October Events For Myth Lovers
"Myth.Slide1.16" by c.a.francese is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Virtual Events
Listen to New York City’s ghost stories on a virtual tour of the East Village and Greenwich Village on October 1 at 6 pm EST. Co-hosted by Boroughs of the Dead, the Merchant's House Museum, and the Village Alliance.
Eurocon’s next event is virtual and takes place October 2-4, 2020.
On October 5 K-Ming Chang will speak online about her novel Bestiary, in which a mother tells her daughter a story about a tiger spirit who lived in a woman's body and hungered for children's toes. Shortly after, the daughter awakes with a tiger tail (as daughters sometimes do.)
To promote her new novel The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue! V.E. Schwab will be holding a number of online events at various bookstores from October 6 to October 18, in which she (while probably exhausting herself on book promotion) gets to have a (sort of) social life in conversation with the coolest people: Rebecca Roanhorse, Naomi Novik, Patricia Riley, Holly Black, Marlon James + Alice Sola Kim*, John Scalzi, Samantha Shannon, Madeline Miller, Felicia Day, and more.
The witchy feminists and authors Kristen Sollee and Pam Grossman will discuss the former’s new book Witch Hunt: a Traveler's Guide to the Power and Persecution of the Witch online on October 7 at 7 pm.
Photo in the public domain.
Jane Caputi, who has written books such as Goddesses and Monsters: Women, Myth, Power and Popular Culture, will give the online presentation “Call Your Mutha’: A Deliberately Dirty-Minded Manifesto for the Earth Mother in the Anthropocene” on October 7 at 3 pm EDT at the Association for the Study of Women and Mythology.
Join singer-songwriter Anaïs Mitchell and Tony award-nominated actor Patrick Page to celebrate the release of Anaïs' book Working on a Song: The Lyrics of Hadestown!, the musical that retells the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. Online at 7 pm on October 7. (If you buy a book with your ticket, you might get a signed book plate, and yes I’m sure the author is still looking at you with sad eyes if you don’t, even if you can’t be there to receive the guilt trip in person.)
Starting October 9, you can learn how to concoct potions, perform spells, and become a certified full-fledged witch or wizard in Hocus Pocus: A Musical Cocktail Experience on Fridays and Saturdays at 9 pm EST. An alcoholic potions kit for two costs $79. The non-alcoholic potions kit is ten dollars cheaper, but obviously nobody wants that one.
On October 20 Rebecca Roanhorse will discuss world-building with fantasy author Leigh Bardugo online at the Center for Fiction.
A Novel Book Club on Zoom! on October 21 at 7 pm discusses Riley Sager’s Home Before Dark, in which a woman returns to the house made famous by her father’s bestselling horror memoir.
Irana Idoia-Beobide, who has studied the principles of matriarchy and the re-emergence of indigenous feminine power values, will be holding the online scholar Salon “When the Moon and the Sun are Daughters of Mother Earth: Analysis of Basque Cosmic Reality” on Wednesday October 21 at 3 pm EDT at the Association for the Study of Women and Mythology.
From October 23-25, MileHiCon 52 will feature science fiction and fantasy authors including Rebecca Roanhorse, Mur Lafferty, Cory Doctorow, Steve Rasnic Tem and more.
Green-Wood Cemetery will hold an online presentation on October 28 at 6 pm EDT about Mexican death culture and Santa Muerte, who some interpret as the modern reincarnation of the Aztec death goddess Mictecacihuatl and others as the Virgen de Guadalupe. See more cool online and in person events at Green-Wood here.
Join Hugo, Nebula, and Locus award winning author, Rebecca Roanhorse, for the launch of her new epic fantasy novel Black Sun online on October 28 at 7 pm. Rebecca will be in-conversation with fellow Sci-Fi author John Scalzi.
Ah, what a lovely maid it is! by Elmer Boyd Smith is in the public domian.
Virtual Halloween Extravaganza - The Mystery of the Missing Charter will host an online Halloween murder story on Saturday October 31 featuring Saxons, Vikings, Witches, a detective, other guest appearances, and time travel in a historic town.
