One thing I have learned is that reading about other people’s
first time at WisCon has little to do with living it in your own flesh. (And
that writing about it is much harder than I had anticipated.) WisCon has been
exciting, hectic, challenging at times—and lots of fun.
Living in Europe and being the only feminist sf/f fan I
knew, my prospects of ever making it to Madison for the convention were on the
limited side. Two years later, my first incursion into the WisCon community has
in fact been rather spectacular: being a trainee at Aqueduct is a tremendous
privilege, in that it has made it easier for me to meet so many interesting,
talented people that I would have been shy to approach otherwise. Not to
mention the excitement of linking friendly faces to names whose work I admire
and chatting with them as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Which
it is.
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| Visual proof that I was in Madison |
A lot of WisCon, I felt, is about sharing a passion for
radical ideas in a space that is constantly challenging itself, and about
creating situations in which everybody gets to participate in that sharing, discussing,
and transforming. Many of the panels I attended (on radical queer politics, on
decolonizing science fiction, on Afrofuturism) made clear that we have no final
answers; that the conversation is always growing in size, in complexity, in
perspectives; and that we will always need at least one more WisCon to figure
out what science fiction can do to face and fight oppressive structures in
all their current manifestations.
There were at least two panels in which survival was
discussed as a form of successful resistance. And, prevalent as this notion is,
I was really interested to hear Sheree Renée Thomas, in the context of
Afrofuturism, point out her aiming beyond survival—an attitude that I’m excited
to encounter in current and future Afrofuturist works. The panel, chaired by Jennifer
Marie Brissett (her new novel Elysium
is forthcoming from Aqueduct), succeeded in introducing some of the basics to
those members of the audience who might have needed it, without losing focus on
the challenges and new directions that Afrofuturism may take. What is clear is
its power as a theoretical lens, as Thomas put it, through which to look at the
black experience, which is, she pointed out, far from monolithic.
Hiromi Goto’s and
N.K. Jemisin’s Guest of Honor speeches, powerful
and extremely relevant to the current situation in sf/f publishing and fandom,
had a lot to say in this respect. They confirmed once and for all why I want to
keep doing what I’m doing. Both authors’ readings at A Room of One’s Own also
turned me, inevitably, into a fan.
Not all was political debate, however: there were other
things apart from radical change to celebrate. Aqueduct’s 10-year anniversary party
was a blast. Raffle tickets were drawn, prizes were won, cake was eaten, wine
was drunk, and the party wrapped up nicely around the time several Aqueductians
hoped to retire, satisfied, to their rooms, while some of us continued our
journey down the conveniently plastic-covered party corridor.
WisCon has room for plenty of different things, including
ukuleles, dozing, tapas(!), tiny party hats, and compulsive book buying. It
also has all the room in the world for making friends. Many people happily
assume that we are all coming back next year and, whether they last a couple of
minutes, hours, or days, the conversations started will probably continue then—which
is just as well, because I wouldn’t miss WisCon 39 for the world.
