Please help Readercon expand its invitation list!
Hi all,
I hope this post is appropriate here; if not, please let me know and I'll take it down.
I'm a longtime follower and occasional commenter in this community. I'm also the program chair for Readercon, a speculative literature convention that takes place in the Boston, Mass. area every July. Participation in our program--that is, speaking on panels, giving talks, and doing readings--is by invitation, and while our invitation list includes some fabulous people of color (including past guests of honor Samuel R. Delany and Nalo Hopkinson), I'm looking for ways to diversify it further. I hope you can help by recommending amazing people you'd like to see on our program!
Readercon is very focused on the written word, so I'm primarily looking for authors, editors, publishers, critics, and academics who are well-versed in written science fiction, fantasy, and horror. That said, we do have occasional items on related media, including cover art and illustrations, movies, and television. You can get a sense of who usually comes to Readercon by looking at this year's guest list.
I would greatly appreciate recommendations of people of color (and other members of disprivileged groups within fandom) who you think would have a good time at Readercon and enjoy contributing to our conversations. Please comment on this post or write to program@readercon.org anytime between now and December with your suggestions. (You can put yourself forward too.) The people you recommend don't need to be famous; they just need to be inquisitive, opinionated, and passionate about speculative literature and related fields. This link lays out exactly what we're looking for in a recommendation. If you have contact info, great! If not, send suggestions anyway and we'll find ways to contact them.
Feel free to pass this link around to anyone who might be interested, post it on mailing lists, etc.
Thanks very, very much!
Cheers,
Rose
I hope this post is appropriate here; if not, please let me know and I'll take it down.
I'm a longtime follower and occasional commenter in this community. I'm also the program chair for Readercon, a speculative literature convention that takes place in the Boston, Mass. area every July. Participation in our program--that is, speaking on panels, giving talks, and doing readings--is by invitation, and while our invitation list includes some fabulous people of color (including past guests of honor Samuel R. Delany and Nalo Hopkinson), I'm looking for ways to diversify it further. I hope you can help by recommending amazing people you'd like to see on our program!
Readercon is very focused on the written word, so I'm primarily looking for authors, editors, publishers, critics, and academics who are well-versed in written science fiction, fantasy, and horror. That said, we do have occasional items on related media, including cover art and illustrations, movies, and television. You can get a sense of who usually comes to Readercon by looking at this year's guest list.
I would greatly appreciate recommendations of people of color (and other members of disprivileged groups within fandom) who you think would have a good time at Readercon and enjoy contributing to our conversations. Please comment on this post or write to program@readercon.org anytime between now and December with your suggestions. (You can put yourself forward too.) The people you recommend don't need to be famous; they just need to be inquisitive, opinionated, and passionate about speculative literature and related fields. This link lays out exactly what we're looking for in a recommendation. If you have contact info, great! If not, send suggestions anyway and we'll find ways to contact them.
Feel free to pass this link around to anyone who might be interested, post it on mailing lists, etc.
Thanks very, very much!
Cheers,
Rose