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Category: Guest Speakers

2025 Nov Parsec Monthly Event 

In Oct our guest speaker will be Author Lynn Barker (Twilight Zone, Deep Space Nine, Space Academy).

Parsec Event! Pittsburgh’s premier Science Fiction & Fantasy Organization meets on Saturday, November 15th,  2025 via Zoom only from 1:00 pm to 3:00 pm.

Date: Saturday, Nov 15, 2025
Time: 1:00 pm to 3:00 pm. Zoom Room opens at 12:30pm.
Location: Zoom ONLY. You will need to register for the zoom meeting before 12:pm that day.

Register for Zoom Meeting

Dorothy (D.C. Fontana) and Lynn Barker

Author Lynn Barker (Twilight Zone, Deep Space Nine, Space Academy) introduces her captivating novel Futurus Rex and the remarkable story behind its creation. More than an Arthurian reawakening—it’s a powerful collaboration with the legendary D.C. Fontana, one of Star Trek’s most influential writers, and represents some of Dorothy’s final published work.

Futurus Rex: Where Legend Meets Tomorrow

Born from artist Bud Lewis’s original concept and adapted from a screenplay Lynn and Dorothy (D.C. Fontana) wrote together, Futurus Rex presents Arthur’s awakening into a world both familiar and alien. The story takes place in a post-apocalyptic Britain where broken starships circle a damaged moon, and techno-wizards wield devices that seem like magic to the medieval-style survivors below. Arthur represents the battle leader the people need in their rebellion against magical tyranny.

SAVE THE DATE!

The Parsec/Confluence/Parsec Ink/Write or Die holiday party will be held:
SATURDAY DECEMBER 13, from 4-10pm at the home of Greg Armstrong on Voelkel Ave in Dormont PA. Everyone is welcome to attend!
This is a potluck dinner event.
More info coming soon.

Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, Squirrel Hill. 5801 Forbes Ave. Pittsburgh, PA 15217

2025 Oct Parsec Monthly Event 

In Oct our guest speaker will be Teresa Milbrodt.

Date: Saturday, Oct 18, 2025
Time: 1:00 pm to 3:30 pm. Room opens at 12:30pm.
Location: Carnegie Library Squirrel Hill, Meeting Room B with a Zoom option. You will need to register for the zoom meeting before 12:30pm

Register for Zoom Meeting

Learn more about Teresa

Teresa Milbrodt is the author of three short story collections: Instances of Head-Switching, Bearded Women: Stories, and Work Opportunities. She has also published a novel, The Patron Saint of Unattractive People, and a flash fiction collection, Larissa Takes Flight: Stories. Her fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry have appeared in numerous literary magazines. Teresa’s scholarly interests include disability humor, disability and sexuality, and creative practice in disability communities. Her insights in this area can be of great value to writers hoping to be inclusive in creating characters whose disabilities are part of their normal lives.
She loves cats, long walks with her MP3 player, independently owned coffee shops, peanut butter frozen yogurt, and texting hearts in rainbow colors.

Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, Squirrel Hill. 5801 Forbes Ave. Pittsburgh, PA 15217

2025 Sept Parsec Monthly Event 

In September, Danny Hankner of Story Unlikely visits to tell us about his 2026 writing contest and its $5,000 prize package and new REPRINT category.

Date: Saturday, Sept 20, 2025
Time: 1:00 pm to 3:30 pm. Room opens at 12:30pm.
Location: Carnegie Library Squirrel Hill, Meeting Room B with a Zoom option.

Register for Zoom Meeting

Story Unlikely is a monthly literary magazine publishing short stories all over the literary landscape. The magazine is not concerned with genre; you can stay within the lines, combine a few, or invent a new one. Danny’s goal is to publish top-tier fiction (and creative non-fiction), and he believes allowing creatives to be creative is the best way to make that happen.

