Tag Archives: Arisia

Arisia Changes Hotels in Response to Strikes

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The Arisia Eboard announced November 16 they are moving Arisia 2019 from the Westin Boston Waterfront hotel to the Boston Park Plaza Hotel, as a result of strikes affecting the hotels they were planning to use. The dates of the convention remain January 18-21, 2019.

The Eboard explained on the Arisia Inc. Facebook page:

An ongoing labor dispute between the Marriott Corporation and the UniteHere labor organization has resulted in strikes at Marriott properties across the country. The strike includes both the Westin Boston Waterfront and the Aloft Boston Seaport, the hotels where Arisia 2019 was to be held. The consistent message that we’ve heard from our members – attendees, staff, and corporate – is one that aligns with Arisia’s values: that we must take seriously the very real concerns that have driven these workers to strike. As a result, we cannot cross a picket line and support a corporation that is in serious dispute with its workers.

A Park Plaza Move FAQ page has been added to the convention website with additional background:

Why now?

Moving a convention of Arisia’s size in just two months is a major undertaking. We gave the Marriott management as much time as we felt we could. We hoped for a quick settlement to the labor dispute, but we also have to be realistic about the time, travel, and money commitments made by our community. We could not wait any longer. When polled on the question of whether to cancel the convention or move, Arisia Corporation members indicated by nearly a 4:1 majority that they preferred the convention move. Our Hotel Search Committee was able to find another host hotel that enables us to have an Arisia with most of the amenities and programming our attendees have come to expect in the last decade, on our target weekend dates, without requiring a drastic cut in attendance.

What is the effect on Arisia convention activities?

We do not know the full impact yet. The Park Plaza offers us sufficient space that most of the usual types of programming (panels, games, LARPs, dances, etc.) can occur, though some things will be downsized. Some event organizers and panelists had already indicated they could not attend this year, and we are likely to reconfigure some things to fit into the different spaces of the Park Plaza.

The Arisia Innkeeper team will cancel all Westin and Aloft reservations made through their booking links. They will announce when reservations open for the Park Plaza, and have assured fans, “We have a room block large enough that we do not expect to sell out.”

Arisia 2019 will have a lower membership cap in the new facility. What that number will be is not yet known.

The Eboard’s general announcement noted that the hotel situation is just one of the critical issues on their plate:

We also understand that the strike is not the only or overriding concern for our community. We acknowledge concerns around the safety of attendees, and around our ability to handle incident response in ways that meet our standards and goals. On Sunday, November 11th, the corporation elected new members of the Eboard with the implicit directive to correct the mistakes made by the previous board and move forward with initiatives to improve our culture, our responses, and our processes. The Eboard will have much more to say on all these subjects in the days to come.

Pixel Scroll 11/14/18 Ask Not For Whom The Files Scroll

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Power was off here for 8 hours while they replaced a utility pole – fortunately the rest of you kept sending stuff!

(1) GRRM DEALS WILD CARDS TO TV. Tor.com says “George R.R. Martin’s Wild Cards Universe Finds a Home at Hulu”

The Hollywood Reporter dropped big news for GRRM fans yesterday; the Wild Cards series, helmed by Martin and Melinda Snodgrass, and featuring stories from many SFF luminaries, is coming to Hulu.

Hulu and Universal Cable Productions are near to a deal that would create a writers room for Wild Cards, helmed by Andrew Miller. The intent is to begin with two series and potentially expand to more, with Martin, Melinda Snodgrass, and Vince Gerardis executive producing the lot.

(2) ARISIA GOHS PUNISHED. Did you know Amazing Stories was sponsoring the 2019 NASFiC’s Fan Guests of Honor Bjo and John Trimble? Well, if you didn’t, never mind, they aren’t anymore — “Amazing Stories Withdraws Trimble’s NASFiC Sponsorship”. And why is that? Steve Davidson thinks it’s bad publicity for Amazing to be associated with people who are also going to be guests at Arisia 2019 — apparently, even worse publicity than Amazing will receive from making this announcement.

Today, November 14th, The Experimenter Publishing Company reluctantly announces that it has formally rescinded its NASFiC Fan GoH sponsorship of John and Bjo Trimble, following the Trimble’s decision to remain Guests of Honor of the Arisia 2019 convention.

In December of 2017 at the Boston SMOFcon, Steve Davidson (Experimenter Publisher) met Kate Hatcher, chair of the 2019 Utah NASFiC bid.  Utah won the bid and The Experimenter Publishing Company was approached as a potential sponsor for the as yet unnamed Fan GoH.  Following brief discussions, Experimenter agreed to cover the costs associated with the attendance and promotional efforts typically incurred.

… The Trimbles initially announced that they would be attending Arisia.  When I learned of this, I wrote to Kate Hatcher of the Utah NASFiC and subsequently to Bjo Trimble, explaining that The Experimenter Publishing Company and Amazing Stories could not be associated with nor support Arisia under the current circumstances and, since one purpose of their trip to the convention was to promote the NASFiC as sponsored by Amazing Stories, I felt that I had no choice but to withdraw their sponsorship should they choose to attend….

(3) HAZARDOUS SFF TOYS. W.A.T.C.H. (World Against Toys Causing Harm, Inc.) has released their 2018 list of “10 worst toys” for the holiday season (press release here and more about each toy starting here). Cited issues include choking, ingestion, cutting, blunt force, and eye damage hazards. A majority of the toys have sff or science themes. The full list is:

  • Nickelodeon Nella Princess Knight Pillow Pets Sleeptime Lites
  • Nerf Vortex VTX Praxis Blaster
  • Marvel Black Panther Slash Claw
  • Power Rangers Super Ninja Steel Superstar Blade
  • Cabbage Patch Kids Dance Time Doll
  • Zoo Jamz Xylophone
  • Nici Wonderland Doll: Miniclara The Ballerina
  • Stomp Rocket Ultra Rocket
  • Cutting Fruit
  • Chien Á Promener Pull Along Dog

(4) BEFORE LITTLE NEMO. Titan Comics is publishing McCay, an “invented biography” chronicling authentic — though only partially true — stories of the life of the “father of animation” Winsor McCay, in which “McCay’s life is enriched by an imaginary encounter with British mathematician and science fiction writer Charles Hinton…and glimpses of the fourth dimension.” Release date is November 20.

(5) KICKSTARTER SPRINT. Fireside Fiction has launched a short crowdfunding campaign for “Hope In This Timeline”, a collection of short spec fiction stories about finding hope in difficult times curated by Meg Frank.

This reality is bonkers, and keeping up, let alone keeping your spirits up is really hard. Team Fireside thought we’d insert a little hope into the mix. We collected stories by Lee S. Bruce, Beth Cato, Gillian Daniels at midnight EST and in addition to the collection we’ve got some rad backer rewards like an enamel pin designed by Team Fireside and original artwork by Sara Eileen Hames.

They have raised $3,845 of their $7,000 goal with two days to go.

