Category Archives: WisCon 41

WisCon 41 Con Suite — Seeking staff & at-con volunteers

WisCon Co-Chairs

Did you visit the Con Suite last year? Do you want to see WisCon’s Con Suite continue to be a place where people choose to eat and spend time?

Then we need you!

But there’s a catch.

Our intent is to specifically address the racist and misogynist abuse toward Con Suite staff and volunteers that we saw at last year’s con, so we are putting emphasis on recruiting Con Suite staff and volunteers who are white and male identified.*

What’s the difference between being Con Suite staff and a Con Suite volunteer?

Just a matter of scope and commitment.

Staff become part of our Concom prior to the convention, comprise a team under our Con Suite leads, are required to go through ServSafe training and certification (fees paid by WisCon) and to help to guide the work of volunteers, and will be asked to commit to a minimum of two three-hour shifts during the convention. Tasks will include setting and resetting the Con Suite space, preparing and portioning foods, maintaining and monitoring inventory, helping to order supplies, and unpacking and repacking equipment, among other things.

Volunteers are encouraged to go through ServSafe training and certification (fees paid by WisCon) though it isn’t required, must follow guidance from Con Suite staff and leads, don’t need to commit to any minimum number of hours, and are not part of the Concom. You can let us know that you intend to volunteer to help out in the Con Suite now or at any point before or during the convention. Tasks will include keeping the Con Suite clean and ready for visitors, directing foot traffic, assuring that everyone in the space is wearing shoes, helping staff to portion and set out food, helping staff to reset the space between mealtimes, and other things.

What will you get out of stepping up to become Con Suite staff, or volunteering?

The most crucial reward will be that we will continue to have a Con Suite where you will enjoy spending time and eating! We’ve had wonderful feedback — and very very high demand — for the Con Suite over the past two years. That means that the WisCon community loved what our Con Suite lead, Julia, created so much that she is no longer able to keep up with it. As a community we need to make sure that she and her successors lead a team that is both large enough that no one has to spend the entire convention working and capable enough that they can all rely on each other.

If pride in a popular Con Suite isn’t the reward you’re looking for, we’ve got more! All staff are automatically eligible to opt for a WisCon membership rebate of 40% of your registration fee, meaning that if you register for WisCon as an adult, you can opt to receive $20 of your $50 membership back after the con ends. Volunteering? You can get the same rebate deal as long as you volunteer at least six hours and ask the Con Suite lead to confirm those hours (ask how at the Registration Desk!).

To apply to join Con Suite staff, contact: recruitment@wiscon.net

To let us know you plan to volunteer in the Con Suite, contact: volunteers@wiscon.net

*Wait! You aren’t male identified, or you aren’t white, and you want to join the Con Suite team? Fantastic! We want to have you on the team as well, and we’ll work with you to make sure that your Con Suite experience is a good one. We are optimistic that we will not see a repeat of the poor behavior toward the Con Suite team last year, but we also assure you that behavior is a violation of our Code of Conduct, and will not be tolerated if we see it again.

WisCon 41 Concom opportunity — Dealers’ Room lead

WisCon Co-Chairs

The WisCon Dealers’ Room is a marketplace of books, toys, posters, artwork, magazines, cards, jewelry, and all sorts of other science fiction and fantasy related merchandise as well as items relevant to explorations of feminism, gender, race, class, and disability.

We are looking for someone to step into the role of lead for the Dealers’ Room for WisCon 41, as part of the Concom. To fill this role you do not need to be local to Madison, but should be planning to attend WisCon 41. We particularly welcome volunteers from traditionally underrepresented or marginalized identities.

The Dealers’ Room Lead role involves some planning prior to the convention, doable in a few hours a month during March, April, and May. During that time, you would review applications from vendors as they come in, determine the final list of vendors from the applications you receive, and maintain a waitlist if necessary. The Dealers’ Room lead is also responsible for answering questions from potential vendors, assigning them tables, and confirming that all table fees and memberships have been processed by the payment deadline.