Visit Story Unlikely to learn more: https://www.storyunlikely.com/

Danny Hankner began penning stories about himself and his idiot friends as a teenager. Now, masquerading as an adult, he lives in Davenport, Iowa with his wife and kids, working as a master electrician for his own company. In his spare time, Dan rides and builds mountain bike trails, scrapes infinitely spawning cat hurl off the basement floor, and runs Story Unlikely, an award-winning literary magazine where he floats around self-important titles like Benevolent Dictator and Literary Spirit Guide. His written material has been consumed by hundreds of thousands of people from all four corners of the globe.

Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, Squirrel Hill. 5801 Forbes Ave. Pittsburgh, PA 15217

2025 July Parsec Monthly Event 

In June, we welcome Theresa Mather, A professional artist since 1989.
She is the Featured Artist at the Confluence Conference, Sheraton Pittsburgh Airport Hotel, July 25, 26, and 27, 2025.

Date: Saturday, July 19, 2025
Time: 1:00 pm to 3:30 pm. Room opens at 12:30pm.
Location: Carnegie Library Squirrel Hill, Meeting Room B with a Zoom option.

Register for Zoom Meeting

Theresa Mather creates fantasy works featuring a variety of unusual creatures. She is best known for her pieces painted on feathers and stone; she integrates her paintings with the colors and textures of the natural medium. Visit Theresa’s Website to see all the gorgeous artwork she has created!
https://rockfeatherscissors.com/

Theresa draws much of her inspiration from the world around her. She chooses to
work outside of gaming and publication, exhibiting and selling her work at science
fiction convention art shows across the country. She enjoys the freedom this gives
her to paint whatever she desires, allowing her paintings to be truly her creations.

SAVE THE DATE!

The Parsec Picnic will be held Saturday August 23rd! The 4th Saturday in Aug.
The Picnic will be held at the Dormont Park large pavilion, just like the last few years. 1801 Dormont Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15216

Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, Squirrel Hill. 5801 Forbes Ave. Pittsburgh, PA 15217

2025 June Parsec Monthly Event 

In June, we welcome Chris Pasetto, a lead game designer at both Interplay Entertainment and Rockstar Games, as well as a Senior Designer at High Moon Studios.

Chris’s presentation will be “Narrative Interaction: Common DNA Across Different
Media.”

Date: Saturday, June 21, 2025
Time: 1:00 pm to 3:30 pm. Room opens at 12:30pm.
Location: Squirrel Hill Library Meeting Room B with a Zoom option.

Register for Zoom Meeting

Chris Pasetto started his career at DreamForge Intertainment and has worked as a lead game designer at both Interplay Entertainment and Rockstar Games, as well as Senior Designer at High Moon Studios.
Video game fans may know designer Chris Pasetto for his story work on major action games like “Call of Duty” and “Transformers.”
Chris is also known for the films “How I Survived the Zombie Apocalypse” (2009) and “Air,” starring Norman Reedus (2015), and the graphic novel “Kill the Minotaur.” His tale “Waiting for a Crash” was featured in Scribner’s Best of the Fiction Workshops 1998.

Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, Squirrel Hill. 5801 Forbes Ave. Pittsburgh, PA 15217

2025 May Parsec Monthly Event 

In May, we welcome Professor James Wynn of Carnegie Mellon University.
How our cosmic ambitions mirror Earth’s colonial history. 

Note: Dr. Wynn will be joining us in person at Squirrel Hill Library!

Date: Saturday, May 17th, 2025
Time: 1:00 pm to 3:30 pm.
Location: Squirrel Hill Library + Zoom

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James Wynn, an associate professor of English at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, believes it is important to consider space exploration and settlement from the perspective of colonialism. The potential for conflicts over land and resources between nations are parallel to those in past colonial moments.  What does the future hold?

Dr. Wynn’s request: “Given that you are all avid sci-fi readers, I would really love to hear about your experiences with colonial themes in the stories you’ve read and the ways in which you think historical colonial ideas have recirculated or evolved in sci-fi literature.”

