Ascendio 2012

We are pleased to announce the details of the Ascendio keynote! Join us Saturday, July 14 from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. for an engaging panel discussion, accompanied by a delicious lunch.

Harry Potter has not merely influenced a generation, but fundamentally changed it. In our keynote panel GENERATION POTTER: FIFTEEN YEARS LATER, we will examine and discuss the worldwide phenomenon of Harry Potter and it’s impact on public discourse. How have Harry Potter fans changed publishing, academia, religion, activism? How is “generation Potter” — those who experienced Harry Potter as children and are now media-savvy, Millennial adults — shaping culture? Join panelists Neta Kligler-Vilenchik, Connie Neal, Ben Schrank and Catherine Tosenberger for an engaging discussion from four diverse perspectives.

Tickets for our keynote are $80, in addition to any level of Ascendio registration (other than Merlin’s Circle, with which it is included). To purchase a keynote ticket, jump to our registration portal!

Keynote Speaker Bios

Neta Kligler-Vilenchik is a Doctoral student working with Professor Henry Jenkins on the Media Activism and Participatory Politics (MAPP) project at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California. As part of the MAPP project, she is looking at connections between fan communities and youth civic engagement, focusing on members of the Harry Potter Alliance, Imagine Better, and the Nerdfighters. Neta has published work on the Harry Potter Alliance and Invisible Children in the Journal of Transformative Works & Cultures, and is currently working on her Doctoral thesis on alternative citizenship models and their potential for youth civic engagement. She holds an M.A. in Communication from the University of Haifa, Israel.

Connie Neal (www.hogwartsdefender.com) was the first Christian author to publicly challenge negative attacks against Harry Potter by some in the Christian community, defending Harry in the media and enduring the resultant backlash. She is author of What’s a Christian to do with Harry Potter? (2000); The Gospel according to Harry Potter: The Spiritual Journey of the World’s Greatest Seeker (2002, 2008); Wizards, Wardrobes, and Wookiees: Navigating Good and Evil in Harry Potter, Narnia, & Star Wars (2007) along with many other books and Bible projects. Neal’s books, in many languages, are widely cited in other books, doctoral dissertations, scholarly journals, magazines (including Newsweek & Christianity Today), and media worldwide. Her Harry Potter-related books are used in university courses from Pepperdine to Yale. Her latest release is Harry Potter’s Book of Virtues.

Ben Schrank is President and Publisher of Razorbill, an imprint of Penguin (USA). Razorbill’s books include Jay Asher’s #1 New York Times bestselling Thirteen Reasons Why, Richelle Mead’s #1 bestselling Vampire Academy and Bloodlines series, Beth Revis’ New York Times bestselling Across The Universe series, the New York Times Bestseller Marcel the Shell with Shoes on by Jenny Slate and Dean Fleischer Camp and the multiple star review winning and entirely revolutionary image-driven novel Chopsticks by Jessica Anthony and Rodrigo Corral. Ben Schrank’s novel, Love is a Canoe, will be published by Sarah Crichton Books/Farrar Straus and Giroux in early 2013. For more about Razorbill, go to www.razorbillbooks.com and for more about Ben Schrank, go to www.benschrank.com

Catherine Tosenberger is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Winnipeg, where she is attached to the Centre for Research in Young People’s Texts and Cultures. Her Ph.D. thesis was on Harry Potter fanfiction on the Internet. She has published on queer Potter fanfiction, Supernatural fanfiction, and fairy tales; her research interests include folk narratives, erotica and pornography, and children’s and adolescent culture and media.

Did you see our giveaway on Tumblr? Click here to see a post you can reblog, to win the Infinitus umbrella signed by many StarKids including Lauren, Darren & Joe Moses!

Haven’t gotten your tickets to see Team StarKid at Ascendio yet?  It’s not too late!!

Totally Awesome StarKid Deal

For $185 you can attend all the StarKid Sessions.  This includes  a 2-day Ascendio pass for Friday and Saturday, the Panel ticket, and the “A Very Potter Musical” Live Commentary ticket ($200 value).

