WisCon Day 5

The last official day of WisCon began with a whimper. With aches in my body and bank account Jackie and I headed down to the People of Color Wrap-Up/Breakfast. We were late because we read the time of the flyer wrong but there was still a good amount of folks there.

Then it was time for, you guessed it, more shopping! Thankfully there wasn’t much I wanted that was still available (that I hadn’t already bought). Then it was off to the Author Sign-Out which had amazing authors everywhere and where I got a bunch of my books signed. The book signing at WisCon is so different from books signings elsewhere because for four days you’ve already interacted with a bunch of the authors. They are fellow con-goers, just regular folks that you’ve argued with or sided with all weekend. So unlike bookstore signings there’s a lot of talking with the authors and laughing and joking around. Sometimes it makes for long waits but you also get to really talk to authors and funny little things happen like Ellen Kusher recommending me a series of YA based in Axum and writing the author on the inside cover of her book so I wouldn’t forget.

So I got signatures from a bunch of folks and when I was getting my copy of Acacia signed by David Anthony Durham, who I got to hang out with a bit during the Con and he asked where my name was from. I told him it was Ethiopian and he asked to use it in the next book in the series. I agreed (of course!) and as I was walking to my next author he called out “I’ll do my best to keep your namesake alive.” which cracked me up, the whole POC always die thing. So yes, look for the character Naamen in the sequel to Acacia!

Then of course there was more drinking to close out the convention and stumbling to bed.

WisCon Day 4

So Sunday was my super busy day I had 3 panels, one of which was at ass o’clock in the morning, otherwise known at like 8:45, which is my own fault for saying I’d be available at that time but still.

Sunday Panel 1: The first panel was on blogging and if that takes away from your creative time. My answer was yes until I got myself an actual schedule that allows me timw to write generally. Vylar Kaftan talked about setting up her blog and little internet elves. Cecelia Tan discussed how much of her life is now online with correspondence and blogs. Alan Bostick talked about how he was now trying to get his blog to make money instead of just sucking his time away. M.K. Hobson talked about people finding her blog which set us all off to talking about that. All in all we discussed how far we went with what we would and wouldn’t say online where others could find it. It was a small panel (only 10 folks in the audience) but overall I think it went quite well with some back and forth with the audience and such.

When I left the room the Con had been papered with signs saying the flu had come to WisCon and that we all should wash our hands repeatedly.

Sunday Panel 2: Dissecting Diversity – I had been nervous about this panel going in but meeting the moderator and discussing what she wanted to focus on did calm me. Unfortunately the dreaded WisCholera laid her low before the panel itself. I had one friend approach me beforehand and ask that if it went badly was she free to leave or did I need the support of her in the audience. I told her to go ahead and leave if she needed to, about half way through I saw her get up and go. I saw a few other People of Color get up and leave as well. I think that having 5 folks up there, 3 white men, 1 white woman and 1 Man of Color (me) was unfortunate. There should have been the voices of Women of Color in the conversation especially when discussing diversity in full.

It was held in one of the larger halls and there was some good audience participation but there were also a few things that happened in that room that had friends mouthing “Are you okay?” at me during the panel. They could see my anger at some of the things being said which I felt were pure derailment in some instances. I do however think that the panel got better about halfway through. Anyway enough of that.

During this time I was constantly waiting for the hotel to call me and let me know that they had shifted our things to another room (a non-smoking room). I called down finally and they gave me the keys and let me know everything was switched. I called my roommates with our new room number and ran upstairs for a quick Disco Nap before my fourth and final panel of the Con.

Sunday Panel 3: Faux Diversity vs. Actual Diversity went quite well. I think we got to the center of a lot of issues with Diversity and the whitening of characters who are actually of color, for instance Inara and River are both clearly supposed to be read as white within the context of Firefly/Serenity but neither of the actresses would be considered white by modern societal standards. I also got to get that whole thing about Avatar being read as white off my chest and actually had a bunch of support from the audience. So yes, other people know that there are no white characters in Avatar, I can only hope M. Night Shalaman knows it as well (since he’s directed the live-action adaptation). Rachel one of the panelists talked about the horrible Chinese in Firefly/Serenity and how it makes no sense to Chinese speakers. Julia gave the audience (and the panel) a good rundown on why she likes Eureka so much and how it’s racial diversity doesn’t fall into stereotypes (or only rarely does). Janice and a audience member, John argued over whether it’s better to have no characters of Color or badly characterized People of Color on a show. I’m always of two minds when it comes to that argument. I can see how visibility is good and it being easier to improve an existing character than to insert one in a resistant show but at the same time I get so tired of the badly characterized People of Color that I just want them of my freaking screen. 

