressing, and house-made croutons; toasted orzo cranberry pilaf; steamed fresh squash, zucchini, and cherry tomatoes; sautéed Colorado trout with pine-nut butter sauce; capon with red-wine sauce; vegetable risotto Wellington; fresh rolls and butter; fruit kabobs with yogurt-lime dipping sauce; margarita cheesecake; and coffee and hot tea

All items are vegetarian except the trout and capon.

Sirens Studio

In 2015, for the first time, Sirens offered the Sirens Studio, a pre-conference option for readers, writers, and professionals. We are thrilled to bring Sirens Studio back in 2016—and to say that it’ll be even better this year.

While Sirens is terrific, it can be hectic: so many people to see, so many conversations to have, not nearly enough time to grab a seat by the fire and just read. The Sirens Studio, however, gives you both what you love about Sirens and that down time that we all need: small-group workshop intensives led by exceptional faculty in the morning; flexible time to read, write, or relax in the afternoon; and a film screening at night.

In 2016, we’ve expanded our offerings to eight intensives, all led by extraordinary faculty on topics related to reading, writing, and career development. We’ve also revamped our schedule so that Studio participants will be able to attend half of those intensives—assuming, of course, that you aren’t sleeping in, lingering over breakfast in bed, relaxing at the spa, or stuck in a book you can’t put down.

Even better, the cost of attending is still only $50 for the full two days of the Studio, and we are still limiting attendance to just 50 participants. If you think you’d might like to join us, please check out our schedule, workshop intensives, and faculty—and then go here to purchase your ticket.

Schedule

Tuesday, October 18, and Wednesday, October 19

Both Tuesday and Wednesday will begin with optional exercise or meditation, followed by custom-made smoothies and a bit of down time. From 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. each day, we’ll offer two-hour workshop intensives led by our faculty—reading intensives from 9:00 to 11:00 a.m., and then writing and career development workshops from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. All Studio attendees are welcome to attend any intensives that they wish, regardless of whether they are a reader, writer, or professional—or scholar, farrier, general, dragon-master, or queen.

At 1:00 p.m., we’ll break for lunch (on your own, though you’re welcome to join members of our conference staff and Studio faculty, if you like). Beginning at 2:00 p.m., we’ll have flexible time; you’re welcome to join us in designated quiet or discussion rooms, spend time at the pool or in the spa, or find a solitary place to read, write, or work.

On Tuesday, at 6:00 p.m., you’re welcome to meet us for dinner (also on your own), and at 9:00 p.m., we’ll be showing a fantasy-themed film. On Wednesday, you’re welcome to have dinner on your own or join others.

Whether you’re looking for a social experience or time on your own—or both—we think you will be able to customize this schedule to fit your desires and goals.

Workshop Intensives

• Reading Intensive
  Landscapes of the Page: Rethinking How a Story Can Reveal Itself
  9:00 a.m.
  Jennifer Marie Brissett
  In this workshop, through lecture, reading, and class exercises, we will examine various methods of structuring narratives outside of the traditional Beginning, Middle, End scenario. Be ready to shake up your imaginations because together we, as readers, will examine how a story can be successfully told, and possibly invent a few new ways as well.
  
  
• Reading Intensive
  Reading for Thinkers
  9:00 a.m.
  Rosemary Clement
  Books—judging by the comments of bloggers, reviewers, book clubs, or that MFA student who sits next to you at the coffee shop—come in two varieties: “fun” and “worthy.” And there are only two ways to read: mindlessly or laboriously. Smart readers, though, are active readers. Any book has the potential to be “worthy” to an active reader, and no critical-darling literary masterpiece intimidates them! This intensive will cover: (1) Those things you may have forgotten from English class, and why they’re much more fun now that you’re not getting a grade; (2) Staying engaged while reading; (3) Keeping lists: what you’ve read and what you want to read; (4) Reading outside your default setting and finding diverse books; and (5) Keeping a journal about your reading. To challenge yourself as a reader is to challenge yourself as a thinker.
  
  
• Career Intensive
  The Meritocracy Myth: Confidence, Perfection, and Ordering Lunch
  11:00 a.m.
  Amy Tenbrink
  While women may not be able to have it all—as famously asserted by Anne-Marie Slaughter—women can certainly do it all. Write a brilliant report? Deliver a killer presentation? Finish a project on time and on budget? No problem. Order lunch? Take notes? Counsel a co-worker about his trouble with the boss? Got it. Take the blame? Let someone else have the growth opportunity? Expect that we’ll get promoted just because we’ve proven ourselves? We are all over it. Join us in breaking down the meritocracy myth, our relentless drive for perfection, our preposterous lack of confidence, and what we really should never, ever do at work.
  
