12:00 to 1:00 pm ET The Real History of Midkemia Bestselling author Raymond E. Feist discusses with the audience the world behind his Serpentwar Saga. Read this preliminary essay by Feist that will prepare you for the talk, so you can come ready to participate! 1:00 to 2:00 pm ET The Moonbase Saga Ben Bova, author of Moonrise and the forthcoming Moonwar, discusses with the audience the science and spectacle of settling the Moon. Read this preliminary essay by Bova that will prepare you for the talk, so you can come to the session ready to participate! 2:00 to 3:00 pm ET The Importance of Being Gendered Gender issues have been a central element of science fiction at least since the appearance of Ursula K. Le Guin's classic The Left Hand of Darkness in 1969. Authors James Alan Gardner (Commitment Hour), Stephen Leigh (Dark Water's Embrace), Carolyn Ives Gilman (Halfway Human), and Severna Park (Hand of Prophecy) discuss how playing with gender in SF sheds light on present relations between the sexes. 3:00 to 4:00 pm ET The Physics of Universe Creation Gregory Benford, author of Cosm, discusses with the audience how the inflationary model of the cosmos proposed by Alan Guth and others inspired his novel. Read this preliminary essay by Benford that will prepare you for the talk, so you can come to the session ready to participate! 4:00 to 5:00 pm ET Cyberpunk: Jacked-In or Burned Out? The near-future, grungy, bad-boy ethos of cyberpunk as envisioned by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling helped define SF in the '80s, but some critics say it's already well past its prime. Is this literary subgenre ready for retirement, or are new writers bringing fresh perspectives and new life to the game? Join Rudy Rucker (Freeware) -- one of the original cyberpunk writers -- along with Dennis Danvers (Circuit of Heaven) and Eric S. Nylund (Dry Water) for a provocative discussion of the topic. 5:00 to 6:00 pm ET The Essential Fantasist What are the essential elements of fantasy, the elements that give the best fantasies their unique mythic resonance and power? Authors Adam Lee (The Dark Shore and, forthcoming, The Shadow Eater), Victoria Strauss (The Arm of the Stone), and Severna Park (Hand of Prophecy), exchange views on what makes fantasy work, both in their own books and in their experience as readers. 6:00 to 7:00 pm ET Getting Published and Staying Published How hard is it to get published these days? Is it harder than it used to be? How can a new writer attract the attention of editors and publishers? And what happens after your first novel comes out? How do you build a career? Avon Eos Editor Jennifer Brehl and two Eos authors -- Carolyn Ives Gilman (Halfway Human) and Severna Park (Hand of Prophecy) -- give you the lowdown on what every aspiring writer needs to know. 7:00 to 8:00 pm ET Is SF Dead? Doomsayers have been proclaiming the death of science fiction for at least a decade. Is there anything to their claims? Certainly there are concerns about the aging and/or distraction of the genre's core audience. So how can writers ignite the imagination of the reading public to attract and hold a new audience? Authors Damien Broderick (The White Abacus), Susan R. Matthews (Prisoner of Conscience), and Amy Stout (The Royal Four) debate the present and future of the genre. And that's not all. Throughout the day we'll be giving away free Eos books, and four Eos authors will collaborate on a short story, posting a new section every hour. And you'll want to test your knowledge at our SF IQ Test. So don't miss a minute!