(6) G. WILLOW WILSON INTERVIEW. She starts her run on the DC icon this month — “Ms. Marvel’s G. Willow Wilson reflects on the political side of Wonder Woman”.

Wonder Woman is unavoidably this icon of feminism and of diversity and, to an extent, any Wonder Woman story can’t escape the broader context of her as a fictional element in the wider world. You just look at her becoming a figurehead for the UN, and the backlash to that, and the weight that we place on her as a fictional character. And certainly there’s a lot of conversation about issues of feminism and diversity just in the comics world right now. Do you feel that the presence of that context when you’re writing her?

Yes, absolutely. I think those of us, especially in the United States, who grew up with these characters, tend to assume a kind of universality to them. We assume that the ideals that they represent are universal across time and space and culture; that everybody can relate to them the same way that we do; that the things that they say and they think, their costumes, all of this stuff — is a universal human expression of justice.

And it’s not always the case. That’s not always the case. And I think now that we are really interconnected across the globe, and in social media, to the press, through the globalization of pop culture, we’re asking much bigger questions about these characters then we might have before, when they were a uniquely American phenomenon. And so it’s something that I’m always conscious of.

And it does, I think, make one’s job as a storyteller more interesting, because we’re now dealing with these characters who have a much broader reach than they might have 60 years ago. Yet by that same token, they’re no longer as universal and that’s a very interesting paradox.

[That’s] part of why I wanted to start out my run on the series in the way that I do: asking, “What is justice in this very different context?” Is there such a thing as a just war in a time when war is no longer about two armies facing each other across the battlefield, and it’s more about proxy wars and asymmetrical warfare and civilian casualties? And all of these different warring perspectives where there is no clear, black-and-white good guy and bad guy? And not shy away from that stuff. It’s a tall order, but I think it’s never been more necessary to ask those questions

(7) PATTEN TRIBUTES. Lee Gold has assembled a LASFS memorial page for Fred Patten that includes this quote from David Gerrold:

Fred was a treasure. You could turn to him and say, “I remember a story about a … etc.” and he would not only identify it by title and author, but where it was published. He was an incredible resource. I admired his encyclopedic knowledge of the field. He was classic old-school fandom. I am so sorry to hear of his passing.

(8) TODAY IN HISTORY

  • November 14, 1883 — Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island is published as a one-volume book.

(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge and JJ.]

  • November 14, 1907 – Astrid Lindgren. Creator of the Pippi Longstocking series and, at least in the States, lesser known Emil i Lönneberga, Karlsson-on-the-Roof, and the Six Bullerby Children series as well. In January 2017, she was calculated to be the world’s 18th most translated author, and the fourth-most-translated children’s writer after Enid Blyton, H. C. Andersen and the Brothers Grimm. There have been at least forty video adaptations of her works over the decades mostly in Swedish but Ronja, the Robber’s Daughter (Sanzoku no Musume R?nya in English transliteration) was an animated series in Japan recently. (Died 2002.)
  • November 14, 1930 – Lt. Col. Ed White, Engineer, Pilot, and Astronaut who was the first American to walk in space during the Gemini 4 flight, for which he was awarded the NASA Distinguished Service Medal. He and his crewmates Virgil “Gus” Grissom and Roger B. Chaffee died as a result of a catastrophic fire in the command module during a launch test for Apollo 1, which was to have been the first manned Apollo mission. (Died 1967.)
  • November 14, 1932 – Alex Ebel. He did the poster for the first Friday the 13th film, and his cover illustration for The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin published by Ace Books in 1975 is considered one of the best such illustrations done. I’m also very impressed with The Dispossessed cover he did as well as his Planet of Exile cover too. His work for magazines includes Heavy Metal, Space Science Fiction and Fantastic Story Magazine. (Died 2013.)
  • November 14, 1951 – Beth Meacham, 67, Writer, Editor, and Critic who is best known for the many award-nominated and winning authors and books she has brought to SFF fans in her decades as editor at Ace and Tor, including Tim Powers’ The Anubis Gates and Greg Bear’s Blood Music. She has been a finalist for the Best Editor Hugo numerous times – but what JJ found especially interesting are her Hugo nominations for Best Related Book, as a collaborator on A Reader’s Guide to Fantasy, and on Vincent Di Fate’s Catalog of Science Fiction Hardware. She has been Editor Guest of Honor at several conventions, including next year’s World Fantasy Convention.
  • November 14, 1951 – Sandahl Bergman, 67, Actor, Stuntperson, and Dancer who appeared in several Broadway shows and gained prominence when choreographer Bob Fosse cast her in Pippin and Dancin’, and then in his fantasy dance film All That Jazz. She played Valeria in Conan the Barbarian – for which she won a Saturn Award – and Queen Gedren in Red Sonja. She was one of the nine muses in the fantasy musical Xanadu, and starred in She, a post-apocalyptic movie based on H. Rider Haggard’s novel She: A History of Adventure. Other genre appearances include Hell Comes to Frogtown, Revenge on the Highway, TekWar: TekJustice, Ice Cream Man, and Sorceress II, and guest roles on Sliders and Hard Time on Planet Earth.
  • November 14, 1959 – Paul McGann, 59. Yes he only did one film as the eighth incarnation of the Doctor in the 1996 Doctor Who television film, but that role he has reprised in more than seventy audio dramas and the 2013 short film entitled “The Night of the Doctor”. Other genre appearances include Alien 3, FairyTale: A True Story, Queen of the Damned and Lesbian Vampire Killers.
  • November 14, 1963 – Cat Rambo, 55, Writer and Editor, who co-edited Fantasy Magazine from 2007 to 2011, which earned her a World Fantasy Special Award nomination. Her fantasy and science fiction works have been recognized with Nebula, Endeavour, and Compton Crook Award nominations. She has been an ardent gamer since the days of Pong and Chainmail, and was one of the developers of Armageddon (MUD). Her alter identity is as President, since 2015, of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA), which has enjoyed an unprecedented amount of visibility and transparency to fandom and non-members under her guidance; in addition to letting the rest of us get a better understanding of “how the sausage gets made”, the organization has continued its evolution by adding a mentorship program, Nebula voting rights for Associate Members, and a Gamewriting category to the Nebula Awards.
  • November 14, 1969 – Daniel J. Abraham, 49, Writer and Producer. He has published several fantasy series under his own name, as well as under M. L. N. Hanover and Daniel Hanover;  his solo works include the Long Price Quartet (about which Jo Walton has waxed enthusiastic), and the Black Sun’s Daughter and Dagger and the Coin quintologies, as well as numerous short works in GRRM’s Wild Cards universe. But let’s get to the leviathan in the room: he is one half of James S. A. Corey – a pen name which derives from his middle name and that of his collaborator, Ty (Corey) Franck, and his daughter’s initials – a team responsible for the bestselling Expanse novels and popular TV series. The first novel, Leviathan Wakes, was a Hugo finalist, and the episode of the same name won a Hugo for Best Dramatic Presentation; the novel series itself was a finalist for the Best Series Hugo Award in the year of its inception. He has also collaborated on comic books for various GRRM properties, including Game of Thrones.
  • November 14, 1979 – Olga Kurylenko, 39, Actor born in the Ukraine who is probably best known for her genre-adjacent role in Quantum of Solace, which earned her a Saturn nomination. She’s had several roles in movies based on comic books: Hitman, Max Payne, the Belgian Largo Winch, and the regrettably plothole-ridden Oblivion. She played The Vampire in Paris, Je t’Aime, and had appearances in Tyranny, Vampire Academy, The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, Mara, and the probably-never-to-be-released epic fantasy Empires of the Deep.

