Wordstock Cheat Sheet

• Jon Sperry
• Charles Yu, author of How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe

The annual Wordstock literary festival kicks off tonight with a screening of To Be Heard: A Documentary, but the real meat of it runs Saturday-Sunday at the Convention Center. This year sees an emphasis on panel conversations over author readings, a shift in focus that began last year and immediately made the festival about a zillion times more interesting. No joke: Historically Wordstock was the festival that I really wanted to love, but a few hours watching dry author readings in the Convention Center always did a serious number on my will to live/read. The best of the panel discussions last year, on the other hand, were lively, informed, funny, thought-provoking… basically what I always wanted out of Wordstock but never quite got. (That comedy writing panel was so good, I still regularly reread my own recap.)

We have a feature this week spotlighting some of the authors reading at Wordstock—check it out in print if you can, our art director Suji Allen did an amazing job on this one. And that’s a good place to start to see some of the big-name authors who’re reading, including Michael Ondaatje, Anne Enright, and Jennifer Egan. But if you want more, I’ll run down some of my panel picks after the jump.

My Censor, My Self—Authors discuss overcoming self-censorship. If you’ve read even a word of Lidia Yuknavitch’s memoir The Chronology of Water, you know the woman isn’t shy: Yuknavitch’s literary fiction is explicitly interested in physicality, in life as experienced by the body, and her body has experienced all kinds of things. (Of sex with one of her literary heroes, Kathy Acker, she writes: “I got the mother-loving juice spanked out of my pussy until the bed flooded.”) She’s joined on this panel by Kerry Cohen, who took a more analytic approach to her own experiences in Loose Girl: A Memoir of Promiscuity. Whoever decided to put these two on a panel about oversharing… good thinking. W+K Stage, Sat Oct 8, noon.

The Death of Print And Digital Humanity—Plazm magazine staffers, including author Jon Raymond and Urban Honking founder Mike Merrill, discuss the impact of social media, e-publishing, and portable technologies on reading, writing, and the construction of self. I like that the Plazm crew will be having this conversation: Presumably they’ll forgo the usual handwringing over the death of print in favor of a more pragmatic—and maybe even optimistic?—discussion. (Fingers crossed, anyway.) W+K Stage, Sat Oct 8, 2 pm.

Barry Lopez With John Freeman—Barry Lopez. Amirite? Barry Lopez. If you’re not familiar with the work of Oregon-based nature writer Barry Lopez… Well, he’s one of the good guys. This weekend, he’s in conversation with John Freeman, editor of the UK-based literary journal Granta—Freeman’s presence is exciting in its own right, Granta publishes reliably great work. NEA Stage, Sat Oct 8, 3 pm

Pushing The Limits Of Form In Fiction—Jennifer Egan won a Pulitzer for A Visit from the Goon Squad, a surprisingly fun, accessible novel about the way technology and social networking has changed our culture, as seen through the lens of the music industry. (I wish I could plop her into that Plazm panel.) She’s joined by Granta editor John Freeman and Tin House Editor Elissa Schappell to discuss new innovations in fictional forms. Wordstock Community Stage, Sat Oct 8, 4 pm.

What’s With America’s Sexual/Literary Hangup?—I’m gonna go ahead and call this one as the guaranteed crowd-pleaser of the fest. Steve Almond, Cheryl Strayed, Lidia Yuknavitch, and Viva Las Vegas talk about why Americans are so uptight. It will be funny. I promise. Wordstock Community Stage, Sun Oct 9, 11 am.

Move Over, Holden Caulfield—A discussion of why, exactly, coming-of-age stories are so damn popular, when coming-of-age itself was so damn terrible. Featuring Paranoid Park author Blake Nelson—who wrote the coming-of-age novel most relevant to my stupid life, Girl, for which I will basically love him forever. Wordstock Community Stage, Sun Oct 9, noon.

Mean Girls—Authors discuss why we “love to hate” mean girls, and how writers can create compelling mean-girl characters—with Chelsea Cain, Lisa Wells, Moira Young, and Karen Karbo. I predict that either this panel will be completely shallow and unenlightening, or it’ll be a very, very interesting discussion of why the mean girl concept exists and how it functions. I’m betting on the latter, as Chelsea Cain and Lisa Wells are both wicked smart and will no doubt have thoughtful things to say. (Not to snub the other two, I’m just not familiar.) Wordstock Community Stage, Sun Oct 9, 1 pm.

Writer As American Citizen—Steve Almond, Daniel Woodrell, David Biespiel, and David Marin discuss whether writers have a social responsibility. I am irked that there are no women on this panel, given that it seems determined to make sweeping claims about the role of writers in our culture, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be a lively discussion. But seriously. Fuck. Three Davids and a Steve. NEA Stage, Sun Oct 9, 5 pm.

Those are just a few things that jumped out at me—there’s plenty more to sift through. (Feel free to drop any other suggestions in the comments.) Jacob Schraer and I will be covering the festival on Blogtown this weekend, and I’m sure I’ll be getting some mileage out of the #wordstock hashtag on Twitter, too.

For tickets and stuff, here.