I'm excited that The Skiffy and Fanty Show is nominated again this year for the Hugo Award for Best Fancast! Unlike last year, I'm not named on the ballot, but as a regular podcast crew member through 2019, I certainly still feel invested in the result.
I had never seriously considered going to
WorldCon in New Zealand, since the Dublin WorldCon last year put a large hole in my budget. I had simply bought a supporting membership this year. But since CoNZealand went online-only, due to the coronavirus pandemic, and I need to start using up vacation time (no one in my group at work has taken vacation yet this year, due to furloughs, and vacations don't roll over to next year), I decided to pony up the fee to attend virtually.
I also summoned the courage to apply to be a panelist this time around. CoNZealand told me a couple of weeks ago that I would be on a panel, The Art of the Review! I was thrilled, because that looks right up my alley; however, I was forbidden to announce it until the schedule was finalized.
This week I found out that I am on not just one panel but three! Whee! And I am moderating two of them! Uh-oh. Not only have I never moderated a panel, I've never even been on a live panel, although I've been on plenty of podcast discussions. So I'm facing a steep learning curve. However, I have attended hundreds of panels at WorldCons and other conventions, and I have seen many examples of both good and bad moderation. Also, my sister sent me a list of articles about moderating panels, and I'll read them all when my vacation starts. It'll be a little different moderating on Zoom as well, probably harder in some ways, but easier in others. For example, I can ignore this-is-more-of-a-comment-than-a-question queries instead of making everyone sit through them or trying to cut them off.
Unlike Balticon and some others, CoNZealand is still charging full admission for virtual attendance. My understanding is that they had made financial commitments they couldn't cancel, and then had to spend a lot on tech for the virtual programming. However, my instructor during a CoNZealand online panel training session said panels would be recorded and archived somewhere, the University of Toronto if I recall correctly. I'll post links whenever that happens.
For people who ARE attending, or just curious, here's my schedule. Times are New Zealand, with US Eastern time below them:
The Art of the Review
29 Jul 2020, Wednesday 13:00 - 13:50, Programme Room 2 (Webinar) (Programming)
That's Wellington, New Zealand time.
In the Eastern U.S., this panel will be on Tuesday, July 28 at 9 p.m.
Reviewing a book is dead simple -- right? Uhmm, nope. We find what goes into reviews (of anything: Book, articles, songs, films) and what to look for.
James Davis Nicoll (James Nicoll Reviews / University of Waterloo Theatre Centre), Trish Matson (Moderator), Claire Rousseau, Anne-Louise Fortune (Independent Scholar), Kyla Lee Ward (Prea Press)
The Death of Genre?
29 Jul 2020, Wednesday 15:00 - 15:55, Programme Room 5 (Zoom Meeting) (Programming)
That's NZ time.
In the Eastern U.S., this panel will be Tuesday, July 28 at 11 p.m.
Is it epic fantasy, or heist novel? Science fiction, or romance? Writers and readers are rebelling against the traditional "types" of fiction. They're reading and writing what they like, not what makes the book easy to shelve. Do genres even exist any more?
Amanda Pillar, Trish Matson, Caren Gussoff Sumption, Joshua Bilmes, Soon Lee (M)
In Space No One Can See You Hide the Evidence: Crimes in Space
2 Aug 2020, Sunday 12:00 - 12:50, Programme Room 4 (Webinar) (Programming)
That's Wellington time. In the Eastern U.S., this panel is on Saturday, Aug. 1, at 8 p.m.
The panel discusses SF mysteries set in space.
Trish Matson (Moderator), Carl Fink, Becky Chambers, Kat Clay
Wish me luck! I've got a lot of research to do in not a lot of time! By all means, if you have any points you'd like any of these panels to address, suggest away!
UPDATE 7/19: Today I became aware that some people I really respect have
petitioned CoNZealand to include more diverse people on their panels and to put more Hugo finalists onto panels they feel are relevant to their expertise. I emailed the Programming committee to offer to step back from two of my three panels. I want to stay on The Art of the Review, because I've already put a lot of thought into it. However, I offered to step back from the other two panels, in the interests of diversity and harmony, if needed. CoNZealand already responded to thank me for my offer and said they'd get back to me if there are any programme changes.
UPDATE 7/20: CoNZealand Programme staff responded, thanked me, and said they'd get back to me.
