WriterCon: *fail edition

[rm]

WriterCon has two types of programming: programming that is planned and panelists chosen by Con Programming, and programming organized by attendees and included on the official con schedule but not really endorsed or not by WriterCon. This, as you might imagine, can make things a little murky. I do like that both types of programming exist at the con, but I thought it needed more clarification in places. I explain this because it's necessary to some of the *fail issues I'm about to address.

I also want to note, in what I will go into in a separate post, that there were many, many things I loved about this con: including the focus on transformative works craft, the multi-fandom attendees and the really fantastic efforts of accommodation the Con Staff made towards folks with special needs, including dietary. I have never, ever felt like a con staff cared more about each of its attendees on an individual basis.

Which is why when fail came, I was like "woah, what the fuck?!"

Sadly, I think much of the fail is a product of the fact that people have become defensive. People are scared of these discussions, and I have to say while they are often unfun and heartbreaking (who wants to be the target of this stuff? who wants to realize they've hurt people or a community they care about no matter how inadvertently?) -- jeez they are not going to kill you, and they certainly aren't a reason to fail more.

Like most SF/F and fandom cons, only about 5% of the attendees were PoC. Honestly, this was more than I was expecting, and it was nice to see that these people were part of programming and not just on RaceFail-related topics. Also a plus -- lots of fliers for the Carl Brandon Society.

However, at more than one panel more than one person noticed folks avoiding calling on PoC attendees and had to step in and make sure those people got heard. FUCKED UP.

Of the official programming there was a single panel entitled "Evil in Our Midst: Dealing with racism, sexism and homophobia in fandom." Because of my flight schedule, I was only able to attend half of it. I have to assume it was placed towards the end of the con so that if it went badly, it wouldn't affect the mood of the whole con, but these issues can't be afterthoughts, and scheduling things in such a way to make sure the issue isn't infused throughout the con and prevents people from attending is really problematic. On the plus side, the attendance was pretty damn good anyway!

The panel was made up of a fantastically diverse group and was so able to encompass a lot of perspectives. However, the panel was moderated by a straight, white woman, and I couldn't figure that out. Did the PoC and queer folks need translation? Could they not speak for themselves? This was uncomfortable to me at the time, and has become increasingly more upsetting to me in my head (yes, there's the sexism angle, but because the con was more than 95% female, a white, straight woman in this case is totally a part of the dominant group and appointing her to the position of power was sort of creepy - no slight on her (ETA: who has subsequently posted some great stuff, linked to later in all this, about privilege -- so I get why she was chosen, but the impression is delivered sadly doesn't stop being problematic and I have to believe that other people on the panel would have been equally capable of moderating), I'm just not sure this was thought out super-well.

The panel was necessarily very 101-level although some really interesting stuff came up, including a discussion of Bollywood as a fandom (what does it mean when we fan an entire culture? are you wearing a saree because you like the aesthetic or because you're cosplaying? do you get how that impacts actual South Asian people?) and the usual vaguely derail-y things ("should our goal be not to offend anyone?").

Then I had to leave to catch my flight.

And then apparently other things happened that people who were there and people who were on the panel will address at more length and more accurately than me, but the phone call I got at the airport included the report that someone got up and said they felt marginalized for being straight and that they felt marginalized for being in a fandom and having a child, and I can't not address this. (ETA: I have subsequently learned that in small post-panel discussions the woman's point was actually about age-ism in fandom, which is a very real and legitimate problem, but hopefully those discussions also highlighted how incredibly fail-y and rude it was to say "am I not fucked up enough to be in fandom?" -- I'm not fucked up for being queer and my friends aren't fucked up for being transfolk or PoC: further insight into events here: http://community.livejournal.com/writercon/228157.html / http://rahirah.livejournal.com/411832.html (same post, different comments)).

I am queer every day. And every once in a while I get to hang out in a queer space, such that I don't have to worry if I'm dressing femininely enough to get through airport security or if kissing my girlfriend on my street corner at 11:30 at night is really the best fucking idea in the world.

And I get that feeling marginalized even for a minute is weird and can be heartrending. I get this specifically as it applies to fandom: a lot of us were outcasts growing up, a lot of us don't have face-to-face fannish communities to be a part of where we live, and when we go to a con, we want everyone to be just like us. We don't want to be outcasts -- not still, not again.

