Category Archives: Uncategorized

Construction in Madison

If you’re driving to WisCon or plan to be traveling around the city by car, bicycle, or bus, please be aware: The city of Madison has some major road and utility construction projects that will be active with moderate to substantial impacts on all modes of transportation (pedestrian, bicycle, public transit, and motorized) in the area. There are also private construction projects and construction at the University of Wisconsin that disrupt sidewalks, bike lanes, and vehicle lanes.

Some notable impacted areas:

WisCon 2022 schedule live!

The WisCon schedule is now live! We have a full weekend of panels, readings, workshops, kids programming, academic papers, parties, gaming, and more: https://program.wiscon.net/PublicSchedule.php

Can’t make it to Madison this year? There’s still time to register for an online membership! Register today at https://reg.wiscon.net/.

For 2022 we have two tracks of online panels, and another of other online programs. Our big events, including the Otherwise Auction and Guest of Honor speeches, will also be streamed. And we’ll have a WisCon Discord server for both online and in-person members.

Want to see our online offerings expand? Once we know we have enough volunteers to staff our all-online panels, we can start to add some in-person panels to our streamed offerings (starting with panels scheduled for “Assembly” in the program). If you are comfortable hosting a Zoom call, sign up via our at-con volunteer interest form to hear about training sessions for this role!

News from our Board

WisCon is a project of the Society for the Furtherance & Study of Fantasy & Science Fiction (SF3 for short).  In an effort to not be strangers to volunteers or to the public, the governing Board of SF3 has decided to release a little summary of what we’ve been up to at each monthly meeting.  Here are our updates for the past few months:

April 2022

  • We welcomed De Ana Jones and LaShawn M. Wanak as our co-chairs of the newly founded POC Outreach Committee. We’re thrilled to have them aboard! You can reach them by email to poc-outreach@sf3.org .
  • We are continuing our search for con co-chairs for WisCon 2023. If that could be you, please get in touch with the board at board@sf3.org or the current co-chairs at chair@wiscon.net! We are especially looking for people who have past WisCon experience.
  • The board unanimously voted to reallocate unneeded funds from our Guest of Honor budget to our COVID-19 supplies.
  • WisCon is now offering comped memberships for all BIPOC pre-con volunteers.
  • WisCon members can now donate a membership to a BIPOC volunteer through the Registration system.
  • Next month is WisCon 2022! See you there!

March 2022

  • Our treasurer, Kit, met with our new financial team and confirmed everything is in order (as expected).
  • Last month, the Board presented the ConCom with a list of action items generated from the town hall on racism in Nov 2021. The ConCom has responded to us with the ones they can tackle this year.
  • We discussed other ongoing business re: getting the POC Outreach Committee founded, updates on budget, and cementing our anti-racist values in messaging that we can replicate across communications as needed.

February 2022

  • We discussed hiring for the position of POC Outreach Committee chair.
  • We talked about SF3’s financial responsibilities and goals, including updates on tax status and fundraising.
  • We discussed meeting with Con Chairs to assign out responsibility for action items generated from the November 2021 Town Hall (centering on combating racism at WisCon).
  • We discussed drafting social media guidelines and policies.
  • We talked about compensation for sensitivity reading for panel descriptions.

Requesting CART/ASL Services for Programming

As part of our overall accessibility efforts, WisCon hires professional captioners and/or ASL interpreters during the con. CART will be provided during the Opening Ceremonies, at the Otherwise Auction, and for the Guest of Honor speeches. If you’d like to request captioning and/or ASL interpretation for other programming (specific panels, readings, etc.), please use this Google form. You can request CART/ASL for online sessions, in person sessions, or both!

Questions? Contact Accessibility (access@wiscon.net).

Questions/Comments?

Thank you for joining us for Visioning WisCon!

We have a Google Form where you can ask questions about the ConCom, give feedback on this event (Visioning WisCon), and make suggestions for WisCon in 2022. You can also request to join our email newsletter or request more info about volunteering on the concom (no commitments, just info).

The form will be open through Monday evening (5/31) at 9pm Central time. After that, you’re welcome to contact us or subscribe to the email newsletter through this website!

Visioning the WisCon ConCom

We have a new Spontaneous Programming item this evening at Visioning WisCon!

Visioning the WisCon ConCom: Do you have ideas for how to carry WisCon forward? Do you have questions about how WisCon is organized that you’d like answered? Start a conversation about #VisioningWisCon with several current ConCom members in Spontaneous 1 on Kumospace, today (Sunday, 5/30) at 6PM Central.