Read more about Professor Wynn here: https://www.cmu.edu/news/stories/archives/2023/december/a-place-in-space-for-the-humanities

Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, Squirrel Hill. 5801 Forbes Ave. Pittsburgh, PA 15217

2025 Jan Parsec Meeting

PARSEC, Pittsburgh’s premier SF/F/H Organization meets on Saturday, January 18th , 2025 via ZOOM (see registration link below) and IN PERSON at the Mt. Lebanon Library, 16 Castle Shannon Blvd. Pittsburgh, PA 15228
Meeting time: 1:00 – 3:30 pm. (room opens at 12:30 for social time)

Please note the venue change for January!
We’ll be at the Mt. Lebanon Library, 16 Castle Shannon Blvd. Pittsburgh, PA 15228. The Meeting will be held in Room A, located on the lower level of the library.

In January, our guest is Maren Cooke of Pittsburgh’s Sustainability Salon. A planetary scientist by training, today she works in environmental education and activism around climate, air quality, plastics, food, labor, and justice. 

Maren Cooke is a planetary scientist by training, but now works mainly on environmental education and activism around climate, air quality, plastics, food, labor, and justice.

She serves in leadership roles at the Group Against Smog & Pollution, 350 Pittsburgh, ReImagine Food Systems, Pittsburghers Against Single-Use Plastic, Pittsburgh Green New Deal, and the Climate Action Plan Justice Coalition, and works closely with many other local organizations and government officials; she co-founded Putting Down Roots, Ohio Valley Environmental Resistance, the Pittsburgh Labor Choir, a school garden at a local K-8, and a nature education program in Frick Park. https://marenslist.blogspot.com/

Register for Zoom meeting

Maren volunteers as an Urban Ecosteward, a Tree Tender, a Master Gardener, a Master Composter, and a Master Naturalist. Maren often creates banners and signage for local movements, and organizes and hosts Sustainability Salons, a monthly environmental education forum now 13 years running.

Speaking of ROOTS, the Parsec Short Story contest is open for submissions until March 31, 2025.
Get all the information here: https://parsec-sff.org/short-story-contest/

We do not accept stories written by AI. Any story found to be written by AI will be disqualified.

2024 Feb Monthly Meeting

This meeting will be entirely on Zoom! No in-person meeting!
Saturday Feb 17, 2024
Zoom meeting will open at 12:30 for social time. Meeting starts at 1:00pm (ET)

Our guest this month is SFF Poet Herb Kauderer!

Herb is an associate professor of English at Hilbert College near Buffalo, NY. He holds a PhD in Popular Literature from the University at Buffalo (2018), an MFA in Creative Writing from Goddard College (2007), and five other college degrees. He is the author of four books and fifteen chapbooks of poetry.

Herb will introduce us to his writing, his involvement with the Society for Creative Anachronism, and share some of his genre poetry with us. (Following Herb’s presentation and Q&A, we will set aside time for members who have brought their own poems to share them with us. Parsec’s own resident poet Mary Soon Lee has also been invited to read one or two of her works.)

As the featured poet in SCIFAIKUEST #55 for February 2017 Herb had 28 poems and an interview in the issue. That is longer than many chapbooks. He was featured again in SCIFAIKUEST #87 for February 2021 and contributed 29 poems, an interview, and an essay. Herb’s book THE SNOWSTORM OF ’14: POEMS FROM THE FRONT LINES (2016) recounts the experience of living at the epicenter of two of the worst snowstorms in the lower 48 states.

Following Herb’s presentation, we will have time for attendees to share some of their own poetry with the group.

Register for Zoom meeting

Watch for a post coming soon about the March meeting! We have Confluence Guest of Honor, Richard Kadrey attending in-person for the Confluence Panel Topics, Monthly Meeting at the Mt. Lebanon Library. The library is located at 16 Castle Shannon Blvd, Pittsburgh, PA 15228.
Come meet Richard in-person. Put your thinking caps on and help plan the panel topics for Confluence 2024!