But I gotta tell you something -- and this isn't about bias and oppression and marginalization, it's just about life -- it's what I learned from fencing, from learning to fight: We all die alone. And we all fight alone. And we all live alone. On some level, we are always, always, always in a space where no one can know what we are feeling and how strange and terrible and lonely we are -- whether we're straight white guys or people of color or queer folks or a mom at a con.

And in being who I am -- someone who is melancholy and mournful, who views the solid presence of other people in my life as a one-in-a-billion craps shoot I can't believe I won -- you have all my compassion, all my love, all my sympathy and all my interest, because that is, innately, how I react to people who, like me, who know this nature of aloneness. You are beautiful to me.

But you need to step back. Because no, you are not marginalized or oppressed because you are part of the dominant group and people who are part of other groups are stepping up to say that we want some damn consideration. Nor are you marginalized or oppressed because you chose to have a kid. I spent most of the weekend with a woman who is second-generation fen and her baby; we wrote fic together, talked about slash and hung out with her wife. So no matter how different you may feel from what you perceive to be the majority of fandom, no one is being oppressed because they have a kid -- if someone's rude to you, that's actually something else -- the -ism's are something way beyond rudeness or you feeling awkward or out of place.

Look, I don't like being part of a marginalized group. It's not fun or romantic. Some of us -- both in these groups and outside of them -- have to learn this, just as many of us have to go through the thing where we learn there's nothing cool or fun about poverty or having to whore (as opposed to choosing to engage in sex work) to put food on the table or get the damn rent paid.

And that's about all I'm capable of saying without resorting to a great deal of obscenity, so I'm going to stop there on this particular part of the situation.

Moving on, I think no one is well-served by there just being one panel for the racism, homophobia and sexism conversations, as they are three very different things. Because transformative works fanishness is perceived as so female dominated (and probably is) the sexism discussion must largely be about internalized-sexism and that's a profoundly different conversation than the conversation about queer fetishization. And race issues are very different from that -- because I can look gender-conforming and straight going through airport security, while PoC don't suddenly get to be white when shopping, going through airport security or taking flack from asshole cosplayers who don't understand the idea of color-blind casting.

People who are family to me in the immediate sense (good friends and creative partners) and in the distant sense (fellow fen) are in pain over what happened, and so am I. It's upsetting, and as one of the panelists kept saying, we need to learn to listen harder and fail better.

The other case of (specific as opposed to atmospheric) *fail happened in a fan-led discussion that was about addressing slash how and whether it should take into consideration real, actual queer people. This panel also had much positive discussion, some of which started to get past a 101-level I thought, but the moderator had a clear agenda that, to me, felt like "those damn gays are meddling in our porn."

The discussion included a hand-out of potential discussion questions, many of which I found mind-blowingly offensive (I've made a deal with at least one other attendee that we're going to post them all with our answers on LJ over the next week or so), and the woman hosting the panel repeatedly snarked on our table (we were not the only queer people speaking up, but we could, rather legitimately, be perceived as a unified force, as it were) for being articulate and was particularly dismissive to the two PoC people at our table (and the combination of "articulate" and PoC is one of those very loaded, sneaky RaceFail things that happen sometimes and that was seriously, seriously sketchy).

I was shocked and appalled, and while some of this woman's viewpoint would have been potentially useful on a panel, to be an individual with an agenda on a sensitive issue with unvetted programming?!?!?! -- WOW. Not Okay.

Also, bisexuality is real. People not getting this came up all over the place -- in slash convos, in convos about internalized-sexism, in people chatting about Torchwood.

Finally, I want to return to the theme of defensiveness. We're now in a phase of this process, of talking about "the evil in our midst," wherein too many people are either bracing themselves for a fight because of the backlash the people speaking out are getting (I think of my table at the above-mentioned queer panel) -- which of course isn't necessarily constructive but something I think we have an unfortunate right to, or looking for a fight, because suddenly (like the straight person who said they felt marginalized in the first panel I talked about) they aren't part of the dominant group all the damn time.

Additionally, people need to stop dismissing conversations about these issues as wank. Wank is when we gossip about people's egos or get into flame wars about how someone behaved at a con or deal with things that make no sense to most of us: like Snape's Wives. Dealing with racism, sexism and homophobia = not wank.

