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History

A look back at some of our wonderful guest speakers from Parsec Monthly Meetings, writing workshops and the history of other Parsec functions.

Videos of some of our Monthly Meetings can be found on our YouTube Channel.


Saturday, Feb 20, 2021 – Monthly Meeting (Zoom)

Marie Vibbert teaches us “How NOT to Sell Your Novel.”


Sunday, March 18, 2018 – Monthly Meeting

The Parsec meeting date has changed to the Third Sunday of the Month 12:00 Noon to 4:30 PM at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, Squirrel Hill Branch, starting this month, March 18, 2018, and moving forward.

At this months meeting, we will discuss possible topics for the Parsec annual science fiction conference, Confluence.

Please come to meet, discuss, and propose topics on Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror in all guises and forms. Yes, even haiku, board games, and pop-up books are fair game.

Squirrel Hill Branch of the Carnegie Library
5801 Forbes Avenue Pittsburgh, Pa 15217
Room B – Next to the Rear Entrance 1:30 – 4:30 PM


Saturday, September  9, 2017 – Monthly Meeting

More fun than Chilly Billy Theater.
Sexier than Terminal Stare.
More brutal than a Mexican Masked Wrestler Monster Movie, and witness the world premiere of the movie Sergei Eisenstein would have made if he had been allowed to make War of the Worlds. A cast of thousands on the Odessa Steps, and a couple Martian Saucers possibly a couple of coffee, too. Come on with!


Saturday, June 10 2017 – Monthly Meeting
Alison Conte talks about her novel, “Beyond Normal.”

Alison Conte has been telling great stories for 30 years, in newspapers, books, and magazines. Because she worked for years at a liberal arts college, Beyond Normal is rich in realistic details about the behind the scenes operation of a college campus. She puts you in the middle of this world, along with imaginative ideas about the world of 2045, telepathy, social and spiritual growth.


Saturday, April 8, 2017 – Monthly Meeting

CMU’s “Life in Space” Team, with Diane Turnshek

CMU’s “Life in Space student team led by Diane Turnshek made the final round! Their design to make life better for astronauts is now in competition with designs from teams at the University of Texas and OSU. The three teams already won laptops. Can you help the CMU team win a trip to Cape Canaveral? Vote once a day until Monday, April 3.
http://www.cmu.edu/piper/briefs/2017/march/march-30/news-briefs.html#astronaut

The team will also be speaking about their design at 2 pm on Saturday, April 8 at the Squirrel Hill Branch of the Carnegie Library (corner of Murray and Forbes) hosted by Parsec, Pittsburgh’s premier science fiction and fantasy literary organization.
Meetings are Free to attend and open to the public!


Saturday, March 11, 2017 – Monthly Meeting
Picking Panels for Confluence: Our annual brainstorming, mouth watering, meeting to suggest possible topics for Confluence Panels.

Love the Poetry of World Extinction, or how about a discussion of the difference between the Electric Tater Masher of Tom Swift Sr and the Electronic Pickle Slicer/Dicer of Tom Swift Jr, perhaps a colloquium on the works of Alfred, the Bester, or a manifestation of Streampunk, the all new, all the time Internet meme mime.

It is your turn, sandworm! Attendance is laudatory!


Saturday, February 11, 2017 – Monthly Meeting

Leah Pileggi: How to Research for Historical Fiction

Pittsburgh author Leah Pileggi will be speaking at the February 11 Parsec meeting on how to research for historical fiction.


Saturday, November 12, 2016 – Monthly Meeting
A Peculiar Potluck Potpourri with Parts of Past Presentations Primed for a Paradoxical Profusion of Painstaking, Pedantic, and Popular Postulates Predicated on your Pleasure.

For four or more years I have been creating Keynote slideshow presentations, high on motion graphics and audio effects, for monthly Parsec meetings. They have all been heard only once by the members present. Each takes hours of thought, research, and preparation. I visit them once in a while on some backwater of my hard drive, dust them off, view them, and sigh.

Then there are the notions that are started and abandoned. Some are only notes and extracts of ideas. Portions of solitary information. Bits of fluff. Some make it to the onset of a slide show. Some only shake around in my noggin.

In November, post-Hallows Eve, second Saturday of the month, I will present a fractured glimpse of my presentations past, present, future, and a sighting of ideas never. Snippets from my mind, if you will. And even if you won’t.

