2020 Virtual Symposium
Program
The 2020 Symposium took place virtually, which was a tough decision to make, but had the added benefit of making the Symposium more accessible! Enjoy the videos below of the speakers' presentations and the Historical Conjuror's demonstration.
Next year in person, we hope!
Introduction
Presentations and Presenters
A Friend of Mr. Sherlock Holmes is Always Welcome - Rob Nunn
How is being a Sherlockian like teaching elementary school? Rob Nunn will share his thoughts on the similarities between education and this interest of ours.
Rob Nunn is the Gasogene of The Parallel Case of St. Louis, Lamplighter of the Priory Teachers Association, Program Chair of the Beacon Society, and member of other Sherlockian groups. He is the recipient of the Beacon Award for his annual Sherlock Holmes unit he teaches to fifth grade students, author of The Criminal Mastermind of Baker Street, and co-editor of the forthcoming The Finest Assorted Collection. His writings have also been published in the BSI Professional Series book, Education Never Ends, The Sherlock Holmes Journal, The Watsonian, and other anthologies. He lives in Edwardsville, IL with his wife and daughter and his thoughts on Sherlockiana can be found on his blog, "Interesting Though Elementary".
The Responsibility of Writing about Baker Street - Angela Misri
Creating a world is one thing - writing in a world created by a writer like Arthur Conan Doyle is quite another. Join this discussion with Angela Misri about respecting the canon created by a great writer while adding your own flavour to the space.
Angela Misri is an award-winning journalist, author and educator. She’s also a Master Bootmaker and an avid Sherlockian. Her young-adult detective series, called The Portia Adams Adventures, is set at 221B Baker Street in the 1930s, and her first middle-grade novel is called Pickles vs the Zombies and was published by Cormorant books in September, 2019. Misri has an MA in journalism from the University of Western Ontario and has worked as a digital journalist for almost 20 years, first at the CBC and now at The Walrus. She also teaches in the journalism faculty at Ryerson University in Toronto.
Observations on Baker Street, Then and Now. - Bonnie MacBird
Bonnie MacBird has been sequestered since March 7th in a Victorian flat just off Baker Street. Having lived there on and off for several years, she will be sharing an informal– artistic rather than scholarly– look at English culture, character, and realities both in Holmes’s time and now, in and around the famous address.
Bonnie MacBird, BSI, ASH, has loved Holmes since age ten. After a serial career as a story exec at Universal, a screenwriter (TRON), an Emmy winning documentary producer, a theatre actor and a writing teacher at UCLA Extension, MacBird reinvented herself in 2015 as the author of the acclaimed Sherlock Holmes Adventure Series for HarperCollins. Her traditional Conan Doyle-style thrillers ART IN THE BLOOD (2015), UNQUIET SPIRITS (2017) and THE DEVIL’S DUE (2019) have been translated into 17 languages, and made Publisher Weekly Editor’s Pick, along with kudos by Forbes, The Spectator, and many others. Michael Dirda of the Washington Post called The Devil’s Due “the best Sherlock Holmes novel of recent memory”. MacBird lives in Los Angeles and London where she’s currently at work on the fourth in the series, THE THREE LOCKS.
Sherlock Holmes and the Furtive Festivity - Mina Hoffman
Mina Hoffman, director, along with screenwriter/“writeress” Caroline Duessel and cinematographer/graphic designer, Taylor Dolniak, will be screening the short film and discussing the process of making a queer Sherlockian visual pastiche in today’s Sherlock-saturated media world.
Mina Hoffman is a Los Angeles based storyteller and marketer working at CBS Interactive. She is a graduate of Point Park University with a Bachelor of Arts in Cinema Production concentrating in Directing. Mina’s been creating films since she was eleven and has definitely come a long way from directing her barbies and sister in living room productions. Mina's latest film, Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of the Furtive Festivity, is currently giving LGBTQ+ people life across the internet and competing in film festivals worldwide. Mina's biggest passion is telling compelling and inclusive stories - all while tickling your funny bone.
“As to the Letters...” - Les Klinger
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Les Klinger shares selected material from a trove of letters between Arthur Conan Doyle and John Watson.
Leslie S. Klinger is the two-time Edgar® winning editor of New Annotated Sherlock Holmes and Classic American Crime Fiction of the 1920s. He has also edited two anthologies of classic mysteries and, with Laurie R. King, four anthologies of stories inspired by the Sherlock Holmes Canon, with the fifth, In League With Sherlock Holmes, due from Pegasus Books in December. Klinger is the series editor of Library of Congress Crime Classics, a partnership of the Library of Congress and Poisoned Pen Press/Sourcebooks, and the series editor of the History/Biography series of the Baker Street Irregulars Press. A friend tagged him as “the world’s first consulting Sherlockian,” and he has served as a consultant on the two Warner Bros. Holmes films, the new Legendary Pictures film “Enola Holmes,” and on many comics, graphic novels, and books. In 2012-14, Laurie R. King and he successfully litigated with the Conan Doyle Estate Limited to establish the copyright rules regarding the characters of Holmes and Watson. Klinger is invested in the Baker Street Irregulars as “The Abbey Grange” and lives in Malibu, California.
Historical Conjuring with Professor DR Schreiber
Professor DR Schreiber adapted his live show for a virtual format. A brief moment from the beginning and a little bit of the Q&A at the end, but the magic is intact!
Early in the 18th century, magic (or conjuring as it was referred) emerged as a genuine art form and entertainment. Professors of natural philosophy and conjuring would rent taverns, legitimate theaters or lecture halls for the exhibition and displays of legerdemain, necromancy, or what would today be called “illusion” and “magic tricks.” Top dollar would be paid by the citizens of Europe to see the latest discoveries in the science of “natural philosophy.” Today, Professor DR Schreiber presents an historic look at the beginnings of modern magic in his performances and exhibitions. Professor DR Schreiber will lead you on a stroll through the past centuries of conjuring entertainment.