  
• Writing Intensive
  Person, Distance, and Voice: Narrative Point of View in Fiction
  11:00 a.m.
  Laurie J. Marks
  What are the advantages and disadvantages of the first-person, second-person, third-person limited, and third-person omniscient narratives? What is narrative distance, and how does a writer create and sustain it? How do writers create a unique narrative voice, and what are the advantages and disadvantages of a narrator with a strong personality? We’ll discuss examples and writing strategies, and do some practice exercises.
  
  

• Reading Intensive
  Fans and Fiction: Examining How Readers Engage with Authors and Their Works
  9:00 a.m.
  Jennifer Udden
  Fifty years ago, being a reader—and a fan of an author—meant something very different than it does today. While authors may have met handfuls of fans at readings or signings, and occasionally attended a fan convention or two, readers’ fandoms were largely separate from authors, as the interaction between authors and readers was slight. With the advent of the Internet, however, those spaces have more opportunities to overlap, sometimes in delightful ways—but sometimes in ways that don’t appeal to the reader, the author, or both. Join Jennifer to discuss reading as a fan, engaging with fantasy literature as a fan, and the intersections—good, bad, and ugly—between fans and authors in our modern age.
  
  
• Reading Intensive
  Filtering the Filters of What We Read
  9:00 a.m.
  Hallie Tibbetts
  The choice of what to read seems like a boundless one—libraries, online retailers, international shipping, and freedom from censorship open the doors to a world of literature. In this hands-on reading intensive, we’ll trace the path of the book to the reader, and the reader to the book, and identify hidden filters that still influence our reading choices. Then, we’ll map and share our own hidden influences and reading desires, and discuss ways that readers can filter out the filters.
  
  
• Career Intensive
  Making a Career Out of Loving to Read
  11:00 a.m.
  Mallory C. Loehr
  People who love to read (and write) often think of publishing as a perfect place to have job. And it can be! But what is publishing really? (Hint: reading is only part of it!) What job is right for a reader? And when does a job become a career? Mallory will lead the participants in a dialogue about who they are as readers and people—and consider the different roles that there are in the publishing industry. Within this context, Mallory will share some of the joys, challenges, and choices she has made in her career, the complex relationships involved in a creative business, the characteristics she looks for in people she is hiring, and the books that have inspired her when she needs it.
  
  
• Writing Intensive
  What’s Your Story? What Does Your Process Look Like?
  11:00 a.m.
  Guadalupe Garcia McCall
  In this writing intensive, we will discuss writing as seen through the writer’s lens. As an introductory activity, participants will do a gallery walk and read a small sampling of quotes from famous authors like Ernest Hemingway, Emily Dickinson, William Faulkner, as well as modern authors like E. L. Doctorow, Ann Tyler, and Margaret Atwood. The participants will then use one or two quotes as a springboard into a journal entry that explores how one or two writers’ advice fits within the framework of how and why they personally write. As the main focus of the workshop, participants will read an allegorical poem, “ARS POETICA,” and discuss writing as seen through a metaphorical lens. We will discuss the concept of The Writing Process, and then delve into a discussion of its theoretical structure, writers’ perceptions, and myths surrounding the concept of the process itself. As a culminating activity, participants will write an original allegorical poem to help them conceptualize their own writing process. We will share and respond to our peers and end with a discussion on how our process can better serve our evolution as writers.
  

Faculty

Jennifer Marie Brissett is a writer, an artist, a former bookstore owner, a former web developer, and current faculty for the Gotham Writers’ Workshop. She is British-Jamaican American (born in London, England), and immigrated to the U.S. when she was about four before growing up in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In her late twenties, she moved to Brooklyn, NY, and for three and a half years, she owned and ran the indie bookstore, Indigo Café and Books. Jennifer has a master’s in creative writing from the Stonecoast MFA Program at the University of Southern Maine, with a concentration in speculative fiction, and a bachelor’s in interdisciplinary engineering (electrical engineering with a concentration in visual art) from Boston University. Jennifer’s short stories have been included in The Best of Halfway Down the Stairs, 2005-2010, and have been a finalist for the 2013 storySouth Million Writers Award. Her debut novel, Elysium, received the 2014 Philip K. Dick Special Citation Award, was a finalist for the 2015 Locus Award for Best First Novel, and placed on the Honor List for the Tiptree Award.