Joe Coluccio,
Parsec Monthly Meeting Chair


October 8, 2016 – Monthly Meeting
Heidi Ruby Miller – How Chronic Pain Has Made Me More Autotelic

What started as a forced transition due to health concerns has turned into a wondrous full-circle journey as a creator, both metaphorically and globally. This is how I found my way back from writing as a daily business to embracing my words as the artistic endeavor it is.

Heidi Ruby Miller uses research for her stories as an excuse to roam the globe. Her books include the popular AMBASADORA series and the award-winning writing guide MANY GENRES, ONE CRAFT. In between trips, Heidi teaches creative writing at Seton Hill University, where she graduated from their renowned Writing Popular Fiction Graduate Program the same month she appeared on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. She is a member of The Authors Guild, International Thriller Writers, Pennwriters, Littsburgh, and Science Fiction Poetry Association. Follow Heidi’s adventures with her husband, Jason Jack Miller, on their travel and lifestyle channel Small Space, Big Life.


September 10, 2016 – Monthly Meeting
Happy Birthday Amazing Stories – 90 years old Presentation about The First Five Editors by Joe Coluccio


Saturday June 11, 2015 – Monthly Meeting
Squirrel Hill Branch of the Carnegie Library – 5801 Forbes Avenue Pittsburgh, Pa 15217

Timons Esaias
What Happened to the Canals on Mars?

In 1906, Percival Lowell published Mars and Its Canals, which laid out the scientific proof that Mars not only sustained life, but was under the control of an advanced civilization. The proof was in their globe-encircling canal system; a canal system that NASA has failed to account for. Timons Esaias will discuss the scientific failures that this case reveals, along with offering a number of theories as to what happened to those canals. There may be some sarcasm.


November and December 2015 – Monthly Meetings


Saturday Oct 3, 2015 – Monthly Meeting


September 12, 2015 – Monthly Meeting


Featured Speaker for August 8, 2015 – Monthly Meeting
William Blake Hall
“Beyond A to Z: How Do You Disorganize Your Science Fiction Library?”

Bill Hall has been a Parsec member for a quarter century. He is presently the Secretary of the Parsec Meeting Committee and has been contributing movie and book reviews and the minutes of our meetings to Sigma since around 1990.


Featured Speaker for July 11, 2015 – Monthly Meeting
Bill Watt
“Westerns and Science Fiction Movies and TV”

A purely subjective, unapologetic, discussion/diatribe on “The Good, the Bad and the Really Bad” in western/science fiction books, movies and television. Time permitting a special guest may appear; not to worry he won’t take up any extra space.

BILL WATT recently retired after thirty plus years as an educator in various social service organizations,including the YWCA of Western Pennsylvania, Focus on Renewal, McKees Rocks(where he helped to initiate and teach the first GED/Adult Education Programs) and Northside Common Ministries ( where he created a program to assist the homeless in gaining employment). He has been a writer for most of his life and has written and had published, numerous articles in “Sirens of the Cinema” magazine on the subject of “Women in Motion Pictures.” He has designed and taught courses on “Humor in the Workplace: De-stressing on the Job,” and “Why Sherlock Holmes: The Relevance of Sherlock Holmes in theTwentieth Century,” among others. He has a lifelong interest in western history, fiction and movies. He has also been recognized as a “film scholar.” He is currently working on severalprojects, the nature of which are “top secret.


Featured Speaker for June 13, 2015 – Monthly Meeting
A discussion all things Parsec with all the fine folks and friends of Parsec.

We have not had a meeting just for the members and the public who find their way to Parsec on the second Saturday of each month in quite some time. A meeting designed for folks to sit around and talk about what they have been reading, what they have been writing, what they have been doing.
Bring your emotion. Bring your intellect. Everyone is invited. Join us. Let’s talk SF.


Featured Speaker for May 9, 2015 – Monthly Meeting
Thomas Sweterlitsch
The Avant-Garde and Science-Fiction

A discussion on the aesthetics and influence of the “historical avant-garde” on science-fiction writing, and conversely, science-fiction’s influence on the avant-garde.

Thomas Sweterlitsch is the author of “Tomorrow and Tomorrow” and the forthcoming novel “Libra.” He lives in Pittsburgh.