On October 31 - November 9, listen to online performances of Edgar Allen Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart, The Cask of Amontillado, The Raven, and Annabelle Lee, as well as Death and Mourning in the Merchant’s House, a live exploration of 19th-century death practices and bereavement customs. Tickets are $45.
World Fantasy Convention The virtual conference from October 29 to November 1, 2020 will include small group panels that enable interaction with authors, editors, agents and artists.
The NY Mythology Group, which is associated with the Joseph Campbell Foundation, holds presentations and discussions about mythology related topics ranging from the Greek goddess Hecate to Carl Jung. Their events usually take place on Tuesday evenings at 8 pm EDT, and have been online since the pandemic started.
The Center for Fiction will hold a discussion group on Wednesday nights from September 16-January 6 about “ways in which pervasive themes drawn from oral tradition find their way into our collective consciousness, either perpetuated or subverted by current fiction.” Readings from authors including Octavia Butler, Catherynne Valente, Ursula LeGuin, Kelly Link, and Aimee Bender.
BSFW, or Brooklyn Speculative Fiction Writers, meetings take place mostly online currently, but pre-pandemic were in the homes of writers mostly in Brooklyn but also on occasion Manhattan or Queens. Check out their calendar on meetup to attend their numerous writing workshops, social gatherings, meetings with editors/agents/authors, book clubs, and more. The group includes many published writers and has its own audio fiction magazine, Kaleidocast. If you post about your fetish for Olympian gods on their Facebook group feed, they (probably) won’t judge.
EREWHON BOOKS, a publisher focusing on novel-length works of speculative fiction: science fiction, fantasy, and related genres, holds readings usually on the second Thursday each month virtually for now and in a pre-apocalypse world at its high ceilinged office of many windows in Manhattan.
Fantastic Fiction at KGB is a monthly speculative-fiction reading series held on the third Wednesday of every month virtually for now, and in a pre-apocalypse world at KGB Bar in Manhattan. Ellen Datlow and Matthew Kressel host the event. As one might expect from a communism-themed bar, admission is free.
The NYC Greek Myth & Classical Lit Meetup meets every third Thursday of the month at the Cloister Cafe in the East Village to discuss the work of mostly long dead authors (e.g. Aristophanes, Dante.) The group has existed for more than a decade, so the long-term participants have already earned their unofficial classics PhD’s, and we already know that anybody who would do this for fun is as hip as a person can get.
The virtual exhibit Guiding Spirits: The Radical Witches and Women of OPUS presents materials highlighting explorations of mythological witches and the occult and supernatural underpinnings of depth psychology.
World Events
ArtPolitical-Margaret Atwood’s Aesthetics International Conference will be held from October 8-10 at the University of Goettingen, Germany.
For the Love of Fantasy, which was originally planned for August, merged with Comic Con Scotland and is scheduled to take place October 10 -11 in Edinburgh (if safe to do so). For the Love of Fantasy has another conference scheduled for December 5 to 6 and Comic Con Liverpool is still on for March 6 -7.
IceCon This conference is still planned to take place in Reykjavik, Iceland from November 6 to 8, 2020
Finncon Postponed until 2021
Worldcon is scheduled to take place in Washington D.C. on August 25-29, 2021. You can already buy your ticket for their convention here.
U.S. Events
Readercon, a conference in Boston for readers and writers of science fiction, postponed until 2021.
New York City Events
Every year, the Great Jack O’Lantern Blaze at Croton-on-Hudson showcases pumpkins carved into numerous fantastical shapes, including story-driven ones like the Loch Ness Monster pictured here. Apparently, the Coronavirus does not stop vegetables, as you can see this outdoor show between September 18 and November 21 — and for the first time without the crowds!
Tour the catacombs beneath The Basilica of Saint Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan on various days throughout October. Tickets $37 each.
The Freewalkers and Shorewalkers of New Jersey will meet to hear ghost stories on October 31 at the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, among other things. Included and entirely free of charge: the fear of catching COVID from the maximum 30 people who will be attending this outdoor event with you.
The New York Review of Science Fiction Readings usually holds events on the first Tuesday of the month at The Brooklyn Commons Cafe at 388 Atlantic Avenue. Check their website for up to date information.
Marcantonio Raimondi’s “A Bacchanal”. CC01.0 Public domain.