Rosemary Clement writes supernatural mystery novels for young (and not so young) adults. Her books have been included on the American Library Association and Texas Library Association’s recommended reading lists, and she even has award statues that need dusting. She is a frequent presenter at national conferences for writers and other bookish types. A recovering thespian with a master’s degree in communication, she now uses her drama queen skills to write novels and Twitter posts. She loves coffee, dogs, Jane Austen, military history, Gilbert and Sullivan, BBC America, Star Wars, books with kissing and movies with dragons, sword-fights, and lots of explosions. Rosemary was a Sirens Guest of Honor in 2014.

Mallory C. Loehr has been with Random House Books for Young Readers since 1990, the year Dr. Seuss’s Oh, the Places You’ll Go was published. Mallory is now a Senior Vice President and Publisher for the Random House Children’s Book Group (Random House, Crown, Doubleday, and Golden Books imprints)—which includes everything from board books, Little Golden Books and Dr. Seuss to early chapter books and young adult hardcovers. Mallory has edited the Magic Tree House series, as well as authors such as Tamora Pierce, Esther Friesner, Sarah Rees Brennan, Bruce Coville, and most recently author/illustrator Emily Winfield Martin. She has overseen the publication of books by Jennifer L. Holm, Chris Grabenstein, Jeanne duPrau, Rachel Hartman, Mark Frost, and N.D. Wilson, among others. She has also written board books, early readers, chapter books, and others under her own name and various pen names. Some are still in print! Mallory has her own focus group of three children (ages eleven, nine, and five) and thinks that Children’s Publishing is the best place in the world to be working today.

Laurie J. Marks’s Elemental Logic series is set in the world of Shaftal. The elements of fire, earth, water, and air have sustained the peaceful people of Shaftal for generations, but Shaftal has been overrun, and the ancient logic of the land is being replaced by the logic of hatred. Laurie’s novel Fire Logic, the first in the series, won the Gaylactic Spectrum Award for best novel in 2003, and Earth Logic, the second in the series, won the same award in 2005. The third in the series, Water Logic, was included on the honor list for the James Tiptree, Jr. Award in 2007, and the final book, Air Logic, is currently a work in progress. Laurie’s other works include Dancing Jack, about a girl who is trying in vain to forget a past filled with bloodshed and rebellion, which was short-listed for the James Tiptree, Jr. Award in 1993; The Watcher’s Mask, about a two-souled person on a journey of self-awareness that will lead her to discover the true nature of her race; and The Children of the Triad series (Delan the Mislaid, The Moonbane Mage, and Ara’s Field), where the Walkers ruled the land, the Aeyrie soared the skies, and the Mer reigned over the seas. Laurie currently teaches writing at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. Laurie is a Sirens Guest of Honor this year.

Guadalupe Garcia McCall’s first novel, Under the Mesquite, is not fantasy, but is a tour de force work of verse that tackles the subject of cancer, received recognition such as the Pura Belpré Author Award and a 2012 International Latino Book Awards Honorable Mention, and was a William C. Morris YA Debut Award Finalist (YALSA). Her second, Summer of the Mariposas, retells The Odyssey with five Mexican-American sisters and La Llorona as a ghostly guide. Summer of the Mariposas was one of the Best Books of 2012 selected by School Library Journal. Her third novel, Shame the Stars, a reimagining of Romeo and Juliet set in Texas during the explosive years of Mexico’s revolution, will be out this fall. Guadalupe has a BA in Theatre Arts and English from Sul Ross State University. Guadalupe was a Sirens Guest of Honor in 2013.

By day, Amy Tenbrink dons her supergirl suit and practices transactional and intellectual property law as a senior vice president for a media company. By night, she dons her supergirl cape and plans literary conferences, runs marathons, and reads a hundred books a year. She’s been an active member of fandom for over ten years and a voracious fantasy reader since she first picked up Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time. She likes nothing quite so much as monster girls and Weasleys.

Hallie Tibbetts co-founded Narrate Conferences in 2006, and has chaired many of its events, though of late, she’s happy to devote her spare moments to helping with programming. She graduated from the University of Southern California with a bachelor’s of music in music education, taught, and then headed to New York University for a master’s in digital and print media. She works as an editorial assistant and has a strong preference for subversive picture books, whimsical middle grade, adventurous young adult, and serial commas.

Jennifer Udden is a literary agent with Barry Goldblatt Literary. She joined the agency in January of 2016. Prior to joining BGL she worked for the Donald Maass Literary Agency for five years, and for MCC Theater in New York doing events fundraising. She attended Mount Holyoke College, where she wrote her honors thesis on anxiety in British detective fiction. She is the founding host of the podcast Shipping & Handling alongside Bridget Smith of Dunham Literary, which covers writing, publishing, fandom, and media from the point of view of two literary agents. She lives in Brooklyn with her sister.