So what good came out of all of this for me personally:
- I have even more love and respect for my friends, especially having watched ones who don't want to have to be the educators on these issues do it anyway.
- I met some really cool new people.
- I did see people have ah-hah! moments.
- I did learn that there are actually large swathes of fandom that missed the RaceFail thing entirely, and so were just sort of getting caught up on how big the problems are.
- I did see the larger community of the con close ranks against fail when it happened.
- I feel more confident in the value of my being willing to talk about this stuff. I don't like falling on this grenade over and over again, but since no one expects me to be "nice" or "non-threatening" or "look the other way" I have more latitude to say what needs to be said.
- I have new frameworks for the discussion.
- Hey, the Carl Brandon society totally deserves my money.

Comments

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

Oo, I'd never even heard of the Carl Brandon Society before your post, but it's clearly an important and good thing. *investigates*

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Wow, that fail sounds like real fun.

I'm usually good at being non-confrontational confrontational (say what needs to be said in a "nice" tone), but I've really had it up to here with being nice.
It heartens me to read that you were a "unified force" and tried to keep the derailing at a minimum.

Looking forward to the rest of your WriterCon posts.

[hughcasey.livejournal.com]

May I ask, how WOULD you like to see a con handle the topic of *FAIL? I ask because, yes, I have input with the programming for a pretty substantial regional con, and I think that this is important, and that we should examine it and discuss it. But I'd like us to do it RIGHT. And, being a (I hope open-minded) well-educated male of northern European descent, I am VERY worried about doing it wrong.

off the top of my head

[rm.livejournal.com]

- Don't schedule panels on these topics for the very end of the con.

- If you have the scheduling room, don't dump all the -isms onto one panel.

- Make sure PoC and queer people are included on programming about topics other than these.

- Do not have panel moderators on panels about *fail issues who are part of the dominant, non-oppressed group.

- Never just let one person up there to talk -- panels all the way.

- I've seen some people saying they'd rather small group discussions for collective input. Consider scheduling multiple roundtables.

- Put a mic up in the room for people with comments and questions to queue up behind -- thus diminishing the possibility that panelists won't call on PoC/women/queer folk because of their own issues -- conscious or subconscious.

[gallo-de-pelea.livejournal.com]

Thanks for these. I'm looking forward to reading your thoughts in subsequent Writercon posts.

[fmanalyst.livejournal.com]

Just out of curiosity, how do you see (or do you see) disability issues entering into this issue of marginalization? I've seen some con reports (I think out of WisCon) that brought up similar sorts of fail for disabled people.

Also, to We all die alone. And we all fight alone. And we all live alone. I would add that we live as we best we can in the bodies we were given in the circumstances we find ourselves.

[rm.livejournal.com]

I didn't notice anyone that was obviously living with a disability other than a girl who had a leg in a cast, although I'm sure there were invisible disabilities present.

All the con rooms seemed navigable by wheelchairs though, and I think that this con probably would have handled disability issues very well had there been a greater need than I was able to observe. Additionally, MNP is a very, very wheelchair friendly city, so it was a great choice in that regard as well.

long comment is long

[shiverelectric]

It's hard for me to reconcile the part of me that didn't even notice the various amounts of fail that occurred and the parts of me that, after reading this, agree with what you've said as I belatedly realize what happened. Like I was telling versaphile after the EioM panel, with racism (and other -isms) going underground, as it were, people are more subtle in their -istness. I kind of ask myself later "Was that racist when such and such happened?" and a lot of it gets so internalized I think I just take it as standard, which makes me sad that I'm taking fail as standard instead of something I should be questioning more in life and fandom.

But on the other end, I don't want to get defensive about everything and become the kind of person that always says "Hey, that's (insert -ist)!" Like Xionin said, maybe I'm picking my battles, and the ones in WoW are easier to address than the ones around me all the time.

Or maybe I'm just naive (which I am) and this is all just opening my eyes to all the fail that occurs each day.

Re: long comment is long

[rm.livejournal.com]

I think it's a true thing we have to pick our own battles. It's something I'm bad at -- I fight everything and then get freaked out and exhausted and sad before I get up and do it again. Balance is hard and we deserve to have that balance. Hell, we deserve not to have to be having these damn conversations at all.

I think it's also important that we do take time to question the things that happen in our fan spaces. A lot of people let stuff go, not to choose their battles, but because we so often have delayed reactions, because of, as you say internalized-isms, but also because we don't _expect_ to see this stuff in spaces that are non-mainstream and that we love.

Alas!

