ConFusion Report

ConFusion has become one of my favorite conventions. I remember years ago talking to one of the volunteers about how they were working to make this one of the premiere literary SF/F conventions, deliberately seeking out and inviting more writers and professionals, and generally just doing a lot of long-term work to create something special.

As usual, I was lugging the camera around. This time, I forced myself to do everything in Manual mode — setting shutter speed, ISO, f-stop, white balance, etc. This was purely to help me learn more about what the camera can do. The resulting pictures — the ones that turned out — are on Flickr.

The convention is now at the point where a large group signing isn’t enough; they had to schedule two full-room autographing blocks, one after the other, in order to get to all of the writers.

Now, if you’re not there for the writers and the literary side of things, it might not be the convention for you, but I love it. It’s the one time each year I get to catch up with a lot of old friends, as well as meeting new people and people people I’ve only known online:

If you’re wondering about the crown and tiara, we all had them as part of our Princess panel, courtesy of Merrie Haskell.

I will say that as someone who’s on the more introverted side of the spectrum, I tended more toward the small groups than the huge mob of folks at the bar. That’s just a bit too much noise, and burns out my batteries faster than smaller groups and one-on-one chats. But I got to see and spend at least a little time with almost everyone I’d hoped to see, which is pretty darn good.

I also love that ConFusion is trying to make the convention more inclusive and welcoming to all. A couple of visible examples include designating service animal areas in the consuite, setting up unisex bathrooms, and setting up handicap-accessible seating and areas for wheelchairs and scooters.

This isn’t to say that the convention is perfect. No con is. But from what I can see, ConFusion is listening and taking steps to do better each year. It makes me proud of Michigan fandom, and grateful to everyone working to put on the convention year after year.

Let’s see, what else…pretty much everyone I ran into commented on the beard. (Generally quite positively.) Professional instigator John Scalzi suggested I do a moustache-related fundraiser of some sort. I’m considering the possibilities there. Also, I played my very first game of Cards Against Humanity, thanks to Alex Kourvo (who I learned had pulled the racist cards from the decks beforehand, thank you).

And then it was time to come home and collapse, because no matter how wonderful a convention might be, it still wipes me out afterward.

A few related links:

• Marko Kloos has a good post about the cost of attending a convention.
• Alex Kourvo tweeted this pic of me and Diana Rowland doing romance-style cover posing.
• John Horner Jacobs has an amazingly surreal write-up and video