After that there was dinner, I believe this was the night a bunch of us went out for Ethiopian food, which while not strictly Ethiopian was still damn good. One of the folks we had dinner with, Cabell gave me a fantastic mix CD based on Buffy, which has some f*ing amazing songs on it. There was drinking and then back to the Con for the Martha Jones panel.

I felt like the Martha Jones panel veered way off course at times, like when all of a sudden we (the general we, I was in the audience here) were just discussing companions in general, who our favorite was, why they were this way and on and on. We discussed Donna and Rose and companions from decades past. It was a nice discussion but still not really addressingthe topic of the panel. We did get to talk about Martha and everyone on the panel agreed that she had amazing potential that was squandered and that there were some serious problems with some of the scenarios she was put in most noticeably the Family of Blood episodes where Martha is the maid.

Then it was upstairs, by then the WisCholera was sweeping the Con and people were afraid so the parties were much more subdued and empty. So there was drinking, I won a Vixen Action Figure in the Girls with Capes party admired my friends costumes and then it was off to bed.

Woo, I rushed to get this one out to y’all and again all of the things here are my remembrance weeks after the fact.  

Next: WisCon Day 5

Traveling With Femmes – Episode The Second

Arriving in the room everyone began to unpack themselves in preparation for our five night stay. I personally am a very messy and just throw it on a chair kind of unpacker. Then the toiletries came out. Now I bring what I consider the bare essentials – toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant & lotion. This is soooo not the case with my roomies. I walked into the bathroom and there on the counter were things that I had no name for. I stared at the bathroom counter and the myriad of colors and shapes before me, then down at the four items in my hands.

I walked back out into the room and set my toiletries on one of the side tables.

WisCon Day 3

It’s been over a week since WisCon and while I’m still going through withdrawals I’ve forgotten a lot of the nuances of what happened so I’m just going to hit the major points.

Saturday was the day of the Coffeeklatch (People Against We-Sha-Sha!*) and it went fantastically! Much props to Tempest for the planning and execution.  We all discussed our secret plans for world domination…*cough* I mean had coffee and cake!

By then it was almost time for my first panel of the con and the only one I was moderating, Captain Jack’s Big Gay Torchwood. This was one of the panels I didn’t feel went that well, I wanted it to be a very fun but also thinky panel but I think there were a couple of people on the panel who just wanted to squee and gush about how cute Jack and Ianto are together. In fact one member came prepared to derail the discussion if it got too serious (too serious for who?) which really kinda raised my hackles. Maybe she didn’t mean it that way but it came across as her deciding the panel was gonna go her way no matter what, it just stank of privilege. 

So yeah I brought up the devaluing of women’s sexuality throughout the series and the way that they aren’t allowed to have the same experiences of their male counterparts. The invisibility of “the lesbian” in the show was another thing that was brought up and how casting Jack as an alien allows some folks to detach and not address the sexuality of the character directly (the same thing that happens with all the POC on Stargate being aliens, but that’s a post for another time). And Jackie piped up from the audience and brought up the problem with terming some of the kisses on the show “gay kisses”, which is that it sets up the default as all kisses are straight. The problem for me is that I felt like we didn’t really get to the meat of any of the issues because we kept getting somewhat derailed by people saying “ohhh so hot”, “oooh so pretty” but whatever.

The rest of the day was a bit of a blur, I know I attended some panels and they were probably super but nothing that really stuck out at me.  

I would be remiss if I didn’t discuss the Carl Brandon Society Party which I’m pretty sure happened on Saturday Night. Now first of all CBS put on the Opening Ceremonies on Friday evening which were a great big filk sing-along! There were songs about how WisCon was made for you and me, about each Guest of Honor, about all the good food that surrounded WisCon (I can attest to this!) and finally best of all Nisi Shawl’s filk song “Filk Music Ain’t Got No Soul”. It was a lot of fun and laughs were had all around.