(10) COMICS SECTION.

  • Off the Mark is just kidding, but you’ll never look at your bookshelves quite the same way again.
  • This In the Bleachers shows the importance of correct spelling in horror.

(11) STEAM TO MARS. Online play will become an option for a top-rated board game says Ars Technica: “Review: Super-hot board game Terraforming Mars goes digital”.

Terraforming Mars is one of the most popular heavy strategy games of the last two years (read our 2016 review); it earned a nomination for the Kennerspiel des Jahres (expert’s “game of the year”), losing to the very good but much simpler Exit: The Game series. It’s currently ranked #4 on BoardGameGeek’s master ranking of all board games, a ranking that tends to skew towards complex games that eschew luck in favor of strategy and engine building.

Now, an adaptation from Asmodee Digital brings the game to Windows via Steam. (Android and iOS ports are coming soon.) The Windows port offers local play, online multiplayer, and a solo challenge mode that functions as a good learning tool in addition to providing a strong single-player experience.

(12) BABYLON BERLIN. The Berlin Sci-Fi FiImfest takes place November 16-17.

Last year we screened 66 films from 21 countries and had over 600 visitors. This year the festival will have 144 features as Berlin Sci-fi Filmfest takes over the Babylon Cinema.

Berlin Sci-fi Filmfest is pleased to announce the inclusion of the following:

Simon Lejeune aka Haedre, Berlin based Artist, painter, illustrator and comic author will take up residency and his exhibition will be featuring new works along with original comic pages.

Hans Hanfner, A Berlin based composer who wrote music for the award winning series Danni Lowinski and Allein gegen die Zeit will discuss the scoring workflow used in Babylon Berlin and discuss the tools and techniques used that made working with a team across the world possible.

Irrlicht e.V. is an association that supports fantastic culture, role-playing, tabletop and board games. They are committed players who meet regularly in Berlin and around the country and offer all those interested in the opportunity to experience fantastic culture and art and of course to play.

And as for Cosplay, we welcome back Anette Pohlke and the Film Fan Force team, who will be providing our guests with ample photo opportunity to pose with some of their favourite fan film characters from Star Wars to Star Trek to Guardians of the Galaxy.

(13) SHED A TEAR. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] Artist Thomas Ollivier (aka Tom le French) has re-imagined modern technology as if it had been developed pre-internet. The Verge’s Ashley Carman was particular taken by them (“We’re charmed by these tech products, reimagined for a simpler time”) though there seems something quite sad about the perpetually blinking “No Likes” display on the Facebook-branded pager. For myself, I’m at least as taken by his Cosmo Kids portfolio of kids from around the world, all dressed as if for astronaut’s official photos. Of those, Ollivier says “These portraits depict kids as agents of change.  There’s no more powerful fuel on the planet than a kid’s imagination.”

(14) COP A PLEA. NPR reports “Man Who Made Fatal ‘Swatting’ Hoax Call Pleads Guilty To 51 Charges”.

Tyler Barriss, 26, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to making a false report resulting in a death, after he placed a hoax call late last year that resulted in police fatally shooting an unarmed man in Wichita, Kan.

Barriss pleaded guilty to a total of 51 charges as part of a plea deal. He will be sentenced in January, The Associated Press reports.

Prosecuting U.S. Attorney Stephen McAllister told The Wichita Eagle he will recommend that Barriss be sentenced to 20 years in prison, providing he writes apology letters to police, dispatchers and the family of Andrew Finch, a 28-year-old father of two who was shot by police who responded to the hoax call in December.

(15) EXO MARKS THE SPOT. “Exoplanet discovered around neighbouring star” – the second-closest ever found. (If we leave right away we can get there in… never mind.)

The planet’s mass is thought to be more than three times that of our own, placing it in a category of world known as “super-Earths”.

It orbits Barnard’s star, which sits “just” six light-years away.

(16) JOURNEY TO THE SURFACE OF THE EARTH. “Greenland ice sheet hides huge ‘impact crater'” — scroll down for discussion of entanglement with current recent-extinction hypotheses.

If the impact was right at near-end of the age window then it will surely re-ignite interest in the so-called Younger Dryas impact hypothesis.

The Younger Dryas was a period of strong cooling in the middle of the climatic warming that occurred as the Earth emerged from the height of last ice age.

Some have argued that an asteroid impact could have been responsible for this cooling blip – and the accompanying extinction of many animal groups that occurred at the same time across North America.

Others, though, have been critical of the hypothesis, not least because no crater could be associated with such an event. The Hiawatha depression is likely now to fan the dying embers of this old debate

(17) POSTED TO ORBIT. “Rocket Lab’s Modest Launch Is Giant Leap for Small Rocket Business” – the New York Times has the story.

A small rocket from a little-known company lifted off Sunday from the east coast of New Zealand, carrying a clutch of tiny satellites. That modest event — the first commercial launch by a U.S.-New Zealand company known as Rocket Lab — could mark the beginning of a new era in the space business, where countless small rockets pop off from spaceports around the world. This miniaturization of rockets and spacecraft places outer space within reach of a broader swath of the economy.

The rocket, called the Electron, is a mere sliver compared to the giant rockets that Elon Musk, of SpaceX, and Jeffrey P. Bezos, of Blue Origin, envisage using to send people into the solar system. It is just 56 feet tall and can carry only 500 pounds into space.

…The Electron, Mr. Beck said, is capable of lifting more than 60 percent of the spacecraft that headed to orbit last year. By contrast, space analysts wonder how much of a market exists for a behemoth like SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy, which had its first spectacular launch in February.

A Falcon Heavy can lift a payload 300 times heavier than a Rocket Lab Electron, but it costs $90 million compared to the Electron’s $5 million. Whereas SpaceX’s standard Falcon 9 rocket has no shortage of customers, the Heavy has only announced a half-dozen customers for the years to come.

(18) YOU’RE INVITED TO THE SHOWER. NPR tells you where to “Watch The Leonid Meteor Shower This Weekend”.

This year the shower of shooting stars is expected to peak late Saturday night and into Sunday morning.

Always occurring in mid-November, an average of about 15 meteors per hour streak across the night sky during the shower’s yearly peak, according to NASA.

