By Warren Buff:  RavenCon, April 29-May 1, 2016, in Williamsburg, Virginia, is hosting a FanHistoriCon.

FanHistoriCon is a convention (or a sometimes, a stream within a convention) dedicated to documenting and preserving the history of fandom. From 1994 to 2002, a dozen were held, along with additional programming at Aussiecon 3 and the Millennium Philcon. Since we keep making fanhistory, the need for a FanHistoriCon persists, and we’re hoping that holding one at RavenCon will help revive the concept.

We’d like to solicit ideas and recruit folks for the program. So far, we’ve got a few ideas kicking around:

• a local fanhistory item on the Carolinas and Virginia
• a session on next steps for documenting the 60s (Rich Lynch’s outline is fantastic on this so far)
• a session on how to approach documenting the 70s, which seems both daunting and important because of the incredible expansion of fandom in that era
• a session on the difficulties of documenting feuds and schisms (this has gotten significantly more important since we started kicking it around)
• perhaps a session on the end of the APA era (only a bare handful remain out of what were once a major force in fandom, and documenting that transition seems important)
• a session on oral history, and training folks in using widely available technology to take it (with follow-ups later of folks actually breaking off to take some oral history with those present, maybe after breakfast the next day)
• sessions on identifying at-risk materials for preservation
• sessions on identifying fans to interview/record for posterity

It’s a start, but we need more ideas, and we want to sign up folks to participate in these discussions. Memberships to RavenCon can be obtained at http://www.ravencon.com/registration/, and those with suggestions or interest in participation should contact Warren Buff at [email protected].

Bruce Pelz, Harry Warner, Jr. and Peggy Rae Pavlat (Sapienza) at FanHistoriCon in 1994. Photo by Rich Lynch.