Community of the Imagination

Can reporters counter a public resistance to the inconvenient truth with their own resistance against reporting the easy narrative? Four journalists—Alfredo Corchado (US/Mexico), Angela Kocherga (US), Karla María Gutiérrez (Mexico) & Tim MacGabhann (Ireland)—dissect the forces of resistance amid the growing drumbeat of misinformation.

Three practitioners of speculative writing speculate on how fantasy and imagination can push the boundaries of storytelling. With panelists Alberto Chimal (Mexico), Sheree Renée Thomas (US) & Verónica Murguía (Mexico)

When everything seems like an emergency, how can writers keep control of their own narratives? A conversation with novelists Elizabeth Rosner (US) & Jennifer Clement (Mexico/US)

Novelist Adam Biles (UK) interviews writers for a living. But who interviews Adam Biles? UTV Founder and Director Magda Bogin asks Biles how he comes up with questions that take his featured authors by surprise.

Sheree Renée Thomas (US), a guiding light of the Afro-futurist literary community, and young Mexican writer Jumko Ogata discuss the role of speculative fiction in portraying and expanding the African diaspora experience on both sides of the border with writer and essayist Gabriela Damián Miravete (Mexico).

Novelists from four countries–Francisco Goldman (Guatemala/US), Luisa Valenzuela (Argentina), Gina Apostol (Philippines/US), Jonathan Levi (US),–weigh in on how the epic experience of the pandemic has shaped their writing.

As science unveils the mysteries of the universe, astrophysicist Priyamvada Natarajan (India/US) and novelists Alberto Chimal (Mexico), Victor LaValle (US), Annalee Newitz (US) explore the shifts that ripple through the imagination when the unknown becomes known.

Investigative journalist Ginger Thompson (US) and evolutionary biologist Valeria Souza (Mexico) share the passions behind their pursuit of stories that resist easy telling and reshape the way we see the world.