The cascade will be competing with a waxing gibbous moon, so the best time to watch is after the moon has set but before dawn.

NASA suggests finding a viewing site far away from city or street lights and giving your eyes time to adjust to the darkness.

(19) TORUS TORUS TORUS. Vice claims “Apparently, Some People Believe the Earth Is Shaped Like a Donut” – which makes for some interesting astronomical GIF illustrations, like the one that explains the motion of the moon.

Yes, some people on the internet are arguing that Earth is neither flat, nor spherical, but torus-shaped, which is a fancy science word for something that looks like a donut. The idea first appeared on FlatEarthSociety.org in a 2008 thread started by a mysterious figure named Dr. Rosenpenis as a joke, but it was fleshed out in detail by FES trailblazer Varaug in 2012.

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Chip Hitchcock, JJ, Cat Eldridge, Mike Kennedy, Martin Morse Wooster, Carl Slaughter, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Jayn.]

Arisia Inc. Election Results

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Arisia Inc. has posted the result of today’s Eboard elections. Over 150 members, many of them new, participated in the seven-and-a-half hour meeting held November 11.

President

  • Nicholas “Phi” Shectman

Vice President

  • Alan Wexelblat

Treasurer

  • Kris Pelletier

Clerk

  • Sol Houser

Member-at-Large (one vacant of three total positions)

  • Cassandra Lease

Lease fills the vacancy created by the resignation of Sharon Sbarsky. Two other Members-at-Large elected in September continued in office —

  • Member-At-Large: Andy Rosequist
  • Member-At-Large: RaShawn Seams

Neither Benjamin Levy nor Rick Kovalcik, who resigned from the Eboard but stood for re-election, were returned to office.

Arisia Inc. Meets November 11 to Pick New Officers

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Help is on the way — Arisia Inc. has gained over 50 new corporate members who will be on hand when the convention begins to search for the path to its future at their November 11 meeting. This will include the election of many new officers.

Arisia Inc.’s corporate president was removed after Crystal Huff wrote a post “Why I’m Not At Arisia Anymore: My Rapist is President. Again.” charging the convention with failing to enforce its code of conduct in situations where she had been the victim. Almost the entire remaining Eboard resigned after more people, inspired by Huff’s post, published statements of their own criticizing Arisia’s handling of the incidents they reported. Two of Arisia 2019 GoHs have dropped out, and another author declined an invitation to be a GoH in 2020.

A burn-it-all-to-the-ground sentiment has been voiced by some who see Arisia’s newly-revealed chronic problem with enforcing its code of conduct as deserving the convention equivalent of capital punishment.

At the other end of the spectrum are a large group who still intend to work on holding the con over the January 18-21 weekend as scheduled. That group includes both those who see themselves as working to attain the kind of “safe” con enforcing its code of conduct that there ought to be, and an indeterminate number of others who say there is more to know and that the various CoC outcomes over the years were understandable.

Arisia Inc. has been updating a Google Doc with nominations by candidates for office as they come in. Interestingly, the candidates include two people who submitted resignations from the Eboard, Benjamin Levy and Rick Kovalcik.

From each candidate’s statements come these excerpts about the issues of incident reporting and code of conduct enforcement:

For President:

I was first elected to the board in 1993 and served on it for 17 of the next 20 years, in every officer position and as convention treasurer and convention chair.  In 2013 I chose not to stand for reelection because I was developing patterns in my relationship with the board that were keeping me from being objective. I felt that I would not be able to discharge the board’s then-new obligations to our incident process.  Since then I have learned that it was not just me, and that it is easy for well intentioned people to come together into faulty systems which then persist until they are disrupted. I have worked to address negative patterns in myself, and I have been waiting for an opportunity to move forward from them as part of creating a new system.  That moment is now.

The new board will need to focus heavily on changes we need to make to our incident process.  I don’t pretend to know what all of the problems with our current process are. I see how we have failed in particular with respect to incidents involving our own staff.  I see how even the incidents we thought we responded to successfully were not handled as well as we thought, and that in many cases it was only the at con portion of our response that was correct.  We will need to make changes, and it seems clear that these will require particular attention to how we address abuse by the people in positions of power in our community. We will need new processes for staff, and we will generally need to separate the post con incident process from the centers of power as we have done at con.

To really address abuse of power, though, I believe that we also need a new process for determining how we staff Arisia, particularly in regards to how we maintain continuity between conventions and enable the organization to take on large, multiyear projects.  Currently, our ability to do this too often rests on the personal power of individual volunteers and on an assumption of their entitlement to a position. We need a staffing process that focuses on the work we are trying to accomplish and the environment we are trying to create rather than on any one individual, and which explicitly provides for planned transitions as part of a multiyear process instead of relying on power and entitlement to preserve continuity.  In this way we will become less reliant on particular individuals and untie the hands of our incident process. None of this will be easy to accomplish but whether you elect me or not I am looking forward to contributing to this work.

I have served longer on the board than any other person in the history of Arisia.  Whether you elect me or not, I look forward to sharing my perspective on the roles I have held and helping any board members who are new to those roles get up to speed.

For Vice-President

In terms of creating consent culture, I believe that harassment and sexual assault are more likely to run unchecked when we only believe reports which include witnesses, physical evidence, or misconduct within official convention spaces. The current process is slanted in favor of the accused and doesn’t do enough to protect our community.  We need to reform our incident reporting process to be more versatile in responding to reports of sexual assault and other misconduct-in-private to improve safety. I am not seeking to run amok with the ban-hammer at minimal provocation, but I do seek credible investigations and meaningful consequences. I also want to teach younger members of our community what appropriate interpersonal behavior looks like, and what falls into the “not ok” category.

…Our community has a problem around believing survivors, and several people asked me to elaborate on that.  Here is a blog post that Andy Piltser-Cowan and I created to address that question: “Believe Survivors” vs.
“Due Process” https://www.andrewcowanlaw.com/believe-survivors-vs-due-process/

I support creation of one or more roles to do specific tasks around IRs. First, to report out summary statistics on a regular basis. Second, to track progress so we can concretely measure how timely our responses and actions are. Third, to be a ‘translator’ to ensure that everyone involved in an IR knows their options. These tasks may fall to an existing Board member, or can be delegated; the key is not who does it, but that it be done in a clear, open, and consistent way.

I support the decision to engage with an outside entity to review our policies. I have asked several questions about the scope, timeline, and outcome of this review, as I believe it needs to be thorough and effective, not simply quick.

For Treasurer:

Along with the other members of the previous Eboard, I have resigned because of concerns with how the eboard dealt with some of the Incident Reports (IRs).  I am asking for a second chance from the members of the Corporation to serve as Treasurer.  I want to make sure there is at least one candidate for the position who understands the complexities of the job of Treasurer.

