Star Trek goes Musical
6. February 2024
Writing for franchises
8. February 2024
Science fiction is becoming more and more diverse. This increases the hope of finding protagonists who are similar to you in ways you never dared to hope for before. But are there already autistic protagonists in science fiction?
There are already some protagonists out there. The image of savants who are incredibly good with numbers and pattern recognition lends itself perfectly to the world of science and space travel.
I would like to introduce these pioneers, embedded in basic knowledge about autism. I am not interested in subtext and interpretation, but protagonists who are loud, open and honestly autistic.
Contents of the lecture:
- Autism – a brief outline
- Cliché and reality
- An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon
- Failure to Communicate by Kaia Sønderby
- The Outside by Ada Hoffmann
- Time for questions
Unfortunately, the books are not (yet) available in German. However, the lecture will be in German.
Lecturer: Mel Grebing
Duration: 60 min - The Lecture will be held in: germanMel Grebing is a non-binary autistic and science fiction fan. For a long time there was no official representation in they/them favourite genre. Now they/them finally come across more than one title without having to write them himself.
Mel is over 40, works full-time in HR and is writing (in English) towards publication. (When they/them is not sewing cosplays instead. Or playing computer games.) they/them first short stories appeared in June 2023 in the collection Tumbled Tales from Wandering Wave Presse and in Kaleidoscope - A Queer Anthology from Cloaked Press.
On they/them blog, Mel occasionally writes about autism and non-binary existence in the writing world, both as representation between the covers of a book and the challenges of getting published.
Sources & additional links for Autistic scifi protagonists:
