These are events where I’ll be reading, sometimes helping to run and occasionally giving an opinion.
- What happened to SF/F as a Force for Good?
- Science Fiction Narratives and Science
- New ways to think about worldbuilding
- Launch: All Tomorrow’s Futures – Cybersalon anthology of applied fiction
- Machines Learn; Humans Thrive
Recordings of events, talks, interviews etc.
Past events…
Thursday 26 October (1pm to 2pm): Webinar for RSA on Reclassifying skills acquisition as a national capital asset – a step towards including human (and social capital) in measuring the health of the UK economy (RSA Fellows only)
- Exploring future(s) with the public using SF [Talk – Pavilion, Sunday 16:30]
- SF, ethics and science [panel moderator – Salisbury-Wellington, Saturday 09:00]
- Living Dystopia: is the Real World Worse? [panel – Pavilion, Saturday 15:00]
- Anarchy or bust! [panel – Salisbury-Wellington, Saturday 18:00]
- Reading from Extracting Humanity and Other Stories [reading – Balmoral, Sunday 15:00]
- The Past & Future of Vector magazine [panel – Queens, Monday 09:00]
[alternative and open invite in VR – AltspaceVR audience invite]
Tuesday 29 November (closed event): I’ll be speaking and discussing things at a King’s College London Digital Psychiatry Seminar.
Summer 2022
6 – 10 June 2022: I’ll be contributing to a roundtable discussion and convening a panel at the Royal Anthropological Institute summer conference on “Anthropology, AI and the Future of Human Society”.
Tuesday 7 June 2022 (11:30 – 12:45): Imagined Futures – this workshop borrows its title from Max Saunders’ study of Ogden’s eclectic series, which blurred the already fading boundaries between imaginative writing and science and technology in the experience of modernity. The discussion will begin by asking what role anthropology plays, both in the critical analysis of imagined futures and in contributing to them. Who knows where it will go from there?
Friday 10 June 2022 (12:00 to 13:45): Speculative fiction in relation to prediction, innovation, and futures – acknowledging the messiness and uncertainty of futurity and the rich aesthetic reality of speculative fiction, the panel will discuss what ‘applied’ role speculative fiction (such as science fiction) can play in the social and technological transformations of AI, and in shaping future history.
Thursday 23 June 2022 (18:30 to 21:00): Free event exploring through storytelling how AI could be used in the future to predict which children will develop mental health problems. I will be reading A Mother’s Nightmare and Standard Deviations, both of which have been developed as part of a project I’ve worked on with King’s College London. [Conway Hall, London]
Thursday 28 July 2022 (5pm to 7pm): I’ll be at this – a project that I was involved in: “The Utopia Now! zine launch. Join us for the spoken word and multi-media showcase and launch of our creative publications – the Utopia Now! zine and Dystopia Now! zine. Hear young people’s hopes and fears for the future and engage with them about the important social and ethical questions involved in research.” [Theatre Peckham, 221 Havil Street, London, SE5 7SB]. Update – an article about the launch
Autumn 2021
21 September 2021 (6:30pm to 8pm): Tales from the CyberSalon: event #3 – A Sense of Community. An event of interdisciplinary, technology and policy investigations through science-fiction storytelling.
25 September 2021 (11am): I’ll be reading at the British Fantasy Society’s FantasyCon [The Jury’s Inn Hotel, Broad St, Birmingham]
25 September 2021 (9pm): I’ll be on a panel discussing Post Pandemic Audiences at the British Fantasy Society’s FantasyCon [The Jury’s Inn Hotel, Broad St, Birmingham]
9 November 2021 (3:30pm to 5:30pm GMT): Social Robots for Health and Well-being in Ageing Societies. An interdisciplinary workshop to develop a critical approach to the research and development of social robots for health and well-being. I’ll be reading and discussing my story, Eating Robots. [The Socio-gerontechnology network]
30 November 2021: (6:30pm to 8pm): Tales from the CyberSalon: event #4 – Any Spare Change (for change)? An event of interdisciplinary, technology and policy investigations through science-fiction storytelling.
4 December 2021: (2pm to 4pm): Launch of Sein Und Werden’s Autumn 21 issue – Last Chance Filling Station. I’ll be reading “Shame Stains”.
Summer 2021
12 July 2021: A talk at the London-based creative innovation studio, Holition, for their intern programme – writing near-future fiction that considers possible future(s) and raises ethical issues [not open to the public]
Spring 2021
19 January 2021 (7pm onwards): British Fantasy Society President’s Spoken Word Special [BFS members only]
22 February 2021 (3pm to 5pm): Panel member on Royal Anthropological Institute Research Webinar: Anthropology and/of the Future
30 March 2021: Tales from the CyberSalon – an event of interdisciplinary, technology and policy investigations through science-fiction storytelling.
