Hugo finalists announced - https://seattlein2025.org/wsfs/hugo-awards/2025-hugo-award-finalists/

Octothorpe 132 is here early, because we are discussing this year’s Hugo Awards finalists! It’s almost as if our fingers are on the pulse, or something. Listen here: https://octothorpe.podbean.com/e/132-almost-everything-is-not-mac/

And #WorldCon especially should be embracing the future and expanding its online/hybrid presence! Or, y'know, keep chugging along as an ever-shrinking con for old white SF authors. (I love WorldCon, but it still skews *heavily* old, white, male, and American.)

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:r5dyjejbqvevzhzlbye3cp2m/post/3lletfprgy22w

Octothorpe 131 is here! We discuss @seattlein2025@Worldcon #Worldcon2025 upcoming Belfast Eastercon, the BSFA Awards, and then we talk about the fan funds and handwriting. Also, John actually had a pick in advance this episode. Listen here! https://octothorpe.podbean.com/e/131-we-re-performance-before-we-re-interest/

Weekly Notes: March 17–23, 2025: A week in the life of…. Thoughts, photos, links, and miscellany from the past week. https://michaelhans.com/eclecticism/2025/03/23/weekly-notes-march-17-23-2025

"...the last several years of discourse about the World Science Fiction Convention's host bidding processes have revealed what I would argue is a dangerous series of assumptions about the conditions under which many people would value any given convention location. Safety is obviously one of those conditions, but among those assumptions—the one presently being shaken by present political events—is the notion that North America is a uniquely safe place to travel to, unrisky in a manner with which many developing nations allegedly cannot compete.

"Nothing could be further from the truth. I do not say this disparagingly; after all, I love coming to the US for conventions and I hope to continue doing so. I just consider this a neutral fact: even arguably safer places in the world are not somehow safe in some essentialist sense, and even the safest among them can be tragically too challenging for some."

https://brandonobrien.xyz/us-convention-travel-safety-and-what-we-can-do-together/

Kurz: Reisewarnung

Allein schon aus Kli­ma­grün­den ist für mich klar, dass ich nicht zu Kon­fe­ren­zen in den USA oder in Aus­tra­li­en rei­se. Des­we­gen war ich so froh, dass die Sci­ence-Fic­tion-World­con letz­tes Jahr im gut erreich­ba­ren Glas­gow statt­fand. An der World­con die­ses Jahr in Seat­tle wer­de ich dem­entspre­chend nicht teil­neh­men (jeden­falls nicht vor Ort, ob ich eine vir­tu­el­le Teil­nah­me sinn­voll fin­de, muss ich mal noch sehen).

Zu den Kli­ma­grün­den ist mit dem Trump-Musk-Regime ein wei­te­rer Grund dazu gekom­men. Es häu­fen sich Berich­te über ver­wei­ger­te Ein­rei­sen (zuletzt: ein fran­zö­si­scher Wis­sen­schaft­ler, der in pri­va­ten Chats Kri­tik an Trump geübt hat­te) und Abschie­be­haft (u.a. Tourist*innen aus Deutsch­land, aus Kana­da, aus Groß­bri­tan­ni­en, die wegen kleins­ter Feh­ler in Abschie­be­la­gern lan­de­ten). Das Aus­wär­ti­ge Amt warnt in rela­tiv har­ten Wor­ten nicht nur vor Kri­mi­na­li­tät und gras­sie­ren­den Krank­hei­ten wie der Vogel­grip­pe, son­dern weist auch dar­auf hin, dass Geschlechts­iden­ti­tä­ten nicht aner­kannt wer­den, Mobil­te­le­fo­ne durch­sucht und die Ein­rei­se jeder­zeit ver­wei­gert wer­den kann. 

Ent­spre­chend stellt sich die Fra­ge, ob es über­haupt noch ange­mes­sen ist, in die­sen Zei­ten gro­ße Kon­fe­ren­zen in den USA statt­fin­den zu las­sen. Die Vor­sit­zen­de der Seat­tle World­con hat jetzt ein State­ment ver­öf­fent­licht, in dem zwar einer­seits Ver­ständ­nis dafür geäu­ßert wird, dass die aktu­el­len Bedin­gun­gen dazu füh­ren kön­nen, dass indi­vi­du­el­le Rei­se­ent­schei­dun­gen nach Seat­tle nega­tiv aus­fal­len. „The situa­ti­on ist frig­thening.“ Ander­seits soll die World­con aber wei­ter statt­fin­den – „becau­se it is even more important than ever to gather with tho­se who are able to do so to dis­cuss our the­me and cele­bra­te the power of SFF to ima­gi­ne dif­fe­rent socie­ties.“ Und zwi­schen den Zei­len scheint durch, wie macht­los es sich anfühlt, gut gemeint auf „safe spaces“ und Ver­pflich­tung zu Diver­si­ty zu set­zen, wäh­rend außen her­um die Welt zusammenbricht.

