I'll be at WisCon -- come?

WisCon is a feminist scifi/fantasy convention in Madison, Wisconsin, USA, May 25-28. It's got a quiet room, interesting panels, semistructured social activities, a clothing swap, and free snacks; more first-timer-friendly description of WisCon at this post.

I'm going to be at WisCon and performing as the auctioneer for the Tiptree Award auction (it's totally fine to come and enjoy the show and not bid), and may be on other programming as well. If you need financial help to attend, especially as a first-timer, I hope you apply to the Member Assistance Fund. The deadline to nominate yourself or someone else for up to USD$500 of financial help to attend WisCon is this coming Wednesday, Feb. 28th.

If you live in Madison I hope you'll at least consider buying a one-day pass and coming Saturday night for the Tiptree Auction. This is basically the one stand-up comedy performance I do all year and I would love for more people to enjoy it.

And if you want to dip a toe into public speaking at conferences, WisCon's sessions are mostly multi-person panel conversations. On Feb. 26 they'll open up panel sign-ups, where you can raise your hand and say "hey, I'm interested in serving on that panel" and the program committee may select you as one of the panellists. I wrote a comment on Cate Huston's blog explaining how WisCon plans and supports panels and makes them fairly high-quality experiences for everyone. I'll go ahead and reproduce it here with mild editing:

Panels at WisCon, the feminist scifi convention I try to attend every year, are usually worthwhile as a participant and as an attendee. Some factors:

• WisCon has a ton of different sessions going on at once, and hundreds of panels throughout the con, which lowers the stakes for any one panel, usually, and makes it possible for panels to dive into a single specific topic for 75 minutes. This also strengthens cultural expectations of what a WisCon panel is supposed to be like.
  
• Anyone can propose a session, so most panel ideas come from community members and are then shaped by the programming committee. Each panel has a title and a paragraph-long description to make it easier for volunteers to decide what to sign up for (as panel participants or moderators) and to set audience expectations. It’s quite common for panels to veer off the panel description but it’s expected that the program item as listed in the schedule is the main jumping-off point.
  
• WisCon gives all panel moderators advice on how to moderate well, both as a written document available well in advance of the con, and in a “so you’re moderating your first panel” session early in the con. And WisCon offers tips for panelists.
  
• Usually, in the weeks leading up to the panel, the moderator and panellists communicate via email to create a lightweight structure and agenda for the panel, giving everyone a chance to shape the discussion and to prepare their own anecdotes, talking points, references, etc.
  
• A panel’s members meet 10-15 minutes ahead of time in the con’s Green Room, giving them a last-minute chance to prep agenda, learn each others’ faces, etc.
  
• Most attendees, and most panel participants, are women, so that affects gendered communication interactions. (Which is to say, there's almost no conversational domination by men.)
  
• Every panel member has, in front of them, a name card. The back of the name card (visible to the panellist) tells them the panel name and description, the names of the moderator and the other panellists, and the time and date of their next panel assignment (if they have one).
  

(The word "panel" looks weird when I see it a lot. And I actually don't have a strong preference for "panellist" versus "panelist".)

Anyway, I've had mind-changing conversations and made good friends at and via WisCon -- WisCon is what got me on Dreamwidth in the first place. Please consider coming.