12 May 2021 (6:30pm to 8pm): Cognitive Sensations – The Downloadable Brain opening event.
8 June 2021 (6:30pm to 8pm): Tales from the CyberSalon: event #2 – A New High Street. An event of interdisciplinary, technology and policy investigations through science-fiction storytelling.
Autumn 2020
6 September 2020: closing date for the “Future Stories: One Day in 2070” competition, part of the King’s College London Utopia Now project for young writers. I’m a judge and contributing to a winners’ writing workshop.
7 September 2020 (7pm): Stop Hate UK 25th anniversary festival reading and reflecting on Kept Apart from Biohacked & Begging.
30 October 2020: Leading a creative writing workshop with young writers and scientists for the King’s College London Utopia Now project [competition winners only].
6 November 2020: interviewed by James Boobar for the alitpassage YouTube channel.
Spring 2020
25 April 2020 (10am to 5:30pm): Hawkesbury Upton Literature Festival (postponed).
30 April 2020 (8:30pm to 9pm): BSFA Solidarity Salon #5: Geoff Ryman & Stephen Oram. I’ll be reading Chimy and Chris and pondering on the inspiration behind the story – Human Brain Organoids. (Facebook live event)
Autumn 2019
11 September 2019 (8pm to 10pm): Guest author, reading at Spineless Authors’ Night, Clapton Hart, 231 Lower Clapton Rd, Hackney Downs, London E5 8EG.
28 September 2019 (6pm to 9pm): Cyborg Cadavers, a new exhibition from Hallidonto. I’ll be reading Death Life Transfer, a specially commissioned piece for the launch of the exhibition [Streett Marburg and Charlotte Casadéjus, 297 Lillie Road, London, SW6 7LL].
24 October 2019 (6:30pm to 10:30pm): “Stories of the past have been carved, painted and printed. Today, they are whispered through earbuds, watched through screens and available to download. But how will we share stories in the future?” Find out at FutureFest Late by NESTA at the Barbican, London.
10 December 2019 (6:30pm to 9pm): Talking Tales in Stokes Croft, Bristol. I’ll be reading Dormant Status from Biohacked & Begging. [LeftBank, 128 Cheltenham Rd, Bristol, BS6 5RW].
Summer 2019
10 August 2019 (readings at 11:30 and 2:30): People’s Park Play Day Future Fictions as part of Furtherfield Citizen Sci-Fi celebrating 150 years of Finsbury Park I’ll be reading “Long Live the Strawberries of Finsbury Park” [Finsbury Park, London, N4].
21 August 2019: “The AI will see you now” as part of the Barbican’s AI More Than Human exhibition. I will be curating a set of stories on the theme of AI and health for the event and possibly reading.
Spring 2019
23 January 2019 (7pm to 9pm): British Science Fiction Association | reading from soon to be released collection – Biohacked & Begging and a Q&A session [The Artillery Arms, 102 Bunhill Row, London, EC1Y 8N]
12 February 2019 (6:30pm to 9pm): Virtual Futures presents Near-Future Fictions on the theme of ‘Another Loving‘. Curated by Stephen Oram and Britta Schulte. [Miranda, Ace Hotel, Shoreditch, London]
12 March 2019 (6:30pm to 9pm): Virtual Futures presents Near-Future Fictions on the theme of ‘Autonomous Agents‘. Curated by Stephen Oram and Vaughan Stanger. [Miranda, Ace Hotel, Shoreditch, London]
09 April 2019 (6:30pm to 9pm): Virtual Futures presents Near-Future Fictions on the theme of ‘Boundless Bodies‘. Curated by Stephen Oram and Jule Owen. [Miranda, Ace Hotel, Shoreditch, London]
14 April 2019 (2pm to 5pm): signing copies of Biohacked & Begging at WH Smith [Westfield, White City, London]
20 April: Launch of Biohacked & Begging at Ytterbium (British Science Fiction Association’s Eastercon). Park inn Heathrow, London.
27 April 2019 (1pm to 4pm): signing copies of Biohacked & Begging at WH Smith [Westfield, Stratford, White City, London]
14 May 2019 (6:30pm to 9pm): Virtual Futures presents Near-Future Fictions on the theme of ‘Lasting Labours‘. Curated by Stephen Oram and Allen Ashley. [Miranda, Ace Hotel, Shoreditch, London]
03 June 2019 (7pm to 9pm): Share the Future – talks, readings and audience Q&A [Sainsbury Wellcome Centre, Fitzrovia, London].
