FOGcon

We’ve updated the photography policy to allow members to take more pictures. Here’s the new policy:

We are pleased to announce that the winning entry in the 2012 FOGcon student writing contest is “Skinned” by Ivy Blaine. Ms. Blaine is an MFA student at Mills College. We’d like to thank all entrants to this year’s contest, and encourage them to keep writing and submitting their work.

– Wendy Shaffer, Writing Contest Coordinator

FOGcon starts four weeks from tomorrow. Do you know where your roommate is? Or who?*

If you have a hotel reservation you’d like to share, or don’t have a reservation but want to stay overnight, this is the place to find someone with complementary needs.

*No, not whom. I thought of that myself.

This year’s FOGcon theme is The Body in SF/F, and we have wonderful Honored Guests who have written on that topic. Nalo Hopkinson, Shelley Jackson, and the late Mary Shelley. I’ve posted their bibliographies to the site for members who want to read up before the con.

I’d love to post more suggestions of great books and stories on the subject. What comes to your mind as the most illuminating, powerful, or influential SF/F writing about the body? In addition to listing titles and authors, you could tell us a bit about your suggestions.

The first ones I think of are these:

Samuel Delany, “Aye, and Gomorrah”
Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness
Matt Ruff, Set This House in order
Cordwainer Smith, “Scanners Live in Vain”
James Tiptree, Jr., “The Girl Who Was Plugged In”

What are your favorite fictional explorations of what it means to have or be a body? Of the ways a slight anatomical difference can change everything? Of health, illness, reproduction, death, body image?

If you’re looking for something to read between now and FOGcon, these works by our Honored Guests are a great place to start.

Nalo Hopkinson

• Brown Girl in the Ring (1998)
• Midnight Robber (2000)
• Whispers from the Cotton Tree Root: Caribbean Fabulist Fiction (2000, ed.)
• Skin Folk (2001)
• Mojo: Conjure Stories (2003, ed.)
• The Salt Roads (2003)
• So Long Been Dreaming (2004, ed.)
• The New Moon’s Arms (2007)

Shelley Jackson

Hypertexts

• Patchwork Girl (1995)
• My Body (1997)
• The Doll Games (with Pamela Jackson, 2001)

Books

• The Melancholy of Anatomy (short story collection, 2002)
• Half Life (novel, 2006)

Mary Shelley

• Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818)
• The Last Man (1826)

We’re glad to announce that a POC meetup is being arranged again this year. If you’re interested, go to Oyceter’s blog and take the poll.

FOGcon has some fascinatingly quirky videos on YouTube. Now we’re looking for a somewhat more straightforward video explaining what FOGcon is and giving something of the flavor.

Are you interested? Email us at vid@fogcon.org

We’ve had two years of this process so far, and now it’s time to ask for your suggestions and advice — what do you think would make a great theme for 2013? Who would be the perfect Honored Guests to fit that theme? Let us know by going to fogcon.org/ideas-for-2013-theme/, and giving us your suggestions.

On February 17 the doors to our mysterious data vault will clang shut, and the steampunk geniuses inside will begin the mammoth and complex task of scheduling all FOGcon programming. That’s less than two weeks away.

If you want a voice in FOGcon, vote for the panels you’re interested in attending. Volunteer to participate in the panels where you can make a contribution.

1. We few, we happy few, we band of siblings, share the simple pride of helping produce a wonderful literary SF/F convention.
2. “Hey, baby, I volunteered at FOGcon” is better than most pickup lines I’ve heard.
3. Fifty years from now, people in Mars spaceports will buy you a drink because you volunteered at FOGcon.
4. Volunteers have much more fun.
5. You’ll learn the innermost secrets of the way a convention is run. Well, OK, maybe one or two secrets. But they will be juicy ones, like the use and meaning of blue tape, or how to keep the flow of munchies running smoothly in the consuite.
6. There is no number 6.
7. It’s easier for volunteers to get to know new people and make sure they see their old friends.
8. Volunteering is the first step to becoming a SMOF (Secret Master/Mistress/Magus of Fandom). You’ll learn the volunteers’ secret handshake, eye signals, protocol, and rituals handed down from ancient European noble houses and preserved by a few dedicated souls in each generation.
9. Volunteers win an invisible propeller beanie and a virtual secret decoder ring.
10. We need you. A few hours of your time can help FOGcon run smoothly this year and keep happening in years to come.

Volunteer! And if you’ve emailed before but not been answered, try again — we had some technical issues.