[lachupacabra.livejournal.com]

We all die alone. And we all fight alone. And we all live alone.
On some level, we are always, always, always in a space where no one can
know what we are feeling and how strange and terrible and lonely we are


i know its too hippy granola but its going to have to be ALL of us
making the effort on every part to communicate with EVERYONE & find
the common ground, the differences & to appreciate every single other
person as the thing we have in common: we are all HUMAN BEINGS.

the divisions have been fostered, cultivated, encouraged because united we stand, divided we fall.
cheezy but i absolutely believe it to be true.

[ophymirage.livejournal.com]

Also, bisexuality is real. People not getting this came up all over the place -- in slash convos, in convos about internalized-sexism, in people chatting about Torchwood.

And those of us who claim that label get categorized from both sides of the gay/straight divide, too.. one hesitates to ask what form the FAIL came in. (You're not really interested in same-sex relationships/slumming/fence-sitting/can't make a choice/Bi people are really straight/gay at heart... the list goes on..)

20 years of owning this identity, and I'm sure I'll still be surprised by some new form of FAIL... all we can do is keep talking...

[rm.livejournal.com]

The fail was less ugly than that -- but the one that really jumped out at me was when someone asked if it was okay to pair Ianto with Tosh in Torchwood, because wasn't that denying his gayness? Both are arguably canonically bisexual. Certainly, both are shown having sexual interest and involvement with both genders.

[evil_plotbunny]

- I did learn that there are actually large swathes of fandom that missed the RaceFail thing entirely, and so we're just sort of getting caught up on how big the problems are.

The general "large swathes of fandom have missed x" always surprises me at cons, but it's a good reminder that not everyone is on the net/reading the same stuff we are.

The Carl Brandon society looks very cool indeed.

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

I wish I had gone to this.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

" Because no, you are not marginalized or oppressed because you are part of the dominant group and people who are part of other groups are stepping up to say that we want some damn consideration."

Yes, THIS. THIS. I do not lose all my straight white cis privilege because once I felt marginalized in a black barbecue place. People should just shut up and listen. And maybe even apologize when they fuck up.

[fragiletender.livejournal.com]

Agreed. As a bisexual woman in a long-term poly relationship, I can sometimes feel very marginalised indeed but I'm also white, middle class and look like a mum - people tend not to shout at me on the street. I can pass and often do, occasionally from fear but more often because I can't be arsed to explain my relationship to people over and over again.

[electricalgwen.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much for this post. And for all the others like it - many of which I've not commented on. I tend to miss a lot (nearly all?) of fandom stuff beyond actual fanworks (I'm definitely part of that large swathe which can be completely unaware of major things going on in fandom), but it's usually your posts (which are always so solid, clear and articulate, even the ones you warn for as being rant-y) that make me aware of things like RaceFail, and encourage me to listen, shut up when I should shut up, listen more and, maybe, have the courage to (politely) call others on behaviour I disagree with. And then listen more and better.

[cruentum.livejournal.com]

This is only very marginally related, but I keep thinking that gender identity and sexual orientation both are a lot more fluid than people would like them to be, and that gay, lesbian and bi for sexual orientation are different basic colours but that within those you have a lot of shades of 'how gay'. Or maybe I just don't identify as bi even though I should, which leads a bit to the following:

I'm kind of trying to figure out how much declaring yourself to be something and if it is "queer" which I tend to use as an umbrella term for pretty much everything but I know other people use it differently, is necessary to fight fail. I'm not someone who declares, I don't want to declare. Reading conversations like these makes me wonder how much it is my responsibility as a "queer" person to delcare and ultimately to fight fail (actually ties in with issues of if it RTD's responsibility to write tv shows a certain or John Barrowman's responsibility to be more informed about gay issues than he is). In a way, and clearly queer people and people from marginalized groups can fail even within their own group, it makes me wonder if not declaring is a certain kind of fail.

So in other words, I occasionally feel pressured to declare affiliation to groups based on sexual orientation or whatnot by people of those groups because just by being a certain way I have a certain responsibility to do things, and I'm not sure that this ends into any kind of question. It really doesn't. Just a statement.