Audio file for Thomas Sweterlitsch Presentation – The Avant-Garde and SF:

Q&A – Thomas Sweterlitsch


Featured Speaker for April 11, 2015 – Time 1:30 pm
Lawrence C. Connolly
Dreams, Memory, and Time Travel

A discussion of the manner in which dreams, memories and time travel are presented in a no-tech way in my writing and how that presentation speaks to something central to the human condition . . . and the nature of story.

Lawrence C. Connolly’s books include the novels Veins (2008) and Vipers (2010), which together form the first two books of the Veins Cycle. Vortex, the third book in the series, was released in November 2014. His collections, which include Visions (2009), This Way to Egress (2010), and Voices (2011), collect his stories from Amazing Stories, Cemetery Dance, The Magazine of Fantasy


Audio file of Lawrence C. Connolly’s presentation Dreams, Memories and Time Travel


2015-05-30 News

Parsec Ink will have a table at the Pennsylvania Literary Festival today through Sunday at the Uniontown Mall. Stop by and say hi!


Featured Speaker for March 14, 2015 – Time 1:30 pm
Joshua Raulerson, PhD
The Punchbowl and the Fishbowl: Science Fiction and the Singularity

Josh Raulerson S

Join PARSEC for a discussion of how SF – particularly in the postcyberpunk stories of writers like Charles Stross and Cory Doctorow – is using the trope of technological Singularity as a fictional device, a commentary on technological modernity, and a means of actively shaping the future.

The technological Singularity thesis, formulated by Vernor Vinge and more recently associated with the futurist Ray Kurzweil, is a fascinating bit of postmodern historiography. It begins with an observation that most of us accept without question – the pace of technological change has been astonishingly rapid in recent decades, and indeed seems to be speeding up – and then extrapolates these apparent facts to their logical conclusion. The result is something both momentous and totally unfathomable; a historical reckoning we can clearly see coming though, almost paradoxically, we can only guess as to what changes it might bring.

Joshua Raulerson earned his PhD in English from the University of Iowa in 2010. His adapted doctoral thesis, Singularities: Technoculture, Transhumanism, and Science Fiction in the 21st Century, was published in 2013 by Liverpool University Press. Raulerson lives in


Featured Speakers for February 14, 2015
Mike Watt and Amy Lynn Best
Eternal Salad Days or Never Lick the Lens: advice for independent filmmakers.

Mike and Amy S

Mike and Amy will discuss their experiences writing, directing, producing and acting in genre movies  produced both by their company, Happy Cloud Pictures, and working with others.

Amy Lynn Best has studied acting and dancing since she was three years old. She co-produced and costarred in the independent feature horror film, THE RESURRECTION GAME (2002), and like many independent film producers, she learned the film business from the ground up. She has acted or worked on nearly a dozen films, including the critically-acclaimed feature, AMERICAN NIGHTMARE (2000), RAZOR DAYS (2014) “The Gorge” segment of George Romero’s DEADTIME STORIES 2 (2011), to name a few.
One of the few woman directors in indie horror, Amy directed WERE-GRRL (2002), SEVERE INJURIES (2003) and SPLATTER MOVIE: THE DIRECTOR’S CUT (2005)

Mike Watt, writer, director, and journalist, wrote and directed THE RESURRECTION GAME (2001) and Bloody Earth Film’s A FEAST OF FLESH (2007) (aka “Abattoir”). He also wrote the screenplays for many movies, SEVERE INJURIES (2003), WERE-GRRL (2002), SPLATTER MOVIE: THE DIRECTOR’S CUT (2008), and RAZOR DAYS (2014) to name three.
He was the editor of “Sirens of Cinema Magazine” and the author of THE RESURRECTION GAME novelization, the novel SUICIDE MACHINE, the short fiction collection PHOBOPHOBIA, “FERVID FILMMAKING: 66 Cult Pictures Of Vision, Verve And No Self-Restraint” and “MOVIE OUTLAW: Film History’s Rarities, Oddities, Grotesqueries and Other Things That May Have Escaped Your Attention.”


Featured Speaker for January, 10, 2015 – Time 1:30 pm

Jamie Lackey 
“Surviving the Slush Pile”
Jamie Lackey, the editor of this year’s Triangulation anthology and an author with over 100 short fiction sales under her belt, will discuss the trials and tribulations of submitting short fiction


Featured Speaker for November 8, 2014

Barry Luokkala
Author of Exploring Science Through Science Fiction
will discuss and demonstrate Science for Science Fiction Fans
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kO9qF9w8WVo


Featured Speaker for Saturday October 11, 2014

Josh Bellin
Author of Survival Colony 9
will discuss the emerging genre of “cli-fi,”
http://www.joshuadavidbellin.com


Rickert & Beagle Books 24 Hour Read-A-Thon Fundraiser Benefiting Parsec

Event Guidelines:

The event will begin at noon on Saturday, October 18th and end at noon on Sunday, October 19th. Participants must be registered by October 15th. Participants do not need to attend the entire 24 hour event. Participants who read from noon Saturday to noon Sunday will be eligible for prizes provided by Rickert & Beagle Books and friends of Parsec.