Anyways on Saturday it was up to the CBS party where I drank C-52’s (B-52 with a M&M in it, C stand for Carl) renewed my membership, donated to the Octavia Butler Scholarship and ran into old friends and we talked about everything from the society itself to books that we had liked in the recent year. Then there was wandering from party to party until the crowded atmosphere became to much for us.

The night ended as I think all of mine did this WisCon, sitting in the bar with friends I only see once a year shooting the shit and getting hammered. By which I mean it was a very good time.  

Next up: WisCon Days 4, 5 & 5 1/2

Currently Reading: Changeling by Delia Sherman

*We-Sha-Sha has become shorthand, among certain folks, for the objectification/exotification of POC & cultural appropriation, pretendianism in particular. It’s origin is with Cassie Edwards, the romance novelist who the blog “Smart Bitches, Trashy Books” revealed was plagiarising chunks of her books from various other sources. Now a lot of her books have to do with the old west and a white woman being kidnapped by Native Americans only to join the group and fall in love with a Native man or some similar bit of a outdated trope. Plus they all have titles like “Savage Love”, “Savage Moon”, “Savage Bloodthirsty Native Man – Fear The Brown Folks!” okay so I made the last one up but you get the point. In one of these novels the heroine has super curly red hair but she talks about how she uses a special herb called we-sha-sha to darken and straighten her hair so she can fit in more with her adopted Native peoples. So yeah, People Against We-Sha-Sha! I even have a button 🙂

Books, Books, Art & More Books!

My two packages from WisCon are supposed to be delivered today and I am too excited for words! One box contains the two complementary pieces of art I picked up “She is Bodymod” and “He is Bodymod” by the amazing Rhea Ewing. The other box contains about 50 pounds of books, which brings me around to my next point. Generally when I read I attempt to alternate one F/SF book then one Theory (feminist, anti-racist, anti-classcist, etc.) book, then back to F/SF and so forth but with this massive box of books coming and the realization that I didn’t even get close to reading all the books I got from WisCon last year I’m thinking that the next few months are going to be completely F/SF focused. And trust me there is a range in that box, everything from hard SF to trashy paranormal romance to YA fantasy…

Now we come to my dilemma, do I actively review these books in this blog? This is actually something we touched on in the Blogging panel I was on @ WisCon: reviewing in your journal, how it might affect your chances of publishing and how it might blow up in your face. I mean I think it’s less of an issue with me because my blog is not huge I usually get somewhere from 100-150 hits a day so it’s not like my blog is one of those that gets massive traffic so I feel like it shouldn’t be an issue. At the same time authors google their own name all the time, so they’d find my review easily. Also I review things for the Feminist SF blog all the time.

Hmm…maybe that’s the answer, to review the books in Feminst SF!-The Blog and not in my personal one. I’ll have to think on it. Let me know what you guys think.

Also I’ll try to put a list of these books up or pop them onto my LibraryThing and link there as I get them so you guys can see exactly what I spent my money on!

As for those who are waiting for “WisCon Days 3&4” Post I don’t know if I want to do it and rehash all my panels (especially the two I felt did not go well) but at the same time I kind of feel the need to. It’s another thing I’m on the fence about.

Okay off to re-track my packages!

WisCon Days 1 & 2!

Elizabeth, Jackie and I arrived at the hotel around 1 in the afternoon. We arrived to find that somehow we were in one of the eight smoking rooms that the hotel has. Both of my roommates had their allergies acting up so that simply would not do, after raising much fuss we realized there was really nothing the hotel could do about the situation. They agreed to put an ionizer in the room and contact us if anything opened up (as it turned out we were moved to a smoke-free room for the last two nights we were there).

We immediately ran into Candra, Claire, Nisi & Victor but they were having a meeting and we were starving so we headed off to food. We ended up at the same place (Noodles & CO.) sitting across the way from each other.

The rest of Thursday passed in a blur of volunteering, hugging old friends and meeting new ones. Then we were off to the bar (this will be a recurring line when speaking of WisCon).