Ich kann das zwar nach­voll­zie­hen, schließ­lich ist eine Kon­fe­renz mit ein paar tau­send Teil­neh­men­den nichts, was mal so eben abge­sagt oder vir­tua­li­siert wer­den kann, auch aus finan­zi­el­ler Per­spek­ti­ve. Ich bin aber gespannt, wie sich die Lage auf die Teil­nah­me von Men­schen außer­halb der USA aus­wirkt. Und eigent­lich wäre eine Absa­ge – oder eine Ver­la­ge­rung ins Aus­land – das sehr viel stär­ke­re Zei­chen gewe­sen in einer Zeit, in der die rea­le Poli­tik SF-Dys­to­pien rechts überholt.

Really glad I am not trying to run a World Science Fiction Convention in the United States right now. I think you would be insane to be planning a trip to the USA in the current climate, so I suspect the in-person part of this year's Worldcon will be more US-centric than usual.

https://seattlein2025.org/2025/03/20/statement-from-worldcon-chair/

The proper thing to do is cancel the Seattle #Worldcon and sue Trump supporters for damages.

https://blan.cc/@jay/114196471356377370

Statement from current Worldcon chair, Kathy Bond (no relation), which will be of interest to anyone planning to attend -- especially if it involves travel from outside the US.

https://seattlein2025.org/2025/03/20/statement-from-worldcon-chair/

I'm curious as to what effect the steady drip of stories like this will have on international attendance at this year's Worldcon in Seattle. I had already decided that I wouldn't be going near the USA once Trump was reelected but this kind of thing must make people reconsider their travel plans.

https://www.10news.com/news/local-news/never-seen-anything-so-inhumane-canadian-woman-put-in-chains-detained-by-ice-after-entering-san-diego-border

Thanks to @offby1 for leading the work on the Hugo, Lodestar, & Astounding Awards nominations and ballot voting system in use this year, NomNom. I used it yesterday and it worked so smoothly, with lots of little touches to reassure & inform me, and help me help celebrate the best of sf/f.

Chris started it in December 2023, for the 2024 Worldcon to use. Grateful for his efforts & for everyone who's contributed!

https://github.com/WorldconVotingSystems/nomnom

It looks like I'm not attending Worldcon in person this year after all. I'm interested in transferring my adult attending membership to someone in exchange for a $125+ donation to a trans rights charity or similar.

Message me if you're interested, and so I can confirm the charity isn't secretly bad or something

Episode 129 is here, in which we discuss the Belfast Eastercon, Alison shakes her cane at John and Liz, and we talk a little about WSFS things before getting into picks. Listen here: https://octothorpe.podbean.com/e/129-deep-in-annex-a/

So when #worldcon happens out side the USA that year they hold a North America con. So why not have a large SFF convention in Europe or else where when Worldcon is in the USA?

with everything that's happening at the moment, the arrests, the denial of the existence of trans people, the denial of climate change, the erosion of the rule of law...

How can it be justified to have #WorldCon 2025 and 2026 held in the United States? It's unsafe for almost everyone who isn't USAian, and plenty of those who are.

Now is the time to nominate your favourite works, magazines and podcasts! #scifi #worldcon

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:uei24goezyiuh3nmyludd3fn/post/3lhtrdttc5v27

For those authors and publishers on #booksky or #sffh lists, I have a Supporting Membership in the #Seattle #Worldcon. If you have eligible works that you'd like to have nominated, my DMs are open.

I'm a long time fan.

#HugoAwards
#ScienceFiction
#SFF

I haven’t done much for my writing career since October, when my treatment amped up. But I’ll be a pro at #NorWesCon this spring, and at #WorldCon this summer—my first time as a WorldCon pro.

I was an invited reader this week at Two Hour Transport. It was tough, even over Zoom, but I did it. And one of the attendees told me they bought the anthology my story was from so they could find out how it ends!

I’m sad I can’t do more right now. (Like, y’know, write or edit.) But I’ll enjoy what I can.

In case you missed it, Montréal will most certainly host Worldcon in 2027. I look forward to meeting many fellow sci-fi and fantasy nerds there! #scifi #worldcon www.worldcon.org/2024/12/07/m...

Montreal 2027 Worldcon Bid Fil...