[rm.livejournal.com]

One of the reasons I use "queer" isn't just because of the very massive shades of gray in my own identity (the grey and how the labels are the beginning not the end of describing identity came up a lot and that was good), but because I do think we're still at a moment where everyone who chooses to be counted in some way is performing a service. My sexuality is one of the least interesting things about me and to me it should be the footnote to all the loud, crazy, creative, intense stuff I do. But the world isn't like that right now, and as much as I want to live in the future, I can't, not yet. So for me one of the very simple things I can do is use my name to be counted. Not everyone has that luxury or comfort, even pseudononymously, for all sorts of reasons. But for me it is a conscious choice, even though I would, in face, prefer not to. My introduction to the queer community was through Act Up, so for me, it's always Silence = Death.

[jendaby.livejournal.com]

I always look forward to your post-event reports, because you discuss the things that most people are not willing to talk about. Thank you. :)

Also: bisexuality is real.

I am glad you make a point of mentioning this, because so many people just don't get it. I have never felt marginalized at a con for being a mom (In fact, I find far more moms to spend time with at cons than I do at home! Con play-dates for the wee ones are a regularly scheduled thing!), but I have often felt marginalized for my orientation - people making false judgments about me based on how I look, or people who are aware of my orientation thinking it means that I am some sort of sex fiend, or worst of all (to me) other women who pretend-play at being bisexual to get the attention of the opposite sex and end up hurting and/or insulting others in the process. (this happens outside of cons, too, but it is often not as blatant)

You are so right: there need to be more serious discussions about the sensitive topics, and people need to understand that their false assumptions and bad behavior are Not Okay.

[genmaicha.livejournal.com]

I'm looking forward to seeing your answers to that panel's potential discussion questions.

[systris.livejournal.com]

you know the bisexual fail issues remind me of something that pissed me off about my cow-irker "guttersnipe" said when we were all talking about cheating/relationships/etc (long story) when i mentioned the fact that i had friends who were poly/open/gay or bisexual - she piped up and said "oh there's no such thing as bisexual, [they] are just whores..." of course she's a stupid 19 year old dingbat who has less sophistication than a rancid can of spray cheese, but that comment just irked me, just because people SHE knows are irresponsible whores doesnt mean that all bisexual people are...but when you deal with mundanes at work - without the help of a rusty tire iron of truth...you can only say so much.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

"I think no one is well-served by there just being one panel for the racism, homophobia and sexism conversations,"

You are on to something really REALLY important here. It is commonplace -- I've seen it and done it -- for the white feminists to drown out everybody else's voices, as well as to co-opt other people's problems with "I know just how you feel". It also says to the congoers that there's one monolithic problem to solve, and as long as they check off the "Don't be prejudiced panel" they're free to go on with the rest of their lives.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

You are on to something really REALLY important here. It is commonplace -- I've seen it and done it -- for the white feminists to drown out everybody else's voices, as well as to co-opt other people's problems with "I know just how you feel".

Most definitely. I've also run into this, and it's a disservice to feminism, much less to people affected by racism & homophobia. I've also seen a backlash of sexism from more than a few people who object this sort of nonsense. I think part of the issue is also that people are somewhat more comfortable talking about sexism, while discussions of racism cause far too many (mostly white) people to go completely nuts.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

Also, bisexuality is real. People not getting this came up all over the place -- in slash convos, in convos about internalized-sexism, in people chatting about Torchwood.

That's mindblowingly weird. Do you actually mean that some people didn't know that a not insignificant number of actual humans are bisexual?

[rm.livejournal.com]

See comments, it explains more of one of the things that went down.

[1-mad-squirrel.livejournal.com]

I am queer every day. And every once in a while I get to hang out in a queer space, such that I don't have to worry if I'm dressing femininely enough to get through airport security

Women who dress "masculine" are being detained by airport security???

Also, bisexuality is real. People not getting this came up all over the place -- in slash convos, in convos about internalized-sexism, in people chatting about Torchwood.

Thank you. And * sigh *.

[rm.livejournal.com]

My experience has been that I've dealt with significantly more airport security hassles if I am perceived as trying to look like something I'm not. I dress pretty for the airport in the name of efficiency.

My trans friends, who may or may not live in states that allow them to have government photo identification that matches who they are, also (and much more significantly) find airport security to be a potentially threatening environment.

...

[keith418.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the Chip Delaney link. His comments about liberal Jewish authors were quite interesting.

[wyld-dandelyon.livejournal.com]

If one person in a club is rude to you because you "suddenly" now have a kid, you can justifiably call it rudeness. However, if nearly everyone in a club is rude to you because you now have a kid, that is a form of oppression and marginalization, though in a microcosm.