On Friday we hit the Gathering where I bought way to many books, had some tea, showed off my first and only tattoo and then had some tea. Then it was off to the Dealer’s room for more book buying (also a recurring theme of WisCon). We wandered for a bit, had lunch at Noodles & Co. again except this time with a larger company including Tempest, Leah and others whose names I’ve forgotten. We discussed WisCon, race and sci-fi in general. The whole table cracked up as Tempest’s phone was called and her ringtone was revealed to be the New Doctor Who theme song. We also talked about someone who had just received a massive book deal, for a sci-fi book featuring POC! It filled me with hope for the future of Sci-fi and my own writing.

Then it was off to the Opening ceremonies where there was much filk singing. Then the POC-only gathering which was great, mostly because there were so many new faces and everyone was laughing and having a good time. I cannot divulge what else we talked about but let’s just say we have our lists for when the revolution comes  😀

Our roommate Elizabeth returned to us with notes on the “Elves & Dwarves – Inherent Racism” panel: in summary it was a hot mess not because of the moderator, from all accounts vito did all that she could, but because of one of the panelists in particular. I point you to the panel summary and reaction videosat badgerbag’s LJ. The only good to come out of it was that we were introduced to Maria who had to sit through that awful panel. Then it was a series of parties, drinking, bars, drinking, lounges, drinking until we passed out for the night.

All in all, frist two days were fantastic and more to come.

P.S. If you’re desperate to know more about the ConDrama I mentioned yesterday head over to the post What Rachel Moss Did by the angry black woman.

Back Again, Back Again, Jiggety-Jig

I have returned to my homebase from the wonderfulness that is WisCon and of course I am filled with the sadness of saying goodbye to friends I only get to see once a year. They have dispersed through the known world and I miss them all already. Hanging out, drinking and talking with Jackie, Joyce, Liz, Vito, Tempest, Candra, Allison, Johanna, Phredd, Elizabeth, Julia, Leah, J.J., Heyiya, Isabel, Maria et. al. (if your name is missing it doesn’t mean I won’t miss you just that I’m still suffering from ConBrain) is always the best part of the Con. Plus there were a few of folks who recognized my name from this blog which was insane!

It was fun con full of wonderful folks and the time went by way to fast. As for the panels I was on, well two of them went really well and two were…less than okay with me. There might be write ups of those in the next few days as I get over the Conbrain. I don’t know if I’m gonna do a play by play summary of WisCon like I did last year but I will be posting some of the highlights.

Also there will be snippets of a show that my roommates Jackie, Elizabeth & I talked about/starred in during our trip: Traveling With Femmes. This could be the next big thing! A co-production of Bravo & The Travel Channel.

There were three unfortunate things during the trip:

1. Infection! Some flu-like virus hit the Con a bunch of us got a mild version and then some got the “oh-my-god shooting out of both ends” version. I’m still not convince that the patriarchy did not do this on purpose.

2. Delay! My plane was delayed by over three hours, which means that the plane landed at 1:00 a.m. as opposed to 9:45 p.m., not fun at all. But at least it wasn’t cancelled altogether like Elizabeth’s flight, she ended up having to spend an extra night in Wisconsin.

3. Haterade! A woman came to the convention with the intention of stirring people up and causing trouble, when that didn’t go her way she took pictures of people and made a long fatphobic, transphobic, vitriolic, hateful post on her livejournal and to SomethingAwful.com. When she received a letter from the ConCom she took down her post and asked that the post be removed from SA. Unfortunately a non-affiliated group reposted part of the original and the comments have been…well let’s just say I’ve lost a lot of my faith in humanity.
     I’m still at a very stabbity-stab-stab moment with the whole thing so I can’t write a coherent post and really I’m unsure I want to revisit the seething ball of (self-)hate that thread is ever again so maybe there will never be a post.
     I’m utterly appalled by the things being said and really the people who have to mock others to make their own pathetic useless lives seem more interesting are just really fucking sad. It’s all about the amount of self-hate they have and their own inability to feel good unless they’re making fun of others and trying to make others feel bad. I’m not gonna link to anything because I don’t want the thread to get more traffic.