During the convention, the lead also needs to be on hand while vendors are loading in to the space (Friday 10am-2pm), as well as for opening and closing the Dealers’ Room space every day, for checking in throughout opening hours, and for being on hand as vendors load out from the space on Monday (after 2pm).

The Dealers’ Room lead is part of the WisCon Concom and is automatically eligible to opt for a WisCon membership rebate of 40% of the registration fee, meaning that if you register for WisCon as an adult, you can opt to receive $20 of your $50 membership back after the con ends.

If you are interested in joining the concom as the Dealers’ Room lead, please contact recruitment@wiscon.net

WisCon 41 Concom opportunity — Gathering lead

WisCon Co-Chairs

For people new to WisCon, the Gathering is their very first look at what WisCon is like — and for folks who have been to WisCon before, it’s a welcome time to find people they haven’t seen in a year, to catch up, and to relax with one of the diversions that the Gathering has to offer!

Those experiences make the Gathering, the official start of the convention, an important event at every WisCon. A defining event, just as much as our Opening Ceremonies.

WisCon is a feminist convention, and we believe that means not just “diversity,” but inclusion and centering marginalized identities, including identities around race, gender, class, and ability. The Gathering must reflect that as well.

We are currently seeking a lead for the WisCon 41 Gathering. The Gathering lead is part of the WisCon Concom and is automatically eligible to opt for a WisCon membership rebate of 40% of the registration fee, meaning that if you register for WisCon as an adult, you can opt to receive $20 of your $50 membership back after the con ends.

You need not be local to Madison, but should be planning to attend WisCon 41. In particular, we are seeking applicants from traditionally underrepresented or marginalized identities.

Your role will include some planning prior to the convention, doable in a few hours a month during March, April, and May. You will determine what activities will be held from the applications you receive, communicate with the people running those activities, and solicit other activities as necessary. During the convention you will be on hand when the Gathering space is set up Friday morning and will be present during the event itself.

To apply to be Gathering lead, contact recruitment@wiscon.net

WisCon in solidarity with its community — a letter from our Anti-Abuse Team

WisCon Anti-Abuse Department
(And endorsed by the entire Concom.)

Dear WisCon Community,

We on the Anti-Abuse Team have been in a state of shock and horror since November 9, when the U.S. Presidency was won by a candidate who campaigned on a platform of explicit racism, misogyny, ableism, and autocracy. He and his supporters ridiculed, traumatized, and dehumanized Mexican-Americans, immigrants and undocumented people, African Americans, Asian Americans, Latinx, Native Americans, Asian and Pacific Islanders, Muslims, LGBTQ+ people, people with disabilities, Jews, survivors of sexual assault, women, Palestinians, prisoners of war, and their allies. Since the election, we have seen and heard about countless examples of racist, misogynist, homophobic, and transphobic abuse across the U.S., from diverse urban neighborhoods to rural towns. We have never needed the ability to imagine and enact a feminist, anti-racist, anti-ableist, anti-fascist future more. We have never needed WisCon more.

This May, when we come together in Madison to strategize, speculate, and celebrate the feminist science fiction whose imagination now feels so desperately urgent, we know that things are going to be fraught. We know that for many members of our community, the idea of coming to a small, majority-white city in a state that (however narrowly) voted for Trump in the election, feels terrifying, for reasons that are far from unjustified. We want you to know that the Safety and Anti-Abuse Teams are here for you before, during, and after the convention. Whatever we can do to help you feel supported, we will do. While we recognize that we are not able to control the climate in Madison outside of the Concourse Hotel, we will do whatever we can to mitigate that risk: we can walk with you and stand with you so that if anything does happen, you will not face it alone.

The job of the Anti-Abuse Team is to challenge and prevent harassment of our members from people within and outside the WisCon community, and to be proactive in keeping our convention spaces diverse, inclusive, and equitable. We want to support our community’s ability to disagree in an atmosphere of mutual respect, without reinforcing the disparagement of people inside and outside our community that Trump’s election has intensified. As we all work through complicated, controversial issues, AAT is here for you to call on if things get out of hand. We also know that you might be doing your political organizing elsewhere and want WisCon to be a place for relaxation and celebration. Our Statement of Principles and Code of Conduct are here to facilitate that too.