There are MAJOR differences between that and being oppressed and marginalized in all of one's life, in all or nearly all social settings. And those differences matter A LOT. They are not only of scale, but also in many ways differences of kind. For instance, there's only one larger society; except in sff where there's a way to travel to alternate timelines, you're stuck with the one you have. You can't just quit the one club and go find another (or start another).

But each person's pain is real pain.

I don't think dismissing someone's pain as "small" or "insignificant" or "should be called by a different name" helps them or the cause of wanting respect for all people to be the norm.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Should marginalized groups allow discussions of our rights to be derailed in the name of soothing the wounds of individuals who are not targets of systemic oppression and, in many cases, violence?

[elainasaunt.livejournal.com]

I feel more confident in the value of my being willing to talk about this stuff. I don't like falling on this grenade over and over again, but since no one expects me to be "nice" or "non-threatening" or "look the other way" I have more latitude to say what needs to be said.

This makes me happy. Your clear, cogent, well-reasoned statements of things that so need to be said have often helped me formulate my own more inchoate feelings, so that I feel better able to stand up and talk about this stuff myself.

[laura47.livejournal.com]

*siiiiiiiiigh*

Also, bisexuality is real. People not getting this came up all over the place -- in slash convos, in convos about internalized-sexism, in people chatting about Torchwood.

I don't understand these people! I still remember when I was 17 and my mother said she didn't believe in bisexuality, and my friends laughed and laughed afterwards and compared bisexuality to the tooth fairy and santa claus, and... I was just so horrified to discover that it's there in people i consider otherwise reasonable. One of my best friends, who is about to come visit me, we still argue, because he asserts that female bisexuality is real, but male bisexuality is 99% of the time guys who are on their way from straight to gay, or straight and just trying to be bi and will give up. I've sopped arguing. He cites science (he has a phd in chemisty), i cite experience, we move on with our lives. *sigh*

[ophymirage.livejournal.com]

because he asserts that female bisexuality is real, but male bisexuality is 99% of the time guys who are on their way from straight to gay, or straight and just trying to be bi and will give up.

Wow. just Wow. That's clearly a PhD in SCIENCE! (said in dramatic voice)

I don't think I can even twist my brain far enough to encompass the illogic... Does he.. hum. Does he think it's to do with variant evolutionary behaviours, Dawkins-style, or something? or hormone balances? (I'm trying to even come up with a way that chemistry would somehow apply..)

[wyld-dandelyon.livejournal.com]

ysabetwordsmith had a recent post about the pitfalls of talking about race, though they apply to other areas as well:

http://ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com/727642.html

In it she asks why is the game rigged, so that both speaking about it and not speaking about it will inevitably be problematic. It's very thoughtful and worth looking at.

*wince*

[kita0610.livejournal.com]

Wow, that post is worded very problematically.

[rusty_halo.livejournal.com]

I want to thank you SO MUCH for bringing up these issues. You are absolutely right that silence is not the answer, and that the only way to progress is to talk about what's wrong, no matter how painful the discussion may be.

Writercon is a wonderful convention, and we worked incredibly hard to make it so, but you are right that it was not perfect. Nothing is. But it can be better, and a big part of what we can do to make it better is to set aside our defensive reactions and *listen*.

Thank you for pointing out problems and also for suggesting solutions. Regarding the timing of the Isms panel, the fact that so many of our panelists and guests needed to leave early Sunday morning led to challenges in terms of panel juggling, so one shouldn't assume that the placement of the panel was about anything other than panelist availability.

[rusty_halo.livejournal.com]

(Sorry, I didn't mean to hit "post" yet.)

I also wanted to add that we will be posting a survey within the next week (with the option of anonymity) and I really want to encourage you and anyone else who noticed problems to please respond, so that we can understand what was wrong and how to make it better.

I also think that a HUGE part of making the con better lies in bringing in new voices and incorporating more perspecctives, so I very stongly encourage you and anyone else who felt marginalized to volunteer and help us plan the con. (This will be a question on the survey, and anyone can also email us at info@writercon.com.)

I want to thank you again for speaking up and thank you so much for coming to the con. You were a huge asset to our programming and we were so glad to have your voice as part of our conversation.

And, although constructive criticism is necessary for growth, I will add that I'm really looking forward to hearing what you enjoyed about the con as well. ;)