Concourse Hotel Weekend Information

First of all, there are still PLENTY of discounted rooms available for our weekend meetup at the Concourse Hotel! Click here to make a reservation.

The hotel has set up a meeting space for us in the Madison Ballroom (better known to WisCon members as the Dealers Room) on the second floor. We will have a big screen for viewing this weekend’s Visioning WisCon online content, as well as tables and chairs for holding our own spontaneous conversations. The room will be open starting at noon on Friday and will be available through Sunday night.

Masks are required in the meeting space and 6-foot distancing should be practiced wherever possible. Please avoid bringing in food or drink.

Lastly, Madison locals, day trippers, and friends & family are all welcome to come! The in-person meetup is not an official WisCon event and there is no registration. If you will be participating in Visioning WisCon, we ask you to please register separately (see our other posts for more details).

We are looking forward to seeing as many of you as possible!

The Otherwise Auction? In MY Visioning WisCon?

It’s more likely than you think.

Unless you knew already that the Otherwise Award was born at a WisCon, lo those many years ago! (In 1991, which is thirty, more or less! Don’t come for my math.) In that case, maybe it’s more of a happy reveal than an actual surprise.

The Otherwise Auction supports the Otherwise Award, and it’s always a good time — famed Otherwise auctioneer Sumana Harihareswara will be reprising her role. As Otherwise Award Motherboard member Pat Murphy says:

Last year, Sumana’s online auction was amazing, compelling, and impossible to describe. I’m a science fiction writer; I should be able to describe just about anything. But somehow Sumana managed to auction off things that didn’t actually exist but were (despite that) real. It was one of those “you had to be there” events — even though none of us were actually there.

This year Sumana promises that there will actually be some physical things that people can buy and possess — along with a custom crossword puzzle with Otherwise-related clues. Just a few tangible objects and a lot of intangible fun — which seems appropriate as we slowly ease back into the physical world.

Unlike last year, we’ll be using actual money for this auction. (If you have no idea what we’re talking about, ignore this whole paragraph! You never saw us, we were never here.)

The auction will start at 7pm Central on Saturday night (5/29), and will end when Sumana says it’s over. We’re really excited to have a chance to support the Otherwise Award, even without an in-person convention this year, and to have fun doing it!

Visioning one of our 2022 Guests of Honor

Are you anticipating the return to an in-person WisCon as much as we are? This Memorial Day weekend, you can get a sneak preview of one of WisCon’s four (4!) amazing 2022 Guests of Honor!*

Just for us, Zen Cho will be recording a reading and more with the help of Dave Ring. Come get super-stoked (do people still get stoked? Is that still a thing? It’s clear from context, right?) — it’s our 7pm Central event on Sunday (5/30)!

*You can read more about Zen Cho and the other three guests we have lined up for 2022 here on WisCon’s website.

ONE WEEK LEFT TO SUBMIT A PANEL IDEA FOR WISCON 43!

Mark your calendars, Friends! One week left until panel submissions close! We’re excited to see what the community will share at this year’s WisCon, and below are some helpful ideas on how to submit your panel ideas to make sure they get to us!

I’m a little fuzzy on how I should go about submitting a panel idea. Can you help me out?

Of course we can! Here’s the best way to go about it:

If you log into your profile, you will see a list of different options where you can submit your program idea to the right department on the left-hand side of the screen. Please see the screenshot below for an example.

If you want to submit a panel idea, please click on the “Submit Ideas” option.

We ask that you please use the correct option for submitting your program idea. Please do not submit any other type of programming to us. If you want to submit a party, you will need to click on the “Host a party” option. If you want to submit a paper proposal or academic proposal, please click on the “Submit Paper Proposal” option. If you want to submit a workshop proposal, please email workshop@wiscon.net. Information about workshops can be found via this link.

If you submit an event to us that is not a panel, due to the volume of panel requests and the subsequent organization of the panel schedule, we cannot guarantee that your submission will be timely transferred to the correct department.  The deadline to submit a panel idea to Panel Programming is January 21, 2019 at 11:59p.m. CST.

OK, that sounds very easy. I need to make sure I only submit panel ideas to you. So, do I have to log in to submit a panel idea?

You actually don’t have to log in to your profile to submit a panel idea, unless you want to receive a confirmation email to show that your submission has been received. For your benefit, we recommend logging in, especially if you submit multiple panel ideas! It will be easier for you [and us] to keep track.

This is super helpful information. Anything else I should know?

