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2026 Panels Staffing Call

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We need panelists and panel moderators!
On May 19, the WisCon Panels team will pare down the schedule based on what we have not been able to staff. That means, we need you to get the word out to all the cool people to come be part of this con and make it awesome.
Please email Panels@WisCon.sf3.org if you are able to participate! Also, get a Your WisCon Account so we can match you to your chosen panel!

We are particularly in need for people on the following:
    • The Brother-in-Law of the Not Another Race Panel (mod & panelists needed; mod & panelists of color only) **This panel will be cut if we do not get multiple volunteers**
    • General Strike! (panelists who have studied the topic needed) **This panel will be cut if we do not get at least one volunteer**
    • Gender Neutrality In Gendered Languages (panelists needed; speakers of languages with grammatical genders only)
    • NEW Premee Mohamed: Queering the Apocalypse (panelists needed)
    • NEW Self-Publishing While Avoiding Kindle Unlimited (panelists neeeded)
    • NEW Writing and Publishing in a Post-Microsoft World (panelists needed)
    • How Not to Do Copaganda (panelists needed; attendees who have studied the topic with an ACAB focus only)
    • The Man Wants You to Drink the Gen AI Kool-Aid (mod needed, panelists optional)
    • Androids and Cyborgs and Robots, Oh My! (science fiction vs. reality) (panelists needed)
    • Gender Expression in Stranger Things (fan panelists needed)
    • Horror in Color (fan panelists of color needed)
    • NEW Fantasy ER (panelists with medical background needed)

four bookworms of different colors having an animated discussion at a table

Filled:

    • NEW Caremongering (panelists needed)
    • NEW Liminal Spaces in Speculative Fiction (compared to myth) (panelists needed)
    • Gender Diversity in D&D (mod needed) FILLED!!
    • Darcie Little Badger: Multicultural Magic (panelists needed) FILLED!!
    • Bug/Insect Tropes in Speculative Fiction (mod needed) FILLED!!
    • Nested Storytelling (especially in GoH works; panelists needed) FILLED!!
    • NEW Q&A with Guest of Honor Darcie Little Badger (mod only) 
    • NEW Q&A with Guest of Honor Premee Mohamed (mod only)
    • NEW Our Dreaded TBR Piles (roundtable, mod only)  FILLED!!
    • NEW The Impact of Good Representation (disabled panelists, queer panelists, & panelists of color especially) FILLED!!
    • NEW Modes of Queerness in The Summer Hikaru Died (fan panelists) FILLED!
    • NEW My Favorite Book When I Was Twelve (how did it hold up?) (panelists) FILLED!
    • NEW Heated Rivalry and Other LGBTQI+ Sports Stories (queer fan panelists) FILLED!
    • NEW Wicked From Page to Stage to Screen (fan panelists of any version) FILLED!
    • Stand or Fall Together: Coop Games (can be roundtable, fan panelists optional) FILLED!!

    In Your WisCon Account, you may also sign up to be a general substitute in case others can’t be on panels. Go to Participant View and select Yes from the drop-down menu next to “Do you want to be a panelist and/or moderator?” on the landing page.

    This list is subject to change as some panelists join and other panelists’ schedules change. 

WisCONline2026

Panel Interest Survey Open

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Register now to enter responses in the WisCon 48 Panel Interest Survey! From AI to resistance in speculative fiction to Heated Rivalry’s impact on fandom, we have topics you won’t want to miss!

Is this where I sign up to be on panels, to Moderate panels, or just say which panels I’d like to Attend?
Yes! We do all three in one survey.
One way to do it is look at each subject and mark anything interesting as ones you want to attend, and, if there’s one you have Thoughts on, then mark it as one you want to be in. For those you get to fill in any experience I have on the topic, which helps us build balance panels. Finally, if there’s one you definitely don’t want to miss, then you could mark it as one you want to moderate. (There will be panel moderator training this year, so even if you’re a beginner we’ll give you a good start!)
How do I get to the survey?

This survey is available by going to http://wiscon.net and logging into your Wiscon account in the top left corner of the page, then click on Interest Survey along the top.If you don’t have an account or your password, then go to Forgot Password at https://program.wiscon.net/ForgotPassword.php
to create a new account or password!

How do I submit a manuscript to participate in a Workshop Critique Session?
You can submit a manuscript until May 1st this year. For more information on submission guidelines and how critique sessions operate, visit http://wiscon.net/programming/workshops/.

How do I read my work or make an academic presentation?
To read your work at WisCon, please email readings@wiscon.net
Keep an eye out here for more information about academic presentations!

What’s next?
We will close the Interest Survey on April 19th. After that point, you can sign up to be a substitute panelist or moderator.
Behind the scenes:

  1. The Panels Team will determine which panels “make the cut” aka have enough interest, panelists, and a moderator. (We may recruit additional panelists or moderators for particularly popular panels, starting with substitutes who have signed up by then.) Next,
  2. we will try to fit our list of panels into WisCon’s schedule as well as the schedules of each and every panelist and moderator. (We like to call this 4-dimensional tetris. It’s fun but challenging work!) Then
  3. we’ll confirm with the panelists and moderators, and finally
  4. we’ll rearrange the schedule again, to accommodate any substitute panelists’ schedules. (Even more 4-D tetris!)
With luck and plenty of willing panelists and moderators, we can post the panel schedule by May 1st!
Official Announcements, WisCONline2026

WisCon 48 Guests of Honor — Darcie Little Badger & Premee Mohamed

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We are thrilled to introduce our Guests of Honor for WisCONline 2026!