Anyway other than those three things, it was a fucking fantastic time and I’ve already booked the hotel room for next year.

Breaking The Semi-Hiatus – WisCon Day 2

Got here on Thursday on a Redeye flight, so it’s a bit of a blur but I got to see a bunch of folks that I only see once a year and hang out. 

Yesterday, the first official day of WisCon. I have so far purchased over 25 books, not as bad as it sounds, 18 of them were ARC’s and were basically free. Supported the feminist bookstore Room of One’s Own with my hard earned money, attended the opening ceremonies and renewed my membership to the Carl Brandon Society. This morning already I’ve picked up the Tiptree shirt and two fabulous pieces of art called She Is Bodymod & He Is Bodymod. C’mon I had to buy both, they go together. 

We had he POC only Meet & Greet in our room last night. Also a hilarious sidenote, we (Jackie & I) have our white roommate recruiting POC that we didn’t find. She came up to us and was like “I found one” and introduced us to a wonderful woman, Maria who is no stranger to Sci-fi cons but for who this is her first WisCon. We have the best white allies eva. 

That’s all for now, we are about to head off to breakfast then on to more Con and POC meet-ups! Also my first panel is today, I’m moderated Captain Jack’s Big Gay Torchwood. We’ll see how it goes.

Con Brain: Blog Semi-Hiatus & Publication!

So I’m already suffering from what I like to call Con Brain. Con Brain means that while I may be physically or online-ly(?) present my brain is really already at WisCon and I can’t think of anything else.  So I’ve just decided to start my Con hiatus early. I leave tomorrow night and return the following Weds. I am not taking my laptop with me so I’ll have limited computer access HOWEVER there are hotel computers and such and I will endeavor to post if anything absolutely fantabulous/horrific happens. So that’s why it’s a semi-hiatus, because I’m not staying away for sure but I might.

Semi-Hiatus: May 20 – May 28

Oh and in the good news I got my contributor copy of The WisCon Chronicles: Volume Two- Provocative essays on feminism, race, revolution, and the future. You can order it at the link, OR if you’re gonna be at WisCon it’ll be on sale there! You can read my essay “Thoughts on ‘Colonialism…In…Space’ and on the Ground” and plenty of other wonderful essay from K. Joyce Tsai, Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu, Jacqueline A. Gross, Lawrence Schimel, Nora Jemison, Laurie J. Marks and more!

WisCon & POC Only Space

I’ve been remiss in not mentioning this before but a POC only gathering at WisCon has been talked about and in the works for the last few months. Here’s the post where the discussion got going about having one this year. Now for legal reasons this is not and cannot be officially sanctioned by WisCon in anyway. This is what we call guerilla programming. K. Tempest Bradford has the lowdown over at her blog but here is the basic schedule.

Friday:

Meet & Greet

After the opening ceremonies (approx 8:30PM) there will be an informal gathering of POC so that we can meet each other, plan how we’re going to deal with certain aspects of the POC space during the con, and squee over the # of us all in one place. At around 8:50 we’re going to depart for somewhere other than the lobby–perhaps someone’s room, a corner of the bar, a restaurant, wherever we decide. So be sure to be in the lobby before then!

Saturday:

11:45 – 1:00 PM – Intra-POC Relationships & Coalition Building Kaffeeklatsch
one of the overflow rooms on the 6th floor.

Participants of this kaffeeklatsch will be limited. (I’ll let you guess what the limitations are.) In order to avoid certain unpleasantness, there will be folks at the con with sign-up lists for this event. You’ll be able to recognize them by the buttons they wear, which will say “People Against We-Sha-Sha“. If you want to be one of the people with a sign-up list, please let me know.

(The lunch time begins at 11:15, which gives people time to hop over to the cafe to get some food if there’s nothing in the con suite they can eat. But I believe this year they are making sure there are vegetarian and vegan options.)

Monday:

8:00 – 9:45AM – POC Breakfast & Con Roundup
Concourse Hotel Restaurant

Some have suggested we have a last get-together on the last day to go over our con experiences and sketch out a plan for how we’re going to deal with some of the POC-only spaces next year. I blocked out the entire early morning programming block so that people could drop in as they wake up, pop out to attend a panel, etc.

Go read the whole post here.