UPDATE 7/27: CoNZealand Programme staff emailed me yesterday confirming my schedule as above.
UPDATE 9/1: My panels went off pretty well!
CoNZealand did panels via Zoom, with chats and Q&A. Each panel had a behind-the-scenes Zoom host and a moderator. The moderator guided the panel's discussion and also monitored the Q&A, where questions were supposed to be submitted. If extra ambitious, the moderator could also look at the Zoom chat where general reactions, comments and side discussions were being typed by the audience.
It was really intense being on the panel and trying to watch the Q&A and chat at the same time, but there were comments from the audience saying that the panels I moderated were great, and I didn't hear any complaints from my fellow panelists. "The Death of Genre?" had three panelists show up instead of the listed five, but the chat was quite active, so that helped. "Crimes in Space" had a Mrs. Jacqui Smith show up as a panelist that I, the moderator, hadn't been notified would be coming, so she hadn't been included in the rest of the panel's preliminary emails, but we managed OK.
I've followed several of the panelists on social media, and they've followed me back. Nice to make some congenial connections!
I watched a number of really interesting panels by other people, too. The panel recordings will eventually be available at the
University of Toronto's Merrill collection, but will apparently only be available to researchers there, not online to the public.
I also played a really entertaining game called "The Claws of the Crab People" run by Ken Finlayson. The game was in the style of a 1950s B movie, and the players were investigating the problem, which turned out to be an alien invasion. My character was a fisherwoman whose poker buddy, a scientist, had gone missing. Players all had a set of lines that they were supposed to work into their dialogue, and I was ridiculously proud of how I completed the line "And to think people laughed when I named my fists..." You see, I had just been in a fight with some alien robots, and when it was over, I said,
"And to think people laughed when I named my fists HOOK (demonstrated with a hook punch) and SINKER (overhand fist straight down)!" The players and GM all laughed, so that was a win.
Unfortunately, following (or concurrent with) the panelist assignment/inclusivity problems, CoNZealand organizers made some more egregious mistakes regarding the convention.
1. Instead of honoring New Zealand writers and other creators during the Hugo ceremonies, they buried the Sir Julius Vogel awards in the last half of the Retro Hugo awards panel, held at the same time as a Guests of Honor panel.
2. Most con members only found out about their eligibility to vote on the SJV awards far after that vote had been held. A packet of nominees' work, similar to the Hugos finalists voting packet, had been assembled, but it was never released to the membership. A footnote at the end of a newsletter that didn't say where or how to track the packet down does not count in any effective way. CoNZealand did make that packet available to members after the con, but that is small consolation.
3. The Souvenir Book listed a number of creators' names (sometimes misspelled) with no descriptions. Most of these would have been easy to grab off social media, or even taken from their packet submissions. I don't know all the difficulties the people making the Souvenir Book had to struggle with, but it was a very bad look.
4. The Hugo awards ceremony was more than twice as long as it needed to be, because the host, George R.R. Martin, told many, many anecdotes about previous WorldCons he'd been to, and praised John Campbell to the skies in an obvious slap in the face to all the fans and finalists (including at least one soon-to-be award winner) who've moved fandom beyond that racist fascist. He also told some anecdotes that were inappropriate in other ways. He took the time to organize about 20 funny hat changes, but not to find out how to pronounce a bunch of the nominees' names, and also mispronounced the name of FIYAH magazine, in a way that sounded deliberate. The whole thing was arrogant and insulting. Moreover, his segments were mostly if not all prerecorded, so CoNZealand could have edited him down.
Many more details here, from Natalie Luhrs:
I will concede that I am a bit biased against GRRM, because of his so-called Hugo Losers party at the Dublin WorldCon that snubbed the Hugo Losers (including me, incidentally), and his subsequent
defensiveness and victim-blaming, lost him all benefit of the doubt from me.
In summary, the parts of CoNZealand that I participated in were extremely enjoyable, but a lot of the organizers' decisions were extremely disappointing.
One more thing related to CoNZealand, although not actually affiliated with it: Following the programming fiasco, a number of people whom I respect arranged an unofficial supplementary program at
http://www.conzealandfringe.com/Note, this was not counter-programming, but rather complementary programming. All 15 Fringe panels were held during European-friendly hours, when CoNZealand had gone dark for their night. The people who organized it made strong efforts to include panelists diverse along several axes.
All those panels are available to watch free on YouTube. Enjoy!