The Code of Conduct exists for your protection, and we take it seriously; this includes revising it to make WisCon better. Our mission may involve fostering conversation, providing training opportunities, or facilitating dialog; it may also mean supporting the convention’s provision of safer spaces, facilitating a buddy system, or even helping to provide opportunities for self care. We welcome your suggestions as we plan for WisCon 41.

Together, we can make sure that WisCon continues to be a space that allows us both to engage with politics and to escape from them in a space where our existence and humanity will not be under threat. We look forward to seeing you there.

If you have questions or concerns, please contact us: antiabuse@wiscon.net

If you need to talk with Safety during the convention, please call: 608-957-7233 (957-SAFE)

WisCon 41 Souvenir Book is taking submissions through March 15! (We pay $20!)

W. L. Bolm
Souvenir Book

The Souvenir Book is WisCon’s gift to the community, featuring profiles of our Guests of Honor, pieces highlighting the work of WisCon’s child-organizations, and essays from community contributors. We’re calling on our community members to submit their essays of 500–1000 words for the WisCon41 Souvenir Book! Previous essay topics have included: an exploration of Working Class Studies, a retrospective of 40 years of WisCon, and an ethnographic intro to WisCon. The only topic requirement for the Souvenir Book’s essays is that they be relevant to the WisCon community. We encourage everyone to submit their work, whether this is your first WisCon or your nearly-41st!

Deadline

Submit your essay to the Souvenir Book by March 15!

Guidelines

  • Essays should be 500-1000 words
  • Topics both current and historic that are relevant to the WisCon community
  • Authors will be paid $20 USD at time of publication
  • All essays or questions should be sent to souvenirbook@wiscon.net (Please use the subject line “WC41 Souvenir Book Submission: [Your Name]”)
  • Submit essays as .doc or .rtf attachments

WisCon Academic Call for Papers: Deadline February 23

Lauren J. Lacey & Alexis Lothian
Academic Programming

We invite you to submit papers, panels, and presentations for Academic Programming at WisCon 41! Join us for a weekend dedicated to imagining, exploring, and critiquing alternate worlds, technological transformations, and the possibilities and processes for creating the feminist, decolonial, anti-racist, anti-ableist, anti-fascist futures we so badly need.

WisCon has a track of academic programming that is open to undergraduate, postgraduate, and independent scholars. One of the benefits of this track is that it strengthens the links between the wider feminist science fiction community and students and other scholars working on feminist science fiction and fantasy and related fields. The track operates very much like a conventional academic conference, with presentations based on individual or collaborative research. However, scholarly work on all aspects of feminist science fiction reaches an audience at WisCon that gives a kind of passionate and informed feedback that is rare at academic conferences.

We invite proposals from anyone with a scholarly interest in the intersections of gender, sexuality, race, class, and disability with science fiction — broadly defined — in literature, media, culture, and politics. We particularly welcome scholarship on the work of our Guests of Honor, Kelly Sue DeConnick and Amal El-Mohtar, and on the histories and cultures of feminist and social-justice-oriented fan communities. We encourage submissions from scholars in all fields, including interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary areas, and from amateur and independent scholars as well as graduate students, postdocs, and faculty.

Deadline

The deadline for submitting proposals for our Academic Programming is Thursday, Feb. 23, at 11:59pm Central Time.

An incomplete list of possible subjects

  • The political work of speculative imagination in the new age of right-wing populism
  • Speculative aspects of feminist and social justice movements
  • Science fiction and feminist science and technology studies
  • Gender, sexuality, race, class, and disability in individual works of science fiction and fantasy, especially in the works of our Guests of Honor
  • Feminist, queer, critical race, and critical disability analysis of science fiction and fantasy in media (film, television, music, video games, online culture)
  • Race, colonialism, and speculative fiction; Afrofuturism and related cultural movements
  • Fan cultures and communities
  • Teaching feminist science fiction and other aspects of feminist pedagogy
  • Feminist practice and speculative fiction in academic institutions