Darcie Little Badger

Alt-text for picture if you can do it in WordPress: Purple and yellow background with the WisCon logo and picture of a person with chic red-colored hair wearing a black t-shirt. Text is "INTRODUCING OUR GUEST OF HONOR, Darcie Little Badger. Join us! Memorial Day Weekend, May 22-25, 2026. WisCon Online! WisCon.net

Darcie Little Badger is a Lipan Apache writer with a PhD in oceanography. Her critically-acclaimed debut novel, Elatsoe, was featured in Time Magazine as one of the best 100 fantasy books of all time. Elatsoe also won the Locus award for best first novel and is a Nebula, Ignyte, and Lodestar finalist. Her 2nd novel, a Snake Falls to Earth, received a Nebula Award, and Ignyte Award, and a Newberry Honor and is on the National Book Awards longlist. Her 3rd book, Sheine Lende, is a prequel to Elatsoe and was a USA Today bestseller and Lodestar award winner. Darcie is married to a veterinarian named Taran.

Premee Mohamed
Purple ground with Wiscon logo and picture of dark-haired woman wearing blue and black. Text: Introducing our next guest of honor PREMEE MOHAMED, a Nebula, World Fatasy, Ignyte, Locus and Aurora award-winning Indo-Caribbean scientist and speculative fiction author. Hugo, British Fantasy, & Ursula K. Le Guin Finalist. Author of "The Butcher of the Forest." 2024 Edmonton Public Library writer-in-residence. Crawford Award finalist. Wiscon.net
Premee Mohamed is a Nebula, World Fantasy, Ignyte, and Aurora award-winning Indo-Caribbean scientist and speculative fiction author based in Edmonton, Alberta. She has also been a finalist for the Hugo, Locus, British Fantasy, British Science Fiction, and Crawford awards. In 2024, she was the Edmonton Public Library writer-in-residence. She is the author of the ‘Beneath the Rising’ series of novels as well as several novellas. Her short fiction has appeared in many venues and she can be found on her website at www.premeemohamed.com.
Official Announcements, WisCONline2026

WisCon is officially on(line) for 2026!

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Thanks to the efforts of volunteers, we are officially staffed enough to commit to WisCONline in 2026!

We intend to have WisCon 2026 over the customary Memorial Day weekend, May 21-25, 2026.  GoH announcements are coming soon! We can’t wait to share more with you about what lies ahead for 2026.

We’re also excited to announce that we’re planning to have WisCon in person again in the Concourse Hotel in Madison in 2027! If you’re interested in making that happen, consider volunteering with us.

You can find current open roles here: http://wiscon.net/volunteer/concom/
The volunteer page will be continuously updated as we prepare for both upcoming WisCons.

Want to support the future of WisCon? Donations are always open at http://wiscon.net/donate/.

WisCONline 2025

Urgent Call for Panelists for WisCONline 2025

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WisCon has an urgent need for panelists.
On May 19, the WisCon Panels team will pare down the schedule based on what we have not been able to staff. That means, we need you to get the word out to all the cool people to come be part of this con and make it awesome.
Please email Panels@WisCon.sf3.org if you are able to participate!We are particularly in need for people on the following:

  • Wheel of Time needs a moderator
  • Does Baby Have Hat needs at least a moderator.
  • The Year Without Sunshine and Other Stories 
  • Imagining the Past, Divining the Future: The Works of Andrea Hairston 
  • Citizen Sleeper’s Personhood in Capitalism needs a moderator.
  • Not Another Race Panel
  • The Year in Trans SFF has a moderator but needs panelists.
  • Using Magical Realism to Build Collective Realities
  • The Wild World of Modern Agtech and Why Isn’t it Showing Up in Current SFF
  • Going Beyond Representation: Speculations on Creating Disabled Worldbuilding, 
  • Games We Love
  • Resistance Lessons From History needs a BIPOC panelist with historical knowledge or resistance participation.
  • Good News, Everyone
WisCONline 2025

WisCONline 2025 Registration is Live!

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Are you ready for WisCon 2025? Registration is now open here: https://wiscon2025.sched.com

Tickets for WisCon this year are “pay what you can” with a few suggested amounts available. However, you can truly pay whatever makes sense for you (no pressure or judgement!) including $0. To pay a different amount than the suggested options, contact registration@wiscon.net with the desired amount so we can issue you a code.

Please note that the schedule is not yet available but we will let you know as soon as it is.

As a reminder, WisCon takes place over May 23-26, 2025 and is online only this year (“WisCONline”). We can’t wait to see you there!

For any other questions, contact onlinecon@wiscon.net.