With this package, we’re also offering a special sale price for the StarKid Meet & Greet.  Get your ticket now for only $80. At the Meet & Greet you’ll be able to hang out with Team StarKid and meet them up close and personal.  Just think:  90 minutes, 5 StarKids, 124 fans, and you!

Register or add on to your existing registration here:  http://hp2012.org/?page_id=131

Click to jump to our handy-dandy “How much StarKid can I get for my money?” planning chart!

To register for Ascendio and/or add StarKid tickets to your existing registration, jump to our registration portal! (if you are already registered, click “view or change your existing registration”)

They performed in the round at Azkatraz. They premiered A Very Potter Sequel at Infinitus 2010. And they’re coming back for Ascendio!

Yes, on Friday and Saturday (July 13/14) members of Team StarKid be participating in panel discussions, special viewings of their shows, signing autographs and hosting a special meet & greet for about 150 Ascendio attendees!

All panels, discussions, autograph sessions, photo ops and the Meet & Greet are open to Ascendio registrants only! Click here for information about the different types of registration. Please note that if you are Merlin’s Circle, you will need to RSVP for ticketed events and to get an autograph ticket. More information will be sent to you via email.

Read More…

ETA: The contest is closed! Thanks to everyone who entered! We’re going to do a randomized drawing on January 18, and will notify the winners by January 19! We can’t wait to see Beth at Ascendio!
- Edited January 17, 2012 at 10:05 AM

In celebration of Ascendio special guest Beth Revis‘s second book, A Million Suns, coming out on Tuesday, we’re doing a giveaway!

One lucky person will win Across the Universe (new paperback edition) and its sequel A Million Suns, both signed by Beth!

And because we love e-books — and Beth — a second person will win a FREE e-book set of AtU & AMS (in the format of their choice – Kindle, Nook, iBook, etc.). That’s not all! A third and fourth person will get SUPER COOL AtU swag pack containing a poster, rubber-band bracelet, pin button and bookmarks!

The giveaway will run from today, 1/8, until midnight PST on 1/16 (MLK Day).

Not familiar with Beth’s books but love giveaways… and books? Here’s a bit more about Across the Universe and A Million Suns. Don’t forget that Beth is coming to Ascendio, so you can not only discuss the series with the author, but have your books signed there!

Across the Universe

Amy is a cryogenically frozen passenger aboard the vast spaceship Godspeed. She expects to awaken on a new planet, 300 years in the future. But fifty years before Godspeed‘s scheduled landing, Amy’s cryo chamber is unplugged, and she is nearly killed.

Now, Amy is caught inside an enclosed world where nothing makes sense. Godspeed‘s passengers have forfeited all control to Eldest, a tyrannical and frightening leader, and Elder, his rebellious and brilliant teenage heir.

Amy desperately wants to trust Elder. But should she? All she knows is that she must race to unlock Godspeed‘s hidden secrets before whoever woke her tries to kill again.

A Million Suns

Godspeed was fueled by lies. Now it is ruled by chaos.

It’s been three months since Amy was unplugged. The life she always knew is over. And everywhere she looks, she sees the walls of the spaceship Godspeed. But there may just be hope: Elder has assumed leadership of the ship. He’s finally free to enact his vision – no more Phydus, no more lies.

But when Elder discovers shocking news about the ship, he and Amy race to discover the truth behind life on Godspeed. They must work together to unlock a puzzle that was set in motion hundreds of years earlier, unable to fight the romance that’s growing between them and the chaos that threatens to tear them apart.

All you have to do to enter? Comment on this entry! It’s that easy. Be sure to include a working email address, since that’s how we’ll contact the winners.

Spread the word! Tweet, FB, Tumblr, email!

For contest rules, please see here.

Ascendio is excited to announce that Harry Potter actor and HP convention veteran Chris Rankin will be a special guest at Ascendio 2012. Chris, who plays Percy Weasley in many of the Harry Potter films, including Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows II, has previously attended HPEF’s The Witching Hour and been a special guest at our Azkatraz and Infinitus events, as well as The Leaky Cauldron’s LeakyCon 2011. He also has an extensive theater background, having performed in pantomimes and plays such as Dick Whittington, Jack & the Beanstalk, Hedda Gabler and Salome.

