Message from the Convention Chair 4 Message from the Arisia President 6 Code of Conduct and Policies 8 Convention Committee and Staff 10 Program Participants 25 The Arisia Souvenir Book is copyright © 2018 by Arisia, Incorporated, a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation. Bylined articles are copyright their respective authors. Cover and interior artwork are copyright by Ashe Samuels, and are used with permission. Arisia is a service mark of Arisia, Incorporated. www.arisia.org FROM THE CONVENTION CHAIR ¡Hola y bienvenidos! Welcome to Arisia 2018! New Things! As a community, Arisia is constantly changing and growing. Every My name is Jaime Garmendia, and I am most excited to present to you year brings new initiatives and projects, and 2018 is no different. Here our latest convention! There are so many things to see and do here that are some of the new highlights this year: not even I know about all of them — and I am sure each of you will be entertained and made welcome. Arisia isn’t just a great time, we are Incident Response Team a year-long community of friends and volunteers. We foster a culture Arisia takes our Code of Conduct seriously, but we also recognize of inclusivity and consent. We stand proud as feminist and queer, that it must be a living document. Every year we try to incrementally polyamorous and Pagan, conservative and Christian, all under one roof. improve on past practices, and that includes how we manage our community standards. Two years ago, several Arisians took our best Our Guests of Honor practices and codified them into an Incident Response Team for One of the pleasures of being convention chair is getting to appoint MidAmericon II, the 2016 WorldCon. Arisia 2017 in turn adapted our Guests of Honor. I agonized over this! I’m happy to say that we some lessons learned, and in 2018 we are formally adopting the have an awesome slate for Arisia 2018. This year, we are celebrating the structure and training we piloted for MAC2. IRT members are ready works and achievements of several amazing women: and able to take reports on Code of Conduct violations throughout the convention. You can still talk to any Watch member or Senior Staff Author Guest of Honor: Victoria “V.E.” Schwab (with a black ribbon) and we will make sure you are taken care of. Victoria is perhaps best known for her Darker Shades of Magic trilogy, but her oeuvre is deep and varied. She’s written everything from dark Arisia Indie*Expo fantasy to YA horror, from superhero fiction to Scholastic kid lit. Her Please extend a welcome to our new exhibitors in the Arisia sensibilities are wicked and macabre, yet uplifting. If the zombie Indie*Expo. Two years ago, we ran a one-day Indie Game Expo, and apocalypse overruns South Boston, Victoria will not only help us all it was such a hit that we had to bring it back. And this year, it will be escape, she’ll conquer the hordes through sheer wit, grit, and charisma. even bigger and better! On both Saturday and Sunday, you can swing by Grand Ballroom A to network with and shop from independent Artist Guest of Honor: Ashe Samuels creators of all sorts. We have indie comics, indie makers and crafters, Ashe is an up-and-coming artist best known for her cover work on and yes, indie games. Everything you loved about the Arisia Artist Power and Magic: A Queer Witch Anthology. Make sure to check Alley and Indie Game Expo — all under one roof! out Ashe’s amazing work in the Art Show, on the Arisia sales and volunteer t-shirts, and on our social media accounts. I especially News Desk like her Harpy series. I believe it’s important to recognize not just This year we have organized our Communications Division a little established greats, but new talents whose work we will enjoy for years differently to maximize at-con collection and dissemination of news. to come. Ashe is new to the fan convention scene, so I hope y’all give If you have a newsworthy event to report, email [email protected] her 4500 reasons to come back! and our News Desk staff will accept stories and photos to post on all our social media, the website, and the convention newsletter. Speaking Fan Guest of Honor: Mikki Kendall of photos, our new team of Convention Photographers are excited to Mikki is on a mission to save fandom from itself. I asked Mikki to document the heck out of all the fun times. Our photography policies return to Arisia as Fan Guest this year on the strength of her work as are the same as last year, included in the Code of Conduct. past Chair of WisCon. She took the reins on the heels of a scandal that shook the heart of WisCon’s identity as the premier feminist sci-fi So Many Thanks! fan convention, and I am confident in saying WisCon would not exist Thank you to John Merrow for introducing me to Arisia, and to Shira today without her leadership. We at Arisia have often looked toward Lipkin for hiring me in my first staff role. Thank you to Rachel Silber our sisters at WisCon as role models, and I hope we can live up to for taking a chance on promoting a relatively new and untested staffer their example in owning our mistakes and making no excuses. Mikki into senior leadership. And thanks above all to my partners in crime also writes professionally, in sci-fi, fantasy, non-fiction, and comics. Kris Pelletier and Kris “Nchanter” Snyder for helping us all survive And let’s not forget her Twitter feed (@karnythia), which is worthy of this experience! recognition all by itself! And muchisimas gracias to each and every attendee! Thank you Comics Guest of Honor: Shannon Watters for your well-spent dollars. Thank you for your countless hours Before Arisia, my first fandom was the independent comics convention of volunteering. Thank you for caring so damn much about this circuit, as a member of the arts collective known as the Boston Comics convention. Without each of you, there would be no Arisia now or in Make the Future Roundtable. I first joined Arisia staff as the Comics Track Manager, the future. I hope you find your community here, and hope we can and I am ecstatic to be able to bring comics to the center stage. In her welcome you back for years to come! role as Editor of her own imprint, Boom! Box, Shannon has curated an incredible lineup of works that are queer, feminist, and kid-friendly. Saludos, She’s employed many of the friends I made tabling at SPX, MoCCA, and Jaime Garmendia, Convention Chair, Arisia 2018 other indie-friendly comics shows. If you haven’t checked out her own fantastic co-creation, Lumberjanes, you are missing out! 4 Make the Future FROM THE ARISIA PRESIDENT Welcome to Arisia. As you may have seen on our web site, we this year: the Safer Space for Arisians of Color. This permanent are New England’s largest and most diverse science fiction and space for Arisians of color grew out of our POC meetups, and I’m fantasy convention, and that is only possible because of all of the pleased we’re making this space available. Much like the Quiet wonderful program, Room we have had for event, and other several years, this will participants, our be a place for Arisians tireless volunteers, of color to go when and of course all of the feeling overwhelmed by dedicated fans that the convention or when attend each year. looking to network with other Arisians of If I didn’t already know color. how amazing the people who attend this Arisia is a continually- convention are, I was evolving event, and we reminded of it over the love to hear what our last few weeks when members have to say. we found out that our If you see something hotel was going to be you liked this year, or doing renovations, something that you taking a large number feel could be improved, of rooms off-line. We please let us know by put out a call for folks using our online form to volunteer to move at www.arisia.org/ to our overflow hotel, Feedback, by filling out and in a matter of a one of our feedback few short days enough forms available at the people stepped up that, Info Desk, or by coming as I write this, it looks to one of the feedback like we won’t have to sessions listed in the move anyone else. This Pocket Program. incredible willingness to step forward Lastly, for those surprised some on who don’t know, our staff, but not me. this convention is I’ve had the pleasure run by a nonprofit of being involved in organization, Arisia Arisia almost from its Inc. The corporation inception, and I’ve seen makes decisions how this wonderful about important thing we call Arisia things such as the happens year after convention budget year run entirely by and also administers a volunteers. grant fund to channel surplus funds back into the broader world of fandom. If you I mention diversity because we consider it vital to what Arisia are wondering how to get involved in Arisia beyond just the is today, and we always work to embrace it. We strive to be a convention, I encourage you to say hello. This year, I’ll be working welcoming place to fans of all ages, genders, racial backgrounds, in Operations, mostly in the Stone Room.