Working on the Incident Reports is a complicated process. This is of part why Arisia added the three “Member At-Large” positions to the Eboard.  I think that at the time that the eboard made the best decisions it could with the information available then.  As a member of the Eboard, I apologize for helping to cause the crisis that developed.  With the new information that has become available, it is clear things could have been handled differently. It is possible that more members of the Eboard should have recused themselves, but at the time the idea of bringing in others to help deal with IRs when there are a large number of recusals was not in our toolbox.  I think that how the Arisia Eboard handles IRs is an evolving process, and I would like work with the Corporation to improve it.

I am proud of the strides we have made in the at-con processes around incident response – a process that has now been used at several other conventions – while understanding that it still has room for improvement. I also understand that no matter how good our at-con process is, if it is not backed by a similarly robust post-con process at the Eboard level then Arisia is not living up to its promise of providing a safe and inclusive con experience. Whether or not I am elected, I look forward to contributing to
the improvement of our incident response policies across the board.

A agree with what others have said about there needing to be more diversity on the board. I am not the ideal candidate for diversity, as I am a cis gay white male. I do, however, think there needs to be an option when it comes to the board, and we should not be stuck with an unopposed position. At least not at this time.

I will happily step aside for a POC, or someone who is non-binary. Please ask me any questions you may have. I can’t promise to have all good answers, or all the right answers, but I can promise to do what I feel is right for the community.

For Clerk:

Q: Would you, if elected, voluntarily recuse yourself from
decision-making on IRs. Please share your reasoning.

A: Yes. Though I feel well prepared for the duties of clerk, I do not for making decisions on IRs. Gathering information, absolutely yes, but decision making no.

I hope to bring a fresh perspective to the board as a new member. I’ve been reading all of the documents available on the website and am confident that I can come up to speed quite quickly.

As you probably know, I resigned along with the other re-elected
members of the Eboard in order to allow new elections…

I believe the Arisia Eboard, myself included, made the best decision it thought it could with the information available and POLICIES in place at the time. However, it is clear the Arisia policies need to change and it is a shame this had to happen for Arisia to realize that.

I apologize for what we did. We made mistakes. I’m sorry many people got hurt. At the very least I should have recused myself from being involved the vote pertaining to the incident report about Noel Rosenberg. There are many other ways the situation could have been handled which would have been better than the way it was handled. Some of them have been suggested on email or Facebook, and I have been considering those. But, this note isn’t the time to go into solutions or changes. The time for that is after discussion with the greater Arisia Community which probably continues well after Arisia gets a professional outside review of its policies and procedures. There probably will be multiple rounds of changes – the Disciplinary Process is an evolving thing.

…I’ve talked about the Disciplinary Process a bit above. I’ve cared about it from the beginning. Back in 2013, I was one of the people who first proposed the Disciplinary Process and got it implemented. Over the last couple of years I have been one of the people pushing to get IRs resolved and making sure they don’t fall through the cracks or linger. The Disciplinary Process and the procedures around it have evolved and improved over time. It is time for it change some more. Clearly we need to be better about recusals. Since October 25th, as we have opened or reopened over a dozen new Incident Reports, the Eboard has paid a lot more attention to recusals and, as of this writing, almost every voting Eboard member has recused themselves from one or more of the IRs for being too close to a Subject or Focus. I have been one of the people pushing for that. A number of other ideas for improving the Disciplinary Process have been kicked around the Corp email list. I firmly agree that getting an outside group to look at our policies and procedures is an important early step. We are all going to need to think about this and make well thought out, not reactionary, changes.

The incident-report handling issue was what drew me into this race, and in answer to a standing question on this list, I would not be at all inclined to recuse myself from IRs in general (I would recuse myself from any specific IR in which I had a conflict of interest or in which I felt my judgment was clouded or could reasonably be perceived as clouded by personal relationships).  The question has been raised as to whether board members, as a general class, possess relevant skills to handle IRs. I have been a
practicing attorney for ten years with the majority of my practice consisting of criminal, restraining order, and victim’s rights work. In September of this year I won a case in the Massachusetts Appeals Court that expanded the definition of “involuntar[y] sexual relations” in our restraining order law, and established for the first time that a restraining order may be granted for continuing an act after the other party has withdrawn consent.
I have also been involved in these matters outside the public courts: I am a co-author of Cornell University’s Code of Conduct, have represented students before the disciplinary authorities of Cornell, Westfield State, and BU. I advised a local community theater nonprofit on establishing a CORI policy in 2016, and I have been involved in non-profit governance issues of various stripes on and off since high school. I drafted the current bylaws of the National Lawyers’ Guild, Massachusetts Chapter. As perhaps the least sexy of the clerk’s responsibilities, I already deal with the Secretary of the
Commonwealth’s office on a frequent basis in my professional capacity, so maintaining
the Corporation’s records there would not be heavy lifting for me.

For Member-at-Large:

I want to listen to people’s concerns and entertain all possible solutions to the set of problems facing us. I want to make Arisia feel safe for people. Part of the way I want to accomplish this by making sure that the Incident Reporting policy is well documented and publicly available (which it now mostly seems to be, in the last week), and that disclosures about the conduct of any staff members is made in a timely manner. I want to open all our policies to public feedback, so that we can get a diversity of opinions and ideas. I want to continue the third party audit promised by the eboard.

Another problem looming over tomorrow’s meeting is the strike against Arisia’s hotel. Many conrunners say they won’t cross a picket line. Imagine a con being in doubt about the loss of its venue this close to the event. Arisia 2019 chair and Eboard member Daniel Eareckson said in an update on November 8: “There has been some talk about the options this convention has regarding the strike at the Westin. Some of these strikes have been settled in other cities, but not yet in Boston. In the event it does continue much longer, the con staff, the Eboard and corporation are all discussing options and plans and are actively exploring options including moving to a new hotel.”

Update 11/10/2018: Changed “entirely new slate of officers” to “many” per correction in comment.

Pixel Scroll 11/4/18 The Scrolled Fan and the Spree

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(1) EDELMAN GOH SPEECH AT WFC44. World Fantasy Con GoH Scott Edelman has posted a video of his speech, which is a call for inclusiveness in many dimensions of conrunning and the sff community. Scott hired the ASL interpreter seen in the video at his own expense, reports Andy Duncan.

(2) ARISIA 2019 NEWS. Arisia Inc. announced that Bjo and John Trimble will remain as GoHs, as will artist Elizabeth Leggett, but not Daniel Older and Malka Older.

It is with respect and regret that we are confirming what Daniel Older reported in his social media; he and his sister, Malka Older will not be participating in Arisia 2019. We asked each guest to make the choice they felt most comfortable with, and Malka and Daniel let us know they could not participate as things stood.

Our Fan Guests of Honor, Bjo and John Trimble, have confirmed that they would like to continue to be our guests. Lastly, as we shared from her social media post earlier, Elizabeth Leggett will continue to be our Artist Guest of Honor.

