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Welcome to When Words Collide 2024!

This site is designed to streamline your event experience, ensuring you never miss a moment. Here, you’ll find a detailed timeline of all event activities, including sessions, workshops, and more. You can view the entire schedule, filter by various options (rooms, days, presenters), and explore presenter bios.

The schedule is subject to updates, so remember to check back often!
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How to Craft a Great SFF Villain
Sunday August 18, 2024 11:00am - 11:50am MDT
Kananaskis 2
It is a truism in all literature, that the stronger the antagonist, the stronger the story, whether we are talking Hannibal Lecter, Nurse Rached or Professor Moriarty. But Science Fiction and Fantasy genres are particularly known for villains who are the embodiment of evil, such as Sauron, Darth Vader, and Voldemort. Writing a human villain often—not always—brings with it the complexities of doubt, childhood shame, and humanity. How does this apply—or not apply—to fantastical villains?
Moderators
avatar for Krista Wallace

Krista Wallace

Krista is a fantasy writer, jazz & rock musician, audiobook narrator, actor, podcaster, mother, Gran, lover of pie, dark chocolate, and fine single malt scotch. She hails from Port Coquitlam, BC, where she writes and records in a closet, emerging occasionally to sing with the big... Read More →
Speakers
avatar for Chris Carolan

Chris Carolan

Chris Patrick Carolan is an author, editor, and hovercraft enthusiast, originally from Glasgow but now based in Calgary, Alberta. He writes steampunk, horror, fantasy, and science fiction, though he has also been known to turn to crime to make ends meet. Crime fiction, that is. His... Read More →
avatar for Susan Forest

Susan Forest

Editor, Laksa Media Groups
Susan Forest is the author of dual Aurora Award-winners Bursts of Fire (2019) and Flights of Marigold (2020) as well as over 25 internationally-published short stories (Analog Science Fiction and Fact, Asimov's Science Fiction, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and Orson Scot Card's Intergalactic... Read More →
avatar for Ron S. Friedman

Ron S. Friedman

RON S. FRIEDMAN is an award-winning science fiction author from Calgary. His novel, TYPHOON TIME, is an Amazon.ca #1 Best Seller in Time-Travel, his collection, ESCAPE VELOCITY, is Calgary Herald #1 Best Seller, and his story, GAME NOT OVER, is a Best Short Fiction finalist in the... Read More →
avatar for Valerie L. King

Valerie L. King

Valerie L. King is a member if the Imaginative Fiction Writers Association (IFWA) and Calgary Crime Writers. She has some published short stories and is currently writing an urban fantasy series as well as several non-fiction books. Her passions are music, art, and volunteering with... Read More →
Sunday August 18, 2024 11:00am - 11:50am MDT
Kananaskis 2
  Panel Discussion, Science Fiction, Fantasy

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