08 June 2019 (10am to 11am): BSFA & SFF One-Day Convention & AGM – panel on The Zero Sum of Literature: are some SF writers wrong to not welcome “literary” writers with open arms to the genre? [Department of Physics, South Kensington Campus, Imperial College]
Autumn 2018
19 October 2018: Author talk with Richard Lowe [podcast]
Summer 2018
13 June 2018 (18:30 to 20:30): Science meets Science Fiction, a panel discussion and short-story readings on using near-future science fiction to foster transformative conversations between scientists and other audiences. [Waterstones, Tottenham Court Rd, London]
24 June 2018 (7pm): Enfield Literary Festival – readings as part of The Clockhouse London Writers Presents (Dugdale Theatre, 39 London Road, Enfield EN2 6DS)
27 June 2018 (7pm): London LASER Labs #2 Liminal Bodies – I’ll be reading and taking part in a panel exploring the intersection of the body and technology, ideas of the cyborg and speculative future narratives. (Central Saint Martins, London, N1C 4AA)
6 July 2018: BBC Radio Leeds interview about the Robo-pocalypse (1 hour 42 minutes in)
8 July 2018 (1:30 to 2:45): Bradford Literature Festival | Robo-pocalypse, a panel on the current state of technology, how far it can go, and whether this fundamentally changes our understanding of what it means to be human. [Richmond Building, University of Bradford]
9 July 2018: Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence lunchtime seminar – “Scifi author Stephen Oram talks about his collaboration with Bristol Robotics Lab and the Human Brain Project that led to the SciFi flash fiction, Eating Robots. He will read a selection of near-future fictional thought experiments on AI and robots, including Eating Robots, and ask whether these are the things we should be worrying about.” [private event]
Spring 2018
16 January 2018 (7pm to 9:30pm): Unsung Stories Live – science fiction, fantasy, horror and all the other stuff that makes that fluffy nerdy bit of you quiver like a tribble. [Kings Cross, London]
20 February 2018 (6:30pm to 9pm): Virtual Futures presents Near-Future Fictions Vol. 04 on the theme of ‘(Dis)ease of the i-Mortal‘. [Library Club, Central London]
19 March 2018 (7pm invite only): Launch of Jule Owen’s “The Kind”. I’ll be on panel of fellow writers, futurists, and scientists to explore the purpose and challenges of imagining the future. Jule’s book skirts a line between dystopia and utopia. The panel will discuss why it is so hard to imagine utopias, and the role of dystopia in provoking much-needed debate about how we are shaping the future with the science, technology, and industry of today.
Contact info@juleowen.com for more information
28 March 2018 (19:00): British Science Fiction Association | reading from Eating Robots and Other Stories [The Artillery Arms, 102 Bunhill Row, London, EC1Y 8N]
12 April 2018 5pm to 7pm (live streamed): Strange Brains, Alien Minds by Transforming Future Science through Science Fiction. Transforming future science through near-future science fiction is a collaboration between King’s College London’s Department of Global Health and Public Policy, writer Stephen Oram and Virtual Futures, supported by the Cultural Institute at King’s.
17 April 2018 (6:30pm to 9pm): Virtual Futures presents Near-Future Fictions Vol. 06 on the theme of ‘Tomorrow’s Battles‘. I’ll be reading a new story – “Capitalist Crumbs” [Library Club, Central London]
15 May 2018 (6:30pm to 9pm): Virtual Futures presents Near-Future Fictions Vol. 07 on the theme of ‘Post-Brain‘. I’ll be reading a new story – “Cracked” [Library Club, Central London]
Speaking at events
If you’re looking for a speaker at an event, here’s an idea of the sort of things I’m up to.
Recently, my focus has been on collaborating with experts to understand the work that’s going on in neuroscience, artificial intelligence and deep machine learning. From this I write short pieces of near-future science fiction as thought experiments and use them as a starting point for discussion between me, scientists and the public.
Examples of this are a project with Bristol Robotics Lab and the Human Brain Project for the Bristol Literary Festival (short version & full version), a collaboration with the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre for Neural Circuits and Behaviour and the Transforming future science through near-future science fiction project with King’s College London.
I discussed these projects as part of a panel at the Science in Public 2017 conference: “The imagination of possible scientific futures has a colourful history of interaction with scientific research agendas and public expectations. Emphasizing fiction as a method for engaging with and mapping the influence of possible futures this panel will discuss the role of science fiction historically, the role of science fiction in the 21st Century, and its potential as a method for engagement between scientific researchers and publics.”
I’m happy to speak about my collaborations, about what’s interesting to me as a fiction writer and to use the science fiction to inspire discussion about what might happen when ‘messy’ humanity collides with slightly faulty tech and creates those cracks in the code.
I can also run workshops for event attendees who would like to have a go at writing a very short piece of fiction.
If you want to get in touch, the easiest way is to complete the short contact form below. Some alternative options are listed underneath.
Twitter: @OramStephen
FaceBook: Stephen Oram Author