WisCONline 2025

WisCONline 2025 Dealers’ Room Applications

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If you’ve been a vendor at WisCon in the past, or intended to be a vendor this year, and are disappointed that it will be an online event, there’s good news for you. You can still be a virtual dealer on our Dealers’ Room page! Participation in this will be free, but you will need a website for us to feature. (WisCon cannot provide a payment platform for off-line businesses.)

We’re looking for about 40 vendors, which is roughly what we would have in a normal year. To sign up, please fill out our Google form here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1qRMwxRLxfg2mfzMr-5zhVqNp5hO3TLtv49LJ8OYHDIU/edit
The form will give us the 3 things we need from all participants. 1) We need your business name. 2) We need a short description of your business and what you are selling. (This is what will be displayed on the Vendors page.) 3) We need the link to your website.

We will take applicants on a first-come, first-serve basis. Applicants may apply between now and St Patrick’s day (3/17).

WisCONline 2025

WisCon 47 Guests of Honor — Naomi Kritzer & Andrea Hairston

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We are thrilled to introduce our Guests of Honor for WisCONline 2025!

Naomi Kritzer

Naomi Kritzer is a science fiction and fantasy writer from St. Paul, Minnesota. In Minneapolis and St. Paul, she is probably best known for her political blog, which provides deep-dive information on candidates in local political races. Outside of the Twin Cities, she is best known for her fiction, which has won the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award, the Edgar Award, and the Minnesota Book Award. She has a spouse, two grown kids and three cats (the number of cats is subject to change without notice). You can find Naomi online at naomikritzer.com or on Bluesky as @naomikritzer.bsky.social.

Andrea Hairston

Andrea Hairston is a novelist, playwright, poet, and L. Wolff Kahn 1931 Professor Emerita of Theatre and Africana Studies at Smith College. She ran away from the physics lab to the theatre when she was a young thing and has been a scientist, artiste, and hoodoo conjurer ever since. Novels: Archangels of Funk; Will Do Magic For Small Change, a New York Times Editor’s pick and finalist for the Mythopoeic, Lambda, and Otherwise Awards; Redwood and Wildfire, a Washington Post Best Book of 2022, Otherwise and Carl Brandon Award winner; Master of Poisons on the 2020 Kirkus Review’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy. Her short fiction appears in So Long Been Dreaming: Postcolonial Visions of the Future; New Suns: Original Speculative Fiction by People of Color; Trouble the Waters; and Lightspeed Magazine. Plays and essays are collected in Lonely Stardust. Tor Publishing Group will publish Mindscape on August 5, 2025. Andrea bikes at night year-round, meeting bears, multi-legged creatures of light and breath, and the occasional shooting star.

WisCONline 2025

2025 WisCon Town Hall

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WisCon will be holding a virtual town hall on February 19, 2025 from 7:00-8:00 pm Central.

WisCon town halls are a check-in with WisCon membership about the current state of WisCon, including our challenges and victories. This year, Chairs and members of the Board have a lot of changes to tell you about, as well!

All current and former WisCon attendees and volunteers welcome!

Google Meet joining info
Video call link: https://meet.google.com/ebg-kzqv-xyb
Or dial: ‪(US) +1 617-675-4444‬ PIN: ‪937 530 022 3950‬#
More phone numbers: https://tel.meet/ebg-kzqv-xyb?pin=9375300223950
WisCONline 2025

Volunteers Needed for WisCONline 2025: GoH Co-Lead, Apprentice Communications Chair

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Guest of Honor Co-Lead
Want to rub elbows with some of your favorite established authors? Sign on to coordinate communication and logistics for WisCon guests of honor! As Guest of Honor Co-Lead, you’ll make sure each guest has a place on the program and coordinate liaisons as needed. Learn more by contacting personnel@sf3.org (subject: GoH Lead).

Apprentice Communications Chair
Spread the word about WisCon! As Apprentice Communications Chair you’ll help the Communications Team transmit the latest WisCon news via its website, social media, and newsletters. To learn more, please contact personnel@sf3.org (subject: Apprentice Com Chair).
Volunteering, WisCONline 2025

Volunteers Needed for WisCONline 2025: Access Team, Writing Workshop Team

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Volunteers needed!
Access Team Member
Do you love finding and hiring people for needed services? We need an Access Team Member to hire live Closed Captions transcribers to help make WisCONline 2025 accessible and welcoming. The process is in place, we just need someone to train and go through the steps! Please contact personnel@sf3.org (subject: Access Team Member) for more info.
Writing Workshop Team Member
Nurture spec-fic writers! As Workshop Team Member you’ll help the Co-Leads manage video call rooms for critique sessions and special topic sessions and/or take shifts for writing sprints for WisCONline 2025. Contact personnel@sf3.org (subject: Workshop Team Member) for more information.
Volunteering

Volunteer Needed: IT

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IT volunteer needed: If you have experience with server infrastructure (LAMP stack knowledge desired but not required), we’d love your help with our server migration project. This position can last until the end of the project or can be a longer-term role, depending our your availability and interest. For more information, please contact personnel@sf3.org (subject: IT volunteer).

A feminist, diverse, inclusive science fiction and fantasy convention.