Hugely fascinated by Harry Potter fandom — and welcomed by it — Chris has focused his university thesis on fandom, and is excited to present his work at Ascendio — a Harry Potter actor-special guest first!

Other events featuring Chris will be announced at a later time — but rest assured, Chris will present, do a Q&A, sign Harry Potter DVDs and more!

TEAM ASCENDIO is enchanted to announce that Aimée Carter, author of The Goddess Test and next January’s Goddess Interrupted (both from Harlequin TEEN), will be attending in July. Aimée has written fanfic and original stories for nearly fifteen years, and has long participated in the Harry Potter fandom; she was on staff for POAIMAXNYC in June of 2004.

Aimée will be doing readings and signings at Ascendio, and participating in panels on writing, including the differences between writing fanfic and writing in a self-created universe. On her website, Aimee wrote that fanfiction is:

“how I learned how to write, and there is nothing like the kind of feedback you get online from total strangers who just want to read a good story. Talk about toughening you up. Most of what I wrote was Harry Potter fan fiction from roughly 2000 and on, but I did dabble in Hanson fan fiction before then.

Yes, I am a geek and totally proud of it.”

You can find Aimée on Twitter, Facebook or her website.

We are thrilled to announce that young adult author and Harry Potter fan Beth Revis will be a special guest at Ascendio 2012! Beth’s debut novel, Across the Universe, is a sci-fi thriller and New York Times Best Seller that has been described as Wall-E meets The Giver. A Million Suns, the second book in the AtU trilogy, comes out in January 2012.

In addition to hosting a reading and signing at Ascendio, Beth will be participating in several panels relating to writing, the publishing industry and themes in Harry Potter.

Beth Revis lives in rural North Carolina with her husband and dog, and believes space is nowhere near the final frontier. A former high-school English teacher, Beth can’t help but blog about writing, grammar, and publishing at Writing it Out. She is the founder of the new popular dystopian blog, the League of Extraordinary Writers and blows off steam by trying to come up with something witty in 140 characters or less, lusting after books on GoodReads, or wasting time on Facebook. Beth is represented by Merrilee Heifetz at Writers House and published by Razorbill, a Penguin imprint.

Lev Grossman, TIME Magazine’s book critic and tech writer, is the newest special guest to join the Ascendio programming roster. Mr. Grossman’s best-selling novels, “The Magicians” (2009) and “The Magician King” (2011) have been called “The Catcher in the Rye for devotees of alternative universes…” (Chicago Tribune) and “Harry Potter for grown-ups” (The Guardian).

Lev has been TIME magazine’s resident writer on books and tech issues since 2002 and posts all over the Internet, including Time.com, his personal blog at levgrossman.com, and @Leverus on Twitter. You may have read his 2010 TIME Person of the Year story on Mark Zuckerberg, or his 2011 piece on fanfiction, which featured Harry Potter fandom. Lev also edits TIME’s annual Best Inventions and 10 Ideas issues and pioneered their coverage of video games, blogs, viral videos, Facebook, and webcomics like Penny Arcade and Achewood.

At Ascendio, he will not only be doing a reading and signing of his books, but will lead Formal Programming sessions on Pottermore from the perspective of a gamer, a parent and a technologist, and give exclusive insights into his 2005 interview with J.K. Rowling and his 2011 article on fanfiction. Lev is no stranger to Harry Potter conventions — in 2009, Lev was a special guest at HPEF’s 6th event, Azkatraz.

Fanfiction is what literature might look like if it were reinvented from scratch after a nuclear apocalypse by a band of brilliant pop-culture junkies trapped in a sealed bunker. They don’t do it for money. That’s not what it’s about. The writers write it and put it up online just for the satisfaction. They’re fans, but they’re not silent, couchbound consumers of media. The culture talks to them, and they talk back to the culture in its own language.
Lev Grossman, TIME, July 18, 2011