Books, e-books, audio books (with headphones) or any other reading material (magazines, comics, newspapers) are all acceptable materials to read during this event. Books may also be borrowed from Rickert & Beagle Books during the event. Used books purchased from Rickert & Beagle for the purposes of reading during the event will be discounted 20%.

Participants will be given a 15 minute break every two hours. Every third break will be expanded to 45 minutes. Participants may use the restroom at any time.

For the comfort of all our readers, we ask that headphones be used for those listening to audio books or music. Please keep the volume on your device set so that those around you can not hear it. If you choose to use social media to update others on your progress please wait until break times to do so, and keep your phone off or on vibrate during reading times. We understand that emergencies may arise which require you to take a phone call. Other than emergencies we ask that you refrain from using your phone unless you are in a break period.

All registration sheets must be mailed or delivered to Rickert & Beagle Books before October 15th. This will allow the organizers to estimate the space and food needed for the event. If registration is higher than expected, we may be forced to cut it off early, so get those forms in fast!

Some food and beverages will be provided by the organizers, including unlimited coffee and tea through out the event. We will make every effort to provide food that is appealing to a wide range of tastes, but we strongly suggest that participants bring foods and drinks that they enjoy and are appropriate for their dietary needs as well. A fridge will be available for beverage and perishables storage.

Seating in Rickert & Beagle Books is comfy, but limited. Large numbers of less-comfy folding chairs will be made available. All readers who can bring their own seating should consider doing so. In the past participants have utilized camp chairs, lawn chairs, sleeping bags and ottomans (no kidding!) for their comfort. If you have spare seating and you are willing to share it, please bring it along!

Readers can start getting pledges as soon as they have turned in their registration packet. Pledges can be given in a per-hour format (someone might offer you $5 for as many hours as you can read) or in a flat rate (someone might offer you $35 for reading in the event) form. Pledge money must be turned in to Rickert & Beagle Books by October 31st. Parsec will also have a donation by PayPal option. Pledge money can be collected in cash (preferred) or in a check made out to Parsec. We will update all readers with PayPal details when they register.

You can email any questions or an e-version of your registration information to: Chris Rickert (chris@rickertandbeaglebooks.com) or mail a hard copy to:

Rickert & Beagle Books
ATTN: ReadAThon
3233 West Liberty Ave
Pittsburgh, PA 15216


2014-08-11 News

Parsec Inc.’s Alpha once again went swimmingly. In our 13th year now, guest authors were Rachel Swirsky, Tobias S Buckell, Tamora Pierce and Bruce Coville. They shared the love of writing with twenty teens from as far away as Shanghai, China and as close as Pittsburgh!

Our ten-person staff outdid themselves filling in a couple days during the ten-day workshop, which went so well we’ll be scheduling Alpha for eleven days next year. Two bookstore readings at Barnes and Noble in Greensburg were well populated (and Bill Keith showed up!). We won’t find out how the B&N Bookfair went for a month or so, but last year we made over $100 on it (for the scholarship fund).

We videotaped students and staff for a promotional video that’s being put together by the alpha-support team. We enjoyed sharing the UPG campus with a local band camp so much more than previous years where we were overrun with cheerleaders, oldsters and a military camp, but we’re still looking into alternative schools due to the increased rigid regulations necessary for any Pitt campus after the Pitt Main bomb threats of 2012. Twelve students sent out stories they wrote during Alpha at our mailing party and the students are now on a list where they can get free critiques from former Alphans.


Featured Speaker for Saturday July 12, 2014 at 1:30 PM

Larry Ivkovich – Growing Up Genre
Author of The Sixth Precept and Blood of Daxas (coming in 2014)
Larry will discuss the works that influenced his work


2014-08-11 News: YA Lecture Series a Success!

