FOGcon 9 Welcome to FOGcon 9!...........................................................................................2 Convention Committee...........................................................................................2 Honored Guest Becky Chambers..............................................................................3 Becky Chambers: Space Is a Place for Everybody...............................................................................................3 The Wayfarers Trilogy........................................................................................................................................4 Honored Guest Karen Joy Fowler.............................................................................5 Wonderful Person Writing Wonderful Books......................................................................................................5 Honored Ghost Ursula K. Le Guin.............................................................................6 Hotel...................................................................................................................8 Registration..........................................................................................................8 Consuite..............................................................................................................8 Dealers’ Room......................................................................................................8 Game Room.........................................................................................................8 Child Care............................................................................................................8 Programming, Friday, March 8.................................................................................9 Programming, Saturday, March 9...........................................................................11 Programming, Sunday, March 10...........................................................................14 Program Participants............................................................................................16 Accessibility Policy...............................................................................................22 Anti-Harassment Policy.........................................................................................24 Photography Policy..............................................................................................24 Editor: Alan Bostick Cover art by Lee Abuabara Proofreaders: Debbie Notkin, Lisa Ekstein, Keyan Bowes FOGcon 9 is a project of the Friends of Genre Literary Association . Copyright © 2019 Friends of Genre Literary Association. All rights revert to the authors and artists. Convention Committee Welcome to FOGcon 9! Project managers: Elsabeth Hermens, Kerry Ellis, Debbie Notkin The FOGcon committee is always glad to welcome our members to each convention … and this year we are es- Programming: Steven Schwartz, Eva Folsom pecially pleased to be able to do so. The universe did not Game Room Programming: Micah Joel want us to hold FOGcon this year; we faced an unprece- dented number of obstacles to staffing and moving for- Honored Guest Liaison: Crystal Huff ward: virtually everyone on the initial committee had life Online schedule: BC Holmes events that slowed them down or prevented them from doing some or all of what they had committed to do, and Registration: Heather Rose Jones wanted to do. There were moments when we really thought we might have to write to our honored guests and Treasurer: Kerry Ellis registered members and say, “You know that convention Hotel: Sasha Pixlee we wanted to have? Well …” Volunteers: Debbie Notkin, Michele Cox But in the great spirit of science fiction fandom – which is no different than the great spirit of any community- Hospitality: Melissa Dunlap based endeavor – folks who could do various tasks stepped in for folks who couldn’t. People we’d never met Logistics: Wendy Shaffer stepped up to join us when people we’d known for years Website: Alyc Helms had to step back. The most inspiring result of all this is that we have put together an extraordinary convention: Database: Wendy Shaffer membership is back up from last year; the program is (we Publications; Montse Cordero, Alan Bostick think) one of the best we’ve ever put together; we’ve deepened our relationship with the hotel and fixed some Program book cover: Lee Abuabara rough spots that have plagued us in the past. Dealers’ Room: Jennifer Brooks As we open the doors on FOGcon 9, we can hope that it will run smoothly, and that payback for the challenging Writers’ Workshop: Keyan Bowes planning process will be minimal challenges during the convention itself. If that turns out to be wrong, we now know how good we are at rolling with the punches. As members of the convention, we’re counting on you to help where you see needs, and ask about whatever you can’t find or can’t figure out. However these three days play out, we’re all committed to doing whatever we can to make sure all of you enjoy yourselves, find stimulation for your brain and your heart, get an opportunity to connect with our marvelous hon- ored guests, meet new people (if you want to) and, at the end of the weekend, are glad that you came. Honored guests Becky Chambers and Karen Joy Fowler, and honored ghost Ursula K. Le Guin, are celebrated in later pages of this book. So we’ll just extend a special welcome to Becky and Karen, and to the spirit of Ursula, and an equally special welcome to each and every one of you: in the most literal sense, we couldn’t do this without you. Page 2 science fiction and fantasy slice-of-life is certainly a Honored Guest Becky thing, and a thing that I love, in other languages and cul- tures. SFF slice-of-life and “healing” stories are fairly Chambers easy to find in, for example, Japanese TV dramas or comics. Not so in the English-language genre publishing world. In fact, there’s so little of it that the pace and focus of The Long Way took many readers by surprise. Fortu- nately, it proved to be a good surprise for most of us, net- ting award nominations and one of the most robust word- of-mouth referral armies that I’ve ever encountered. For example, it’s been recommended dozens and dozens of times on ask.metafilter.com in answer to requests ranging from “Making a house feel like a home: literary edition” and “I want spaceship books!” to “Sci fi as self-care” and “Books with the same mouthfeel as Steven Universe.” "Ninety percent of all problems are caused by people be- ing assholes.” “What causes the other ten percent?” asked Kizzy. Becky Chambers: Space Is a Place for “Natural disasters,” said Nib. Everybody — Becky Chambers, The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet By Clarissa C. S. Ryan All you can do, Rosemary – all any of us can do – is work The Wayfarer series is unlike other science fiction fu- to be something positive instead. That is a choice that ev- tures. It’s a peek at a universe wherein people can be de- ery sapient must make every day of their life. The uni- cent, be different, support each other, and have adven- verse is what we make of it. It’s up to you to decide what tures in space—without imperial, military trappings. The part you will play.” adventures aren’t big, not in the way that massive battles — Becky Chambers, The Long Way to a Small, Angry among galactic fleets are. At the same time, the stories Planet that play out in the Wayfarers series, whether in kitchens or scrap shops, are big. Finding one’s true home, unlearn- Becky Chambers is a returned Californian who has also ing a prejudice, finding a family, falling in love, uncover- lived in Iceland and Scotland. She comes from a space- ing hope: nothing is more enormous than these moments studying, if not space-faring, family. Her name was fa- of the heart. miliar to many of us who read The Toast or The Mary Sue, where she wrote thoughtful pieces on games and The emotional resonance in the Wayfarers books is what more, before we encountered any of her fiction. gives them that TARDIS-like quality of being bigger on the inside than on the outside. This pairs well with the Chambers has said that when she wrote The Long Way to other qualities of science fiction that many of us love: a Small, Angry Planet, she wasn’t sure whether anyone vivid and diverse characters and settings, other worlds “would want to read a quiet little slice-of-life that takes that feel real, imaginative technology, and the sweep of place on an ugly spaceship owned by a pacifist captain.”1 stars. Like a lot of other readers, I’ve successfully recom- That’s an understandable concern. English-language mended the series to a far wider range of friends and fam- genre novels in the slice-of-life mode barely exist. But ily members than I might usually, from people who don’t read science fiction at all to my father-in-law, who’s usu- 1 Becky Chambers quoted in Lulu Khadim, “An Interview ally into classic adventure sci fi. with Becky Chambers.” Strange Horizons, issue 29, October 2018. Page 3 The Wayfarers series began in 2014 with The Long Way now, but it’s equally important to have stories that give us to a Small, Angry Planet, which itself started life as a leg- something to hope for. There’s no point to surviving if endary self-publishing Kickstarter success. The novel you’re not aiming for something better.3 was then picked up by a publisher, and since then two — equally outstanding sequels (A Closed and Common Or- Clarissa C. S. Ryan is