An incomplete list of possible formats

  • 15-20 minute paper presentations, with or without visual accompaniment
  • Groups of presentations submitted together as panels
  • Presentation of scholarly creative works, including digital scholarship
  • Readings from recently published or forthcoming scholarly books
  • Discussion-based panels and roundtables on scholarly research, teaching, or service
  • Mentoring sessions on academic professional life: graduate study, the job market, tenure and promotion, publishing and presentation, doing scholarship outside conventional institutions
  • Screenings and discussions of short films or videos

Submitting your proposal

Submit your proposal using our online form (requires a WisCon login). You will be asked for a 100-word abstract, which will be printed in the convention’s program, and for a more detailed proposal of up to 500 words. If you are proposing something other than a traditional paper, please make sure you describe the format of your proposed program item. A projector and screen will be available; if you have further technological needs, please let us know in your proposal.

Announcing a new workshop on feminist scholarship!

This year, for the first time, we will be running a workshop on feminist science fiction scholarship as part of WisCon’s Writers’ Workshop, which takes place on Friday, May 26, before the conventional officially begins. The deadline for submitting work will be in April.  Further announcements will be made on the WisCon blog and listed on the Academic Programming page.

If you have any questions, contact us via email: academic@wiscon.net

WisCon 41 Call for Programming Ideas!!

Tanya DePass and JP Fairfield
Programming Co-Leads

It’s that time of year again! One of many reminders to come that program ideas submissions are open!  The WisCon 41 Programming team looks forward to receiving all of the awesome ideas YOU have to offer!

We invite you to submit programming ideas for WisCon 41 through Friday, Jan 20. To submit an idea, visit our program idea submission form.  You can use the form without logging in, or you can log into your WisCon account if you’d like to receive email confirmation that your suggestion was received.

Please note that starting this year there will be a hard stop for accepting program idea submissions.  Unfortunately, the WisCon 41 Programming team will not be able to accept any program ideas after the Jan. 20 (11:59pm Central Time!) cutoff.  Make sure to submit your ideas before the deadline!

We can’t wait to see your suggestions!

Get ready for WisCon 41!

Chris Wallish
SF3 Communications Committee

It’s 9am on the Sunday morning of WisCon, and that means — if you’re ready to starting thinking about WisCon 41, then so are we!

WisCon registration is open for you to buy your membership!  Memberships remain $50 for adult memberships for another year.

The Concourse reservation system is available for you to book your room.  If you’re at the Concourse today, there’s also a reservations agent at the front desk who can help you book your room.

Idea submission is open!  Sometimes your best programming ideas for next year’s WisCon happen during this year’s convention.  This year we’re also opening Guest of Honor nominations at the same time!

Help us by nominating Guests of Honor for WisCon 41!

Jackie Lee
SF3 President

Past GOHes posing at WisCon 30. (Photo courtesy of Jeanne Gomoll, GOH at WisCon 24.)
Past GOHes posing at WisCon 30. (Photo courtesy of Jeanne Gomoll, GOH at WisCon 24.)

Do you have a favorite author whose books you love chatting up to family, friends, and people on the bus? Would you enjoy a weekend of discussions about their work? The chance to have them sign your copies of their books? Consider nominating that author to be a Guest of Honor at WisCon!

Oh yes, we’re still deep in planning for WisCon 40. But planning for WisCon 41 starts now — and even though 2017 seems very far off, we would love for you to submit suggestions for Guests of Honor for WisCon 41.

Nominating is as easy as sending an email to gohnoms@wiscon.net with the person’s name and a few sentences about why you think they’re a good fit for WisCon. What makes someone a good fit? Review our Statement of Principles to get a sense of what WisCon is about. Also check out our list of previous Guests of Honor to see who we’ve invited in the past.

Don’t be shy! Maybe you’ve been a Guest of Honor yourself and now would like to see someone else so honored. Or perhaps you’ve never attended a WisCon, but you know just the person who would be the perfect fit as a Guest of Honor. Everyone is welcome to submit a nomination!

Submissions are open through December 31st.