On top of Arisia 2019’s other problems, their venue is one of seven Boston area Marriott hotels where workers are on strike, and Arisia leadership are creating contingency plans because they won’t hold the con there if the strike is still going on. An unofficial Facebook page published the text of the staff email on the subect:

We cannot hold a convention in a hotel that is striking. If the strike continues, we see two possible options, and are looking for your help to determine which one is best. We can either move the convention to another property, or cancel Arisia 2019. We will need to work together to determine a timeline to make the go/no-go decision, as well as which of the two outcomes we should choose in the event the strike continues….

(3) PARDON THE INTERRUPTION. Some booksellers are retaliating against a new AbeBooks policy: “Booksellers Protest Amazon Site’s Move to Drop Stores From Certain Countries” – the New York Times has the story.

More than 250 antiquarian book dealers in 24 countries say they are pulling over a million books off an Amazon-owned site for a week, an impromptu protest after the site abruptly moved to ban sellers from several nations.

The flash strike against the site, AbeBooks, which is due to begin Monday, is a rare concerted action by vendors against any part of Amazon, which depends on third-party sellers for much of its merchandise and revenue. The protest arrives as increasing attention is being paid to the extensive power that Amazon wields as a retailer — a power that is greatest in books.

The stores are calling their action Banned Booksellers Week. The protest got its start after AbeBooks sent emails last month to booksellers in countries including South Korea, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Russia to say that it would no longer “support” them. “We apologize for this inconvenience,” the company said….

(4) MORE MEXICANX. Stephen C. Tobin covered the MexicanX Initiative for Latin American Literature Today: “The Long-Overdue Recognition of Mexicanx Science Fiction at This Year’s WorldCon76”.

The Initiative sprang forth from the seedling of an idea by one of this year’s WorldCon76 Guest of Honor, illustrator John Picacio. In the past he has twice won a Hugo Award –the crown jewel of science fiction awards– and was also invited to be this year’s Master of Ceremonies for the Hugos. His being Mexican-American led him to discover that no Guest of Honor or Hugo Award MC had ever been a brown person. “I thought it’s great to be the first,” he said, “but who cares if you’re the last? That’s the question I kept thinking about: who would come behind me? I break the door down, but then who’s coming through the door after me?” Initially, he thought he would sponsor one or two people (i.e., pay for their membership fees) out of his own pocket, but then his friend and novelist John Scalzi said he would do the same. Shortly after, more people agreed to sponsor, and before long, when the number reached 10 people, the whole process gained the momentum of a sizable snowball just picking up speed down a mountain. At that moment, Picacio decided to aim for sponsoring 50 people and gave the project its official title of The Mexicanx Initiative. By convention time, approximately 15 Mexicanx nationals along with 35 Mexicanx-Americans held sponsorships. (A similar origin story lies behind the bilingual anthology A Larger Reality: Speculative Fiction from the Bicultural Margins, which was published just for the Initiative at WorldCon76 and receives an in-depth treatment in the prologue to the dossier.) Ultimately, Picacio said, this was not just merely some brown people getting together but “this was a human endeavor, like George R.R. Martin said [at the Hugo Awards after party]. It was all cultures getting together to bring in another that wasn’t really being included.”

(5) A DISTURBANCE IN THE FORCE.

(6) SUB SANDWICH. Quartzy posits “Nine sci-fi subgenres to help you understand the future”. The fifth is —

5. Solarpunk

“What does ‘the good life’ look like in a steady-state, no-growth, totally sustainable society?”

According to “On The Need for New Futures,” a 2012 article on Solarpunk.net, that’s the question this movement—which melds speculative fiction, art, fashion and eco-activism—seeks to answer. In the same post, Solarpunk’s anonymous founders warn, “We are starved for visions of the future that will sustain us, and give us something to hope for.” Yet what if we dreamed differently? What if we tried to answer a separate question: What does a sustainable civilization look like, and how can we get there?

As Olivia Rosane puts it, what if we tried to “cancel the apocalypse?”

Solarpunk is the opposite of cyberpunk’s nihilism, offering stories, the founders say, about “ingenuity, positive creation, independence, and community.” These narratives are often framed around infrastructure as both a form of resistance and as the foundations for a new way of life—the eponymous solar panels feature heavily.

What to read

Kim Stanley Robinson, Mars trilogy (beginning with Red Mars,1992)

“I’ve always written utopian science fiction,” says Robinson. He’s one of the best world-builders in contemporary sci-fi, and these stories of terraforming Mars are super worked-through, both technically and sociopolitically. They describe a future in which humans just might be able to achieve ecosystem balance.

Cory Doctorow, Walkaway (2018)

This is far less utopian than Robinson’s work, but perhaps, quietly, just as hopeful. In a world wracked by climate change and fully captured by corporate power, most people live grinding lives of toil in “Default” cities. Yet 3-D printing has created post-scarcity, and so Doctorow’s trio of characters simply secede and walk away into the lands in between, and start to rebuild the world. “The point of Walkaway is the first days of a better nation,” one says.

Check out Sunvault: Stories of Solarpunk and Eco-Speculation (2017, eds. Phoebe Wagner and Brontë Christopher Wieland), the first English-language collection of solarpunk fiction . For stories from Brazil and Portugal, there’s Solarpunk: Ecological and Fantastical Stories in a Sustainable World (2014 / English 2018, ed. Gerson Lodi-Ribeiro).

(7) BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME. James Davis Nicoll wonders if we missed the chance at a real-life Rendezvous with Rama: “Recent Interstellar Asteroid May Have Been Alien Artifact, Speculates New Paper”.

… “Just what is ‘Oumuamua?” you may ask. I am so glad you asked. It’s the first ever verified interstellar object traversing our solar system. It was discovered in late 2017. Unlike Rama, it was only spotted over a month after its first and only perihelion. Also unlike Rama, there weren’t any space probes conveniently located where they could be diverted to take a close look. And of course, unlike Rama, we have NO nuclear-powered crewed spacecraft bopping around the Solar System, let alone one in the right place at the right time to visit ‘Oumuamua….

(8) MARTENSSON OBIT. “[Swedish fan] Bertil Mårtensson died this morning, from the effects of inhaling smoke and soot during a fire in his apartment kitchen last Thursday – he was weakened from other illnesses, and unable to escape from the apartment,” John-Henri-Holmberg announced on Facebook.

The Science Fiction Encyclopedia has an entry about his writing career here.

(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge and JJ.]