Hundreds of fans of Bruce Coville and Tamora Pierce happily greeted them at the very first YA Author Lecture Series event held at Carnegie Mellon University on Sunday, July 27th. Bruce and Tammy spoke for an hour on the trials and joys of writing, captivating the audience with their sage advice and witty banter.

PARSEC, SFWA and CMU banners decorated the stage (as sponsors of the talk) and Parsec bookmarks were handed out. The event and parking were free. Several Parsec members were in attendance and, after the talk, we spoke to everyone in the book signing line that stretched out the door and down the hall.

The University of Pittsburgh Bookstore provided book sales at the meet-and-greet and did a fantastic job. The talk was scheduled from 5 to 6, but we didn’t finish up until 10 pm. 

Before the lecture, twenty-two participants joined Jonathan Auxier for an afternoon workshop on writing YA fiction. Parsec donations of $10 apiece for the YA workshop were split with Jonathan for doing a fantastic job (he was a CMU Drama graduate school alum and it was quite an entertaining, educational performance!). We’re building a new student club at CMU to take over the CMU organizational part of the event, Partners in Speculative Fiction. This will insure that we get free function space for the lectures, which are scheduled for three times a year (July, November, March). We thank the Alpha branch of Parsec for paying travel costs for Bruce and Tammy and the Parsec Library for buying a book from each author. Big thanks to all the Parsec members who helped out with this! Ideas for future YA SF/F/H authors to invite? Discuss them on Parsec-talk.


2014-07-03 News – Parsec/CMU Young Adult Lecture Series

A new genre lecture series featuring young adult and middle grade authors is starting at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh on Sunday, July 27th. Three times a year, two invited guests will speak to the CMU community and the public. Each event will include a writing workshop focused on science fiction, fantasy or horror, a book signing and a meet-and-greet with the popular YA or MG authors.


Featured Speaker for Saturday June 14, 2014 – Monthly Meeting

Stephanie Wytovich
Stephanie will discuss horror writing and read from her Bram Stoker nominated book of poetry “Hysteria” and her recently published work “Mourning Jewelry.”


2014-06-02 News

PARSEC will have a table at the Carnegie Library Summer Reading Extravaganza.

Our location will be on the Schenley Drive Ext, table 4.
Come on out and show your support for literacy and Parsec!
Date: June 8, 2014
Time: 12 – 5 pm
Place: CLP – Main (Oakland)

Parsec will be raffling off three different baskets:

  1. A basket of children’s books and a brand new slip n slide
  2. A basket of YA reader books that will also include a gift card to Rickert & Beagle books
  3. A basket that includes two weekend passes to Confluence and copies of the Triangulation anthology books.

Raffle is free to enter.


2014-06-01 News

PSF* Lecture Series with Bruce Coville and Tamora Pierce

Hundreds of fans of Bruce Coville and Tamora Pierce happily greeted them at the very first YA Author Lecture Series event held at Carnegie Mellon University on Sunday, July 27, 2014. Bruce and Tammy spoke for an hour on the trials and joys of writing, captivating the audience with their sage advice and witty.

From the CMU YA Author Lecture Series webpage:

Science fiction and fantasy authors Bruce Coville and Tamora Pierce recently shared adventures in writing for young adults.

Their advice: Dream big.

The July 27 event was the first in a series of lectures on young adult literature made possible by a ProSEED/Crosswalk Grant from Carnegie Mellon University and support from Pittsburgh’s Parsec organization, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and The Pittsburgh Foundation.

ProSEED/Crosswalk is a CMU-wide initiative designed to seed a wide range of ideas that build connections and collaborations across all CMU’s campuses and their neighboring communities. The grants fund projects that nurture the spirit of innovation and encourage boundary-crossing creativity and novel experimentation.

Diane Turnshek, a physics special faculty member and author, worked with Barbara Carlson, a staff member in the Tepper School and Ian Betancourt (DC’16) to apply for the grant. They also drew on the support of some two dozen people including staff, instructors and librarians.

Authors Coville and Pierce have been favorites among readers for more than three decades. During the lecture, they shared methods they use to create engaging worlds and stressed the benefits of reading and writing fantasy and science fiction.

“Fantasy is important, because fantasy is a way to talk about big dreams, big ideals, big ideas,” Coville said. “It is the jailers of the human spirit, the jailers of the imagination who have the greatest problem with escapist literature, because it is a liberating thing. And that scares people who think we should be squashed into little boxes.”