Panel Programming wants to help you get the best WisCon panel programming experience, so after you register, we would like for you to do a couple of things to help us help you.

1.    Update your profile, especially your email address.

All you need to do is log in to your profile, click the “Edit” link on the right side of your name, then click on “Save” once you’re done.

2. Update your availability.

This information is essential to us. The more information you provide us, the better chance you have in getting your top choices of panels at your most desired times. To update your availability, please click on “Tell Us Your Schedule”. After you click on “Tell Us Your Schedule,” you will be brought to the following screen:

In this text, you will be asked for your arrival/departure information, your desired number of panels, as well as your preferred panel times. Once again, the more information you provide us, the better it will be for you. Given that it is still early, you can start off with a ballpark estimate, but please continue to update as needed as we get closer to the availability deadline in March 2019.

As usual, if you have any questions regarding Panels, please email us at panels@wiscon.net.

2nd REMINDER – PANEL PROGRAMMING IS GETTING READY FOR WISCON 43!

The time to WisCon 43 is approaching, and we believe it’s important to keep the community updated, so let’s get it started off right!

Panel Programming wants to help you get the best WisCon panel programming experience, so after you register, we would like for you to do a couple of things.

1. Update your profile, especially your email address.
All you need to do is log in to your profile, click the “Edit” link on the right side of your name, then click on “Save” once you’re done.

2. Update your availability.
This is essential information for us. The more information you provide us, the better chance you have in getting your top choices of panels at your most desired times. To update your availability, please click on “Tell Us Your Schedule”. After you click on “Tell Us Your Schedule,” you will be brought to the following screen:

In this text, you will be asked for your arrival/departure information, your desired number of panels, as well as your preferred panel times. Once again, the more information you provide us, the better it will be for you. Given that it is early, you can start off with a ballpark estimate, but please update as we get closer to the availability deadline in 2019.

3. Submissions for Panel Programming are open! Please be sure to submit your proposal to the correct department.

If you log into your profile, you will see a list of different options where you can submit your program idea to the right department on the left-hand side of the screen. Please see the screenshot below for an example.

If you want to submit a panel idea, please click on the “Submit Ideas” option. If you want to submit a party, please click on the “Host a party” option. If you want to submit a paper proposal/academic proposal, please click on the “Submit Paper Proposal” option.

Panel Programming asks that you please use the correct option for submitting your program idea. If you submit an event to us that is not a panel, due to the volume of panel requests and the subsequent organization of the panel schedule, we cannot guarantee that your submission will be timely transferred to the correct department. The deadline to submit a panel idea to Panel Programming is January 21, 2019.

As we get closer to WisCon 43, Panel Programming will regularly update the community of its various deadlines. We are excited to kick off planning for WC43.

As usual, if you have any questions regarding Panels, please email us at panels@wiscon.net.

Killable Bodies In SF Panel

Update: July 2018.
We would like to apologize for wording in this initial public post that may have mischaracterized the panelist’s background and what happened at the panel. This was not a case of an outright Nazi sympathizer or alt-right infiltrator at WisCon, but rather a case of a conversation going badly awry amid deeply fraught political and emotional territory. There does not seem to have been any intent to promote Nazi ideology. For a fuller explanation, see this statement.

The original blog post has been retained below.

During the Killable Bodies In SFF panel at WisCon this morning (Sunday), a panelist engaged in Nazi and Confederate apologia and also appeared to posit that disabled or injured people sometimes “have to be sacrificed.”
They continued this behavior even after the audience and other panel members expressed the harm this was causing them.

WisCon rejects these ideas. They are in conflict with our Code of Conduct. The panelist in question will be banned and asked to immediately leave convention spaces.

The relevant passage from the Code of Conduct is here:

Harassment includes: Verbal or written comments or displayed images that harmfully reinforce structures of oppression (related to gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, age, religion, geographic origin, or class); deliberate intimidation; stalking; body policing (including gender policing in all bathrooms); unwelcome photography or recording; sustained disruption of talks or other events; inappropriate physical contact; and unwelcome sexual attention. 

Please read the full Code of Conduct here. 

If you or anyone you know are in need of any support following this experience, please contact us. We will be working to find folks who can provide emotional support to you.

ETA: This particular individual has been banned for WisCon 42. The decision as to whether this ban will be extended in the future will be determined by our Anti Abuse Team post-con. They will also make the determination of whether the individual will be named by WisCon/SF3 and what other details are appropriate to share. Should you have information to contribute, you are welcome to email safety@wiscon.net.

This blog post has been updated to clarify details.