  • November 4, 1920 – Sydney Bounds, Writer, Editor, and Fan from England who was a prolific author of short fiction, and novels — not just science fiction, but also horror, Westerns, mysteries, and juvenile fiction — from 1946 until his death in 2006. He was an early fan who joined Britain’s Science Fiction Association in 1937 and was active in fandom there. He worked as an electrician on the Enigma machine during World War II, and while in the service, he started publishing the fanzine Cosmic Cuts. The film The Last Days on Mars (an adaptation of “The Animators”) and the Tales of the Darkside episode “The Circus” are based on stories by him. In 2005, two collections of his fiction were released under the title The Best of Sydney J. Bounds: Strange Portrait and Other Stories, and The Wayward Ship and other Stories. In 2007, the British Fantasy Society honored him by renaming their award for best new writer after him.
  • November 4, 1934 – Gregg Calkins, Writer, Editor, and Fan. Mike Glyer’s tribute to him reads: “Longtime fan Gregg Calkins died July 31, 2017 after suffering a fall. He was 82. Gregg got active in fandom in the Fifties and his fanzine Oopsla (1952-1961) is fondly remembered. He was living in the Bay Area and serving as the Official Editor of FAPA when I applied to join its waitlist in the Seventies. He was Fan GoH at the 1976 Westercon. Calkins later moved to Costa Rica. In contrast to most of his generation, he was highly active in social media, frequently posting on Facebook where it was his pleasure to carry the conservative side of debates. He is survived by his wife, Carol.”
  • November 4, 1950 – John Vickery, 68, Actor of Stage and Screen. Wearing making makeup and prosthetics is something this performer did very well, as he appeared as a Cardassian military officer in Deep Space Nine’s “The Changing Face of Evil”, a Betazoid in Star Trek: The Next Generation’s “Night Terrors”, and a Klingon in Star Trek: Enterprise‘s “Judgment”. In Babylon 5 and its spinoff Crusade, he had dual roles, as Neroon and Mr. Welles, and he had guest parts in episodes of Medium and The Others. A veteran stage actor, he originated the role of Scar in The Lion King on Broadway.
  • November 4, 1955 – Lani Tupu, 63, Actor and Director from New Zealand. He’d be on the Birthday scroll just for being Crais on the Farscape series, but he’s actually been in several other genre undertakings, including the 1989 Punisher, Robotropolis, and Finders Keepers. He also had guest parts in episodes of Tales of the South Seas, Time Trax, Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World, and the Australian remake of the Mission: Impossible series (which if you haven’t seen it, is quite excellent; I just found it in DVD format sometime in the past month).
  • November 4, 1953 – Kara Dalkey, 65, Writer and Musician. Author of YA fiction and historical fantasy. She is a member of the Pre-Joycean Fellowship (which, if memory serves me right, includes both Emma Bull and Stephen Brust) and the Scribblies. Her works include The Sword of Sagamore, Steel Rose, Little Sister, and The Nightingale; her Water Trilogy blends together Atlantean and Arthurian mythologies. She’s been nominated for Mythopoeic and Tiptree Awards.
  • November 4, 1953 – Stephen Jones, 65, Editor from England. He is a prolific Anthologist — and that is putting quite mildly, as he went well over the century mark in edited anthologies quite some time ago. The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror accounts for seventeen volumes by itself, and his editions of The Mammoth Book of (Pick A Title) run for at least another for another dozen. He has also authored a number of horror reference works, such as The Art of Horror Movies: An Illustrated History, Basil Copper: A Life in Books, and H. P. Lovecraft in Britain. He chaired the World Fantasy Conventions in 1988 and 2013, and has himself been a Guest of Honor at a World Fantasy Convention. His work has won a whopping 22 British Fantasy Awards, 5 Stoker Awards, and 3 World Fantasy Awards. In 2006, the British Fantasy Society recognized him with the Karl Edward Wagner Award for outstanding contribution to the genre.
  • November 4, 1965 – Kiersten Warren, 53, Actor who has had roles in Bicentennial Man, Independence Day, 13 Going on 30, The Astronaut Farmer, The Thinning, and The Invisible Mother, and guest roles on episodes of Night Man, Wolf Lake, and Fringe.
  • November 4, 1970 – Anthony Ruivivar, 48, Actor whose genre appearances include Starsthip Troopers and The Adjustment Bureau, along with a plethora of recurring roles in TV series Frequency, The Haunting of Hill House, American Horror Story, Scream, Revolution, and the new Beauty and the Beast, and recurring voice roles in Beware the Batman and Avengers Assemble.

(10) COMICS SECTION.

  • Brevity turns to Auric Goldfinger for a laugh.

(11) CHUCK TINGLE’S HALLOWEEN COSTUME. This has probably never been done before.

(12) HELP NEEDED BY LONGTIME ASFA, SFWA, WHC VOLUNTEER MAURINE DORRIS. “Medical for Maurine Dorris” is a fundraiser on Facebook started by Joann Cavitt Parsons. To date they’ve raied $1,000 of the $10,000 goal. Latest update is that her cancer is Stage 4, with widespread metastases.

Older fans, especially in the South, will remember Maurine Dorris as a force to be reckoned with. She and JoAnn Parsons ran more ASFA suites and SFWA suites than I can remember.  They started World Horror Convention, and ran the first two, in Nashville, TN.

Maurine fell at home last week and broke her hip. Happens to lots of us these days. Sadly, while in the ER for that, it came out that she has metastatic cancer in multiple sites.

Maurine has never been well blessed with money. The only insurance she has is Medicare Part A, because she felt that she couldn’t even afford Part B. She was widowed at an early age, and has only one son. She lives by herself, in a trailer on the property of her best friend JoAnn Parsons and her husband.

Maurine has decided not to treat the cancer, and to return home as soon as possible. Clearly, she will need help. JoAnn has started a GoFundMe account for her, which I hope that you will be kind enough to share.

(13) POWERFUL LINEUP. Joe Sherry recalls an influential 1975 Pamela Sargent anthology in “Feminist Futures: Women of Wonder” at Nerds of a Feather.

…How familiar readers are with the twelve writers of Women of Wonder likely depends on how well and broadly read they are with the overall field of science fiction. For many, Vonda McIntyre may only be known as the writer of one Star Wars novel (The Crystal Star) and five Star Trek novels. Other readers will know McIntyre from her three Hugo Awards and one Nebula Award.

Pamela Sargent put together a powerful lineup of writers (and stories), some of which have become absolute giants of the field. Anne McCaffrey. Ursula K. Le Guin. Joanna Russ. Marion Zimmer Bradley (more on her later)….

(14) FILE TYPE. Paul Weimer adds an entry to Ursula K. Le Guin’s dossier for Nerds of a Feather — “Feminist Futures: The Word for World is Forest”.

…Finally, there is our Athshean protagonist, Selver. It is from his semi-omniscient point of view that we get the major worldbuilding of the novel as regards to how the Athesheans see themselves, and how their societies actually work. Davidson and even Lyubov, for his sympathies for the native inhabitants, simply doesn’t see or know about….

Legacy: The novella’s polemic, strong, unyielding tone meant that it had an immediate impact on readers, especially since it was in the high profile Again, Dangerous Visions anthology edited by Harlan Ellison. It deservedly was nominated for and won a Hugo award. It’s anti-colonial and ecological themes were likely the greater focus of readers at the time, given the Vietnam War, and the realization and maturation of the work into recognition for its gender and feminist ideals is something that has become a function of seeing it placed within the Hain-verse. …

(15) BOOK LIFE. This time the author of The Traitor Baru Cormorant supplies the titles for Nerds of a Feather’s recurring feature — “6 Books with Seth Dickinson”.

