I'm a professional writer of a particular genre of non-fiction: academic research (social sciences). Our folks are much like yours - they are obsessed with their own tiny corner of the field, and given the opportunity, they will run for 50 minutes non-stop (the standard length of a seminar talk) or longer because they *love* their subject. We are all guilty of it. We wouldn't be in the academy if we *didn't* have that intense love of our topic - even if no one else in the known universe, including our significant others and dissertation advisors, understands why. I have a feeling, from what you said, that many of your neo-pros are much the same way. There's a combination of insecurity and topic love, plus in your case publisher pressure, that makes the self-focus difficult to avoid.
The way we get around this is to designate a chair or moderator for each panel. This person's job is to manage time and to manage questions from the floor. Obliquely, this person also manages the panelists by jumping in as needed to redirect the conversation and to remind panelists to keep their remarks brief so that we can take as many questions as possible, etc. It's often a senior person, in our case, but it could be anyone. It could be a member of the panel so long as that designation is made in advance by the con organizers (and this means not needing to secure additional bodies for the panel). Perhaps you might suggest this to cons in your field, especially ones where these types of panelists frequently attend...
That said, I'm curious to hear what you thought of Pittsburgh. It's my hometown. :-)
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branchandroot
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Date: 2011-07-26 01:33 pm (UTC)The way we get around this is to designate a chair or moderator for each panel. This person's job is to manage time and to manage questions from the floor. Obliquely, this person also manages the panelists by jumping in as needed to redirect the conversation and to remind panelists to keep their remarks brief so that we can take as many questions as possible, etc. It's often a senior person, in our case, but it could be anyone. It could be a member of the panel so long as that designation is made in advance by the con organizers (and this means not needing to secure additional bodies for the panel). Perhaps you might suggest this to cons in your field, especially ones where these types of panelists frequently attend...
That said, I'm curious to hear what you thought of Pittsburgh. It's my hometown. :-)