Space, brands and brains (some things I’m looking forward to)

So today I’ve put together my little schedule for the festival, and I thought I’d share with you just a few of the sessions I’m looking forward to this first weekend coming up. Sometimes I pick sessions just on who sounds the most interesting – someone I’m curious about and might be able to learn from in session, or later on, reading their book.

One such person is Marcelo Gleiser, an American professor of physics, astronomy and natural philosophy. Apparently his lectures are as popular with literature students as they are with science students. (Well, he’s pretty good lookin’ too, hey?) This Saturday, the 28th of August, I’ll be seeing him In Conversation with Editor-in-Chief of Cosmos, Wilson da Silva.

Neuropsychiatrist-authors Norman Doidge and Perminder Sachdev are going to tell me all about these heavy, complex things in our heads (and their changeability) on the same day, in their session The Amazing Brain.

That brain of mine had a part to play in this personal ‘brand’ I partly by accident constructed – Ms LiteraryMinded. I’m very curious to hear Kathy Charles, James P Othmer and Karen Andrews talk about The Author as Brand – the professional self as commodity, the online persona and so on. This panel really could take many different directions.

And on Sunday afternoon Sandy Jeffs offer us A Privileged Insight into writing with, and through, mental illness.

What are you guys looking forward to this weekend?

Oh, and, of course, do come along to the sessions I’m chairing! A Q&A on Friday with global nomad and self-confessed chameleon Mohezin Tejani. Mo’s life story is fascinating, and the event is totally free. And on Sunday I’m chairing ‘A Wordsmith’s Dream’ with word-nerds Ursula Dubosarsky, Davis Astle and Kate Burridge.