Narrativity offers a single track of programming, so ideas can carry through from one panel to the next and the conversation continues all weekend — and our panels are participatory events, so the audience is as much a part of the conversation as the panelists. Panels run from 11:00 am Friday through about 6:00 pm Sunday. In the evenings, we’ll have all the function space available for music, conversations, games, or other activities that take your fancy. If you’d like to organize something specific, let us know!
Welcome to programming planning for Narrativity 2026: Six Impossible Things! Luckily, NOTHING is impossible, at least according to that one door. We have, thanks to the feedback from so many of you, determined this year’s panels! And at the same time, you all have made next year’s work even harder by putting forward some really excellent ideas for future panels. I love/hate you all.
And here it is, this year’s Narrativity schedule. I’ll see you all in June! -Erin Shanendoah
Thursday
noon-3:00pm Every adventure requires a first step. – The return of The First 2 Pages! This was a huge hit last year and we’re excited to bring it back. You bring your first two pages, and we’ll provide a reader who will read those pages out loud. And you’ll get to watch everyone else react to your work. The writing last year was amazing, and I can’t wait to read more of your work this year!
3:30-4:30pm Comrades In Writing Speed-Meet – This speed-dating-style event lets you meet your fellow writers in a fun, low-stakes way. We will have writing-related conversation-starters to help you get to know your next critique partner, accountability buddy, or just some new friends to talk writing with.
7:00p Party!
Friday
11a Curiouser and Curiouser – Opening Ceremonies
11:30a-12:30p Wax-works weren’t made to be looked at for nothing, nohow. – Does a penny buy your lunch, a piece of candy, or is it worthless? Do interstellar banks manage credit across the universe, or does your main character have to barter wolf-pelts for a new sword? Whether you care about economics or not, cash, credit, or trade is an integral piece of how your characters navigate their world. How do you use your monetary system – from what is called down to the physical (or lack thereof) manifestation – to build verisimilitude in your world? (Worldbuilding)
12:30-2p Lunch
2-3p If you believe in me, I’ll believe in you. Is that a bargain? – Trust is essential for an author. Both your characters and your readers have to be able to trust you to tell the story, even when they don’t trust each other. And while we probably can’t help get your characters to trust you (that really is a you problem), let’s talk about what we can do as authors to earn the readers’ trust. How do we convince them to stick around long enough to prove that they made the right choice in trusting us?
3:20-4:20p Well, I’ve often seen a cat without a grin, but a grin without a cat! – Forget the author self-insert character, is it possible for the author – their thoughts, feelings, politics – to be too present in a work?
4:40-5:40p In that direction lives a Hatter, and in that direction lives a March Hare. Visit either you like: they’re both mad. – Some Narrativitists find a long stretch of open highway tremendously relaxing and stimulating to the creative brain. Others may look to a busy coffeeshop for their storytelling stimulus, while still others may long for that classic garret or isolated cabin. How does where you are affect what you write, and what role does getting away from it all play? Let’s also talk about how the space you live in affects mood and creativity: Is a clean, uncluttered desk the sign of a sick mind, or is mess and chaos the mind-killer?
5:40-8p Dinner
8-9p Of shoes and ships and sealing wax (Activity) – Whether it’s for your elevator pitch, a query to an agent/editor, or your Amazon blurb, how do you get people excited about your book with just a few lines, and no spoilers? We’ll divide into pairs or small groups and workshop the lines that will convince someone to read all of our other lines. At the end, we’ll share them with the whole group.
Saturday
10-11a Begin at the beginning, and go on till you come to the end: then stop. – Humans have been telling each other stories for about as long as humanity has existed. Before written language, before even pictures drawn on a cave wall, we have told our stories. There is something powerful in the human voice, something special about the way we tell stories that are meant to be listened to instead of read, that must live on in a mind without a written record. How do we use those tools to make our written stories more powerful?
11:20a-12:20p …a dog growls when it’s angry, and wags it’s tail when it’s pleased. Now I growl when I’m pleased, and wag my tail when I’m angry. Therefore I’m mad. – You’ve taken yourself, or rather your characters, to a spot where too many options exist, and you don’t know how to choose which way to go from here. Or you have ended up at a place that you never expected to get to. Will your readers follow you on that journey? Bring us your questions about how to get a character from here to there, and we’ll tell you how signalling your reader solves everything.
12:20-2p Lunch
2-3p How do you like the queen? – Writing unsympathetic protagonists? How far will you go? Serial killers, cannibals, actual demons. What are the perils — and pleasures — of writing a character that some would consider beyond the pale? Where do you draw the line between pushing boundaries and pushing away your audience?
3:20-4:20p I was just giving myself some good advice – Narrativity is an amazing community, but sometimes we all want to hide away from the world and just work on our writing. What do we do when we’re in that mountain cabin with only a bubbling brook to talk to, and we get stuck? How to ask the right questions, generate solutions, and get yourself unstuck when Discord is down, and you don’t have anyone else to bounce ideas off of.
4:40-5:40p You might just as well say that ‘I see what I eat’ is the same thing as ‘I eat what I see’! (Activity) – We all need feedback to make our writing better. And when we’re in a community of writers, we all need to be able to give quality feedback to other writers. In advance of our evening activity helping our fellow Narativitists out, let’s talk about how we do that.
5:40-8p Dinner
8-9p Would You Tell Me, Please, Which Way I Ought to Go From Here? (Activity) – Bring your questions or the problems you’re facing in your work and get advice from your fellow Narrativitists.
9p- ?? Take care of the sense, and the sounds will take care of themselves. – Music Circle
Sunday
10-11a Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. (Writing time) – Here’s your time to practice believing (writing) impossible things! Come downstairs to write with your fellow narrativitists, ask quick questions, and get/give instant feedback.
11:20a-12:20p Who’s been painting my roses red? – Not worldbuilding but building your world. How do you help your readers experience the world the way your characters do? How do you keep them from arguing with you about coconut trees in Africa? Let’s talk about how we make your setting real.
12:20-2p Lunch
2-3p Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise. – Is Star Wars really a fantasy story spanning planets instead of countries? Was FireFly really a western set in space? Was Alien really a horror story with aliens? Is science fiction just set dressing on another kind of story? Or does science fiction contain something that makes it uniquely science fiction and not just setting and props?
3:20-3:40p Why is a raven like a writing desk? – A Different Panel – Topic & Panelist selection
3:40-4:40p I haven’t the slightest idea. – A Different Panel
5p But it’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then. – Closing Ceremonies
6:10p Dinner
8p-midnight Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas – only I don’t know exactly what they are! However, somebody killed something: that’s clear, at any rate. – Dead Dog
Have your own idea for a panel next year? Want to be a panelist? Please contact our Paragon of Programming, Erin Shanendoah, and let her know what you’re interested in.