WisCon 2022: Day 1

First full day of the con has been pretty good, relatively laid back. To my great joy, both Michelangelo's (the coffee shop that's essentially extended con space) and Short Stack (the all-day breakfast place) have outdoor seating, so I had breakfast at the former (with forestofglory!) and dinner at the second (with a friend I used to sing in chorus with but now consider more of a fandom friend). In between, I relaxed in my room, worked on a puzzle during the Gathering, and did a three-hour shift at the registration desk. Working the reg desk was great and may now be my favorite way of volunteering at a con: there are waves of busyness but there's plenty of downtime to get to know your co-volunteers, it's relatively low stress compared to some other volunteer roles, I can sit the whole time, and I get to see people as they're coming in to the con. Wins all around! After dinner I dropped in and out of the vid party a couple of times and also dropped by the Speculative Literature Foundation/Serendib Press party, where I chatted with folks and had one of a selection of Indian sodas (mostly tropical-fruit based; since that's not really my cup of tea, I picked a Limca, which is similar to Sprite but not as sweet).

Now I'm in the room for the night, ready to kick back and watch some more Exandria Unlimited to wind down before bed. Two panels tomorrow! Plus farmer's market, Otherwise auction, art show, and I hope more time with friends.

(Written on Friday night, neglected to post until Saturday evening)

WisCon 2022: Day 2

I set my alarm early enough that I could get to the farmer's market for cheese curds and a cinnamon roll; after having the cinnamon roll as my delicious breakfast, I went to the Wisconsin ballroom for my first panel and almost took a seat at the stage before I remembered that the Green Room is a thing that exists and went there instead. Can you tell I'm out of practice with cons? :) Anyway, the Defragging Feminist SFF panel went well! It was a small panel, just three of us, and we had a wide ranging conversation about how marginalized SFF writers become lost to time, whether there's still value in revisiting works that brought joy and empowerment to some women in their time, but we recognize as obviously problematic now (like feminist separatist societies). Lots of good comments and questions in this one.

Since I had an online panel right after the lunch break, I took a spin through the art show (where I got some prints and stickers) and the dealers room (two pairs of earrings each from two different artists), then hopped back up to the room to eat the remains of the sandwich I bought for lunch yesterday before logging in for the panel. This panel was about magical matriarchies, but it drifted into being more about matriarchal societies in SFF generally. We had a few problems with topic drift in this one, but overall I still enjoyed it and felt like I'd had a good conversation.

After that I was free for the day and hadn't picked any specific panels to attend. So I scanned the schedule and found "When Mentors are Monsters", a panel about being influenced by creators who turn out to be deeply problematic, name-checking MZB, OSC, and JKR. Since I had mentioned MZB as a problematic creator whose work had been meaningful to me, I decided I might as well keep the theme going. Good decision; it was my favorite panel of the con so far. Some real honest talk about how difficult it is to let people and their work go and good questions about whether it's ever worth trying to salvage something from the wreckage. There was a general consensus among the panel that for JKR specifically what people hated to lose was less the works themselves and more the enormous community that had grown up around them. That was followed by my last panel of the day, about how we define honor and who gets to be honorable. Then it was back to Short Stack for dinner, a visit to the fudge shop, and a few minutes in my room before the Otherwise auction, which was hosted by Liz Henry this year. They were a first-time auctioneer and took a little while to get in the swing of things, but clearly they were having a great time and did a great job bringing the rest of us along for the ride. I decided then that I was done for the night and headed up to my room to watch the online-only auction, ably hosted by brainwane.

Last full day tomorrow -- one panel, several decisions to make about what I'd like to attend, and the pandemic-friendly dessert salon set up (speeches and presentations first wth no food, then desserts to go).