BayCon 2006 photos cropped from originals uploaded by kentbrew
Fairly light on the fandom scale, me, despite my enthusiastic reading/viewing. We’re subscribed to Aurealis and I read Eidolon online, I’ve posted a few macros to ihasatardis, and I’ve been to two (two!) cons in my whole life, the last one well over 10 years ago. I lurk on a few blogs where the SF geeks play.
How about you? Any best/worst fandom moment stories to share? Where do you lurk/contribute online?
Categories: arts & entertainment
In memoriam: Diana Rigg 
#AWW2017 – non-fiction – six reviews 
Otterday! And Open Thread 
Wonder Woman movie marketing machine tied up in knots 
Hoyden About Town 
James Nicoll who reviews SF for a living and was prolific on usenet is good to read. I don’t read much SF these days but I like Girl Genius.
Writing a piece on P K Dick at the moment, actually, for a Bruce Gillespie fanzine. A bunch of us in Melbourne usually meet up a couple of times every month for drinks and talks; but I’m personally much too lazy and unsystematic to commit to anything as big as a con.
Now that’s some costume; the 1920s have nothing on those flappers.
Like everyone, I’ve started and neglected a few online comics. I subscribed to Cosmos Magazine the second it hit the shelves. It usually has brilliant short SF stories. Interestingly, so does The Big Issue every time they do a fiction issue – quarterly, I think.
And at the moment I’m getting a lot of housework done, and representing Australia at the Procrastination Olympics (starting next week. Or the week after. Probably the week after. We’re pretty busy. Actually, I’ll give you a call when they start.) while I avoid doing anything about my application for RMIT’s games design course. 400 applicants. 20 Commonwealth Supported places. Me, with writers block.
Never been to a con though.
I sit right in the beating heart of Australian fandom — more often than not I chair the business meetings of the National SF convention, for example. I get a few fanzines, I help publish a small press SF magazine (Borderlands, and I have a special badge to say I have been to more than 20 Swancons (the Perth annual con). I’ve also been to lots of other cons, including three Worldcons (and been a speaker at all three), and been involved in the running of a bunch. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been on a panel at a convention, but it’s well over 100. I was a fan guest of honour once, and I am a life member of my old University SF Club, as well as a past president.
Basically, I am very very fannish indeed, and fandom is an enormous part of my life.
Oddly though, I tend to avoid a lot of specifically fannish onlines hangouts – but many of the blogs and journals I read are of people I know via fandom.
Best and worst moments are kind of hard to say. I’ve met some wonderful people through fandom, including many of my best friends, some lovers, and several of my idols. I’ve seen some bad behaviour over the years too. The most memorable moments are probably to do with costumes, both alarming (flabby male computer programmers dressed as 7 of 9 or Leelu from the 5th elements), and astonishing (the last con I attended featured professional looking full body Where the Wild Things Are costumes, for example). The sight of a roomful of fans that are largely in full costume dancing is something that never fails to astonish and both delight and alarm in equal measure.
“You know what I belieeve…”
First proper con I went to was in Manchester soon after arrival – Manopticon (Dr Who convention) in the old town hall which they used to double for Westminster when filming House of Cards [You might think that, I couldn’t possibly comment…]. You learn a lot about the influence of tv on small children when unexpectedly menaced by a dalek from the top of the stairs as an adult but apart from officials ‘exhibiting’ costumes, dressing up isn’t really the done thing in the UK.
(I was laughed out of Portmerion in Wales once because I was wearing a black cardigan with white piping in the town they filmed The Prisoner but at that stage I’d never actually seen the 60’s cult classic, I was there because that was also where they filmed Masque of Mandragora during Tom Baker’s Dr Who.)
In my other identity, I am big into fandom here in the US. (How would you guess?) I was on the board of my uni’s SFF organization and helped with a smallish feminist SFF/anime con they’re still putting on to this day. I’ve been to WisCon a couple times, too; it’s fairly close to my physical location.
I have been known to write fanfic, and I follow DW fandom on LJ to a certain extent, but I refuse to sign up at Outpost Gallifrey because I’m sure I’d spork the crap out of people there. I also RP on LJ, but you won’t find out much more than that.
Also, I totally love Justine Larbalestier’s book The Battle of the Sexes in Science Fiction, because it is just that damn informative.