Carlson, a founding member of Parsec, expressed her excitement about the opportunity to connect with young fans as they discover the fun of speculative and genre fiction.

“We’ve always looked at CMU as a source of scientists to come and give us talks,” Carlson said. “But now, with this ProSEED program, we have a chance to get involved with younger people.”

Attendees also could participate in a writing workshop with Jonathan Auxier (A’05), author of “Peter Nimble and his Fantastic Eyes” and “The Night Gardener.” The workshop brought together published writers and students experimenting with creative writing for the first time. The event coincided with Parsec’s Alpha writing workshop for young adults.

The next event in the series will occur in November. Turnshek said she is interested in having students assist in planning upcoming lectures.

“If students can just kick back and read a fun book once in a while, it does wonders for their stress levels,” Turnshek said. “I think that CMU students especially should write what they love and read what they love and just enjoy themselves a little bit more, and I want to encourage that.”

Writing Workshop: Jonathan Auxier

Before the lecture, twenty-two participants joined Jonathan Auxier for an afternoon workshop on writing YA fiction. Jonathan was a CMU Drama graduate school alum and it was quite an entertaining, educational performance!

*Partners in Speculative Fiction. CMU and Parsec Partners



2014-05-06 News
Parsec, Inc. is proud to be part of the Pittsburgh Foundation’s Day of Giving on Tuesday, May 6. This is a great chance to support Parsec! On Tuesday, May 6, just make your donations at http://www.pittsburghgives.org/, and the Pittsburgh Foundation will partially match it!

For this year’s Day of Giving, the match pool for Allegheny County is expected to be approximately $750,000, and for Westmoreland approximately $50,000, both similar to recent annual events. The match pool in Westmoreland County was provided thanks to generous support by donors Sean Cassidy and Gina Sciarrino, Old Joe Charities, Inc and Hamil Manufacturing as well as other contributors in the local community.


Featured Speakers for Saturday May 10, 2014 – Monthly Meeting

The Science in Science Fiction
Francis Graham will start with a brief illustration of the science involved in Icarus. Followed by Eric Leif Davin reading his short story, “Icarus at Noon,” recently published in the May issue of Galaxy’s Edge magazine.

Steve Ramey of Parsec Ink will update us on the progress of the Steel Cities and Parch anthologies as well as the current Short Story Contest. He will have copies of past anthologies should you wish to view and/or purchase them.

Brad Fest – “Tales of Archival Crisis: 1914-2014,”
“My talk will discuss a handful of science fiction texts that are concerned in some fashion with the archive as a site of speculative thinking. I will look at a group of Cold War texts–The Earth Abides, A Canticle for Leibowitz, and On the Beach–and discuss how each is in some way structured around disappearing or damaged archives in a postnuclear future.”


2014/05/01 – NEWS

The CMU ProSEED/Crosswalk grant program has awarded $1,500 to Parsec’s Workshop Committee for the Young Adult Science Fiction Lecture Series. This is part of the award letter:

Thank you for submitting your proposal, “Young Adult Science Fiction Lecture Series,” to the ProSEED/Crosswalk grant program. The Crosswalk grant program received dozens of applications for a wide range of projects with broad cross-community impact inside and outside of CMU.

Your proposal was well-received by the review committee. As a result, we are pleased to offer you $1,500 of ProSEED/Crosswalk Funds for your initiative, allocated at $500 for this summer, this fall, and next spring. We appreciate that this necessitates continued reliance on outside sources of funding, consistent with your excellent record of securing that support to date. We are grateful for your leadership of this program, and for the service you are providing to the campus and larger community.


Saturday April 12, 2014 – Monthly Meeting

Eric Leif Davin (Past Parsec President)
On “David Lasser, editor of Hugo Gernsback’s “Wonder Stories,” founder of the American Interplanetary Society, and the author of the very first book in English that treated the subject of rockets as a means of traveling into space seriously”

Francis Graham (Editor Sigma)
On “Science fiction has given physics some paradoxes in time travel, as well as made errors.  The most famous is the MATRICIDE PARADOX, where a time traveler to the past kills his/her mother prior to his/her birth.  We can explore this paradox in some situations with analogs for ‘free will’.”

Geoff Glover (Lecturer at the University of Pittsburgh)
On “Fables of Difference: African American Science Fiction from 1931 to 2006″

Geoff Glover (Lecturer at the University of Pittsburgh)
On “Fables of Difference: African American Science Fiction from 1931 to 2006″