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My WisCon PanelsMay 19, 2006 My panel assignments for WisCon 30 arrived this morning. Better late than never, I say, and though I love doing panels and would have loved to have more assignments I hear that there were so many stellar volunteers that everyone has a relatively light load. I love the assignments I did get, which are . . . Fat, Feminism, and FandomIs "overweight" a feminist issue? How does the fannish community treat it? Has the general climate changed since WisCon 9, when this panel was first presented? My short answers are, in order, Absolutely! -- Don't know; I'm not really part of the fannish community -- and Not sure, since I wasn't at WisCon 9. My first WisCon was #14, in 1990. My impression then, and at subsequent WisCons, was that WisCon feminism was feminism lite. This was fine with me, because physically I'd bailed out of feminism serious in 1985 and by 1990, though I was still keeping my writerly hand in the stew, the Sex Wars and other turf battles had left the old common ground pretty much uninhabitable. I had no plans to return to feminism serious any time soon, though I'm not sure how conscious I was of that at the time. In exploring "fat, feminism, and fandom," however, WisCon was making a serious contribution to feminism serious, lite, and in-between. By WisCon 14 I was no longer fat -- wasn't exactly petite either -- but I'd done my time and knew enough to appreciate the work being done by fat feminists in fandom. One of my first feminist essays that didn't pretend to be a book review was "On Fat, Choice, and Silence," written in 1983. I intend to post it to the Essays & Articles section of this website in the next couple of days. Fundamentals of FeminismWhat principles are core to most if not all feminists? What books are so important to the field that anyone who claims to be feminist should at least give them a try? What historical events and people have been especially crucial to the development of feminism? Come share your thoughts! I can't even begin to discuss this one. The other panelists include Samuel R. "Chip" Delany and Jan Bogstad, and Lucy Sussex (who was on the Tiptree Award jury the same year I was, 1994) is the moderator. I can't wait!!
Should we care that independent bookstores are closing?What effect do the superstores and Amazon have on small independent bookstores? Why should you care? What can you do about it? Is there any good in Amazon, et cetera? Should we care? YES! she screamed. Yes indeed, she has a few things to say, about the crucial importance of distribution and audience for artists of all kinds, and about why relatively privileged people (which would include most f/sf fans, and many, many readers) have a hard time dealing with economics. Which as far as I'm concerned is what this panel is about. The medium is the message; the lack of medium may kill the message before it dares speak its name. Pass it on.
I may, and probably will, be mumbling about some/all of the above in the days to come, but if you want to share your insights about any/all, drop me an e-mail. Care of the Birmingham jail -- or maybe this website.
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