Jared Austin is a young adult science fiction author. With his Space City series, he hopes to show and inspire his daughter and son, as well as all of his readers, that science and technology are not dull subjects, but gateways to a brighter, exciting future.
At the “The Benefits of Being a Marine Biologist Beyond Growling at Shark Week” panel from the Science Track in the Hilton Crystal Ballroom on Friday at 4PM, Jamie Bernstein served as the panel moderator, with speakers Sophia Corde, Joe Hansen, Lucas Hernandez, and Arras Wiedorn, all of whom are marine biologists or work with animals in some capacity. Bernstein… Read more →
“The Power of Friendship and Networking” panel took place on the Sci-Fi Literature track on Friday at 10:00 AM in Hyatt Embassy AB. The panel was moderated by Marisa Wolf, with speakers Michael J Allen, Chris. A. Jackson, Gini Koch, William Joseph Roberts, and Melissa Olthoff. The upbeat and energetic panel emphasized the importance of starting conversations, because you never… Read more →
The “Self-Publishing For Young Adult Audiences,” panel on the Young Adult Literature track at Marriott on Sep 3, 2023 at 5:30 PM was moderated by Natalie Simpson and featured authors Eric Asher, Katie Cross, Sean Fletcher, Isabelle Hardesty, and Katharine E. Wibell. Before diving into the discussion of publishing, Natalie started off by asking the authors what made them want… Read more →
“The Writer vs Author: Building a YA Brand” panel in Marriott A707, part of the YA Literature track on Sunday, Sep 3, 2023 at 1:00 PM, featured authors Sean Fletcher, A.J. Hartley, Sherrilyn Kenyon, and Mari Mancusi, with moderator Natalie Simpson. Simpson started off the panel asking about the differences between writing when you’re learning to write before you’ve ever… Read more →
The “Thrills and Chills in YA” panel took place Saturday at 5:30PM in Marriott A707 on the YA track. Sarah Brown served as the panel moderator, with speakers Kaitlin Bevis, Jay Boyce, Claudia Gray, A.J. Hartley, and DL Wainwright. The authors started off by sharing their favorite type of thriller read, which was varied between supernatural and thriller/suspense, with Gray… Read more →
Charlie Kaufman, a geographer for the U.S. Army Corps in Charleston, SC, gave a highly amusing and entertaining presentation about using the Geographic Information System (GIS) to map a zombie outbreak. Charlie used GIS—a tool to create, manage, analyze, and map all sorts of data—to show a zombie outbreak that began on the College of Charleston and spread outward until… Read more →
The “YA Today: Are There Boundaries? What Are They?” panel took place in the Writer’s Track in the Hyatt Embassy at 11:30AM Saturday morning. The panelists were authors Jay Boyce, Katie Cross, Claudia Gray, Isabelle Hardesty, A.J. Hartley, and L.H. Nicole. Hardesty, as moderator, started things off by asking the panelists what modern kids are looking for in a book?… Read more →
A generation ship is an interstellar ship designed to travel at sub-light speed, taking hundreds or thousands of years to reach nearby starts. According to the panelists of the “Let’s Build a Generation Ship!” panel, the technical difficulties, not to mention the complications of human psychology, would leave such a voyage riddled with risk. This thought-provoking panel on the Science… Read more →