  1. How about a book you’ve changed your mind about over time–either positively or negatively? Guns, Germs, and Steel. When I read it in high school I thought it was the smartest thing ever written. Now it’s pretty obviously reductionist. (I’m not, like, clever for figuring this out, there’s a bot on the history reddit whose only job is to post disclaimers about GG&S.)I used to think Pale Fire was a clever postmodern novel with a ‘true’ story hidden behind the one we’re given. Now I know that Zembla is real and John Shade failed its people.God, I can never remember enough books.

(16) AQUAMAN. They call this trailer “Aquaman – Attitude.”

[Thanks to JJ, John King Tarpinian, Marcia Kelly Illingworth, Mike Kennedy, Cat Eldridge, Martin Morse Wooster, Chip Hitchcock, Carl Slaughter, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Jayn.]

Apologies From Two Former Arisia Officers, and Other New Statements

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Cody Lazri, who was on the Arisia, Inc. Eboard for the year-long term ending September 2017, serving as corporate Vice-President, and who resigned from the convention committee on October 27, 2018, has posted “My Arisia Statement”, a detailed history and apology:

To My Beloved Arisia Friends and Family,

As someone who has been part of Arisia leadership in recent years, I am sorry for what my actions and inactions have wrought. I am sorry for hurting people who work year round to make the convention happen. I am sorry for hurting attendees. I am sorry.

First, let me get the important bits out of the way:

  1. I was a voting member of the ‘16-’17 EBoard.
  2. I am taking a year (or longer) off from Arisia to self-crit.

It feels strange to be putting this out after several people have already resigned, but I’ve been working on it for days, and several people have assured me that more stories will be welcome and useful.

What follows is long….

…I am sorry for my complicity in Arisia’s toxic culture. It’s not right for new people to need to step in and clean up our mess. Thank you for stepping up anyway to do the difficult work that we failed in, of making Arisia a safer place. Good luck and Godspeed.

Arisia founder Matthew Saroff, although not engaged in the con since 2005, issued “A Public Apology 27½ Years Overdue”.

I just wanted to make a note:  I founded Arisia over 25 years ago, filed the original paperwork, and the 501(c)3 application, and chaired the first two conventions in 1990 and 1991.

While it has been a while since I have done anything involved with Arisia (2005, because I decided that it was bad for me on a purely personal (as in in obsessive/addictive behavior) issues.)

However, I am aware that I made numerous errors during my tenure running the con, particularly in the last 6 months as chairman:  I was a legendary asshole during that time, and I believe that some of the organizational issues that Arisia appears to have to this day likely flow from this.

To the degree that Arisia has cultural and organizational issues, and I have been away for 13 years, so I honestly do not know anything about the current organizational culture, I was in at the beginning, and contributed to that.

I am profoundly sorry, and I wish that I had the common sense to realize in mid-1990 that my behavior was destructive and harmful, and do better by the convention and my then staff.

Kris Snyder confirmed some background about Arisia’s incident response handling from personal experience in a new Facebook statement on October 30.

So yea, this thing, people telling a member of Arisia staff and then nothing happening? Is an actual thing. It continues to happen. I have heard of it happening in the past few years, and know of several claims of it from the past few years that I 100% believe took place, including at Arisia 2018. That someone went to members of The Watch or a staff member with a Black Ribbon, and then no paperwork was ever filed for someone to follow up on post-con.

We need to do better. All of us. Not JUST the eboard in their post-con follow up, even though that is the thing that currently needs the most work. We’ve improved at-con since 2011, though there is still more work to do on the at-con side in educating the rest of staff to call the at-con IRT when faced with disclosures that look even faintly like they could be a report.

Erik and Eppu Jensen announced “Arisia: A Point of No Return for Us” at Co-Geeking.

We take this stand as a response to Crystal Huff’s blog post where she shared her experiences with Arisia’s response to serious safety concerns, including stalking both during the convention and elsewhere.

Arisia is a volunteer-run con for fans of science fiction and fantasy, in all forms of media, held annually in January on Martin Luther King Jr. weekend in Boston.

The con staff and/or Arisia Executive Board have failed in following and enforcing their own Code of Conduct and problem reporting process. This failure has been long-standing, and has had the practical effect of protecting a stalker.

Therefore, we will not return to Arisia nor recommend the con in the future. It is unacceptable to hold people to a different set of rules depending on who they are.

Arisia’s actions over the past few days have regained the support of this convention worker:

Two GoHs Drop Out of Arisia 2019

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Daniel Jose Older and Malka Older, two Arisia 2019 guests of honor who reacted to Crystal Huff’s post by saying they could not do the con “as things stand”, have now announced they are definitely out:

As Older indicated, several more statements criticizing Arisia’s handling of code of conduct violations appeared after they tweeted their initial response.

In addition, there is a new statement from Ly Meloccaro, who resigned from the Arisia committee earlier this year and details the reasons why.

Hello, my name is Crow, and I have been involved with Con Safety at Arisia since 2013. I started as a staffer, and climbed my way to section leader (2014-15), Head of The Watch (2016-17), and finally Assistant Division Head of Operations (2018). My direct supervisor during 2017 and 18 was the Division head of Ops, Noel Rosenberg.

…What I can tell you is this: There was an investigation about the allegations against Noel, but it was taken so lightly, and without seriousness, they didn’t even bother to tell the person running con safety [Meloccaro], someone who worked closely with him, anything about it.

I believe Crystal Huff. And I feel utterly betrayed by so many people I thought I could trust.

Also, this third party security audit group they’re calling in was something they were going to do already, don’t let them trick you into thinking that this is in response to this scandal and that they’re being in any way proactive.

I will not be at Arisia 2019. Or any Arisia from henceforth. Their efforts to make this right feel more like efforts to save their own ass. Until the entirety of the voting eboard resigns and the culture at Arisia changes drastically, it will continue to be a toxic and dangerous place.

Meanwhile, Arisia Inc. acting president Gregorian Hawke is looking for help, and he announced a rules workaround that will enable new corporate members to vote at their first meeting, which he hopes will attract more people to come to the corporation’s November 11 meeting, “make their voices heard, and vote for an Executive Board they believe in.”

Update from the Acting President: 10/30

In a decision intended to give new corporate members a voice in the upcoming elections I am calling a special meeting. This meeting will take place at 1:45PM at the Arts at the Armory on November 11th, immediately prior to the previously scheduled Corporate Meeting.

The agenda of this meeting will be limited to a welcome to new Corporate members and to introduce Robert’s Rules of Order and other Arisa Corporate Meeting Procedures (https://corp.arisia.org/MeetingProcedures). This meeting will serve to ensure new members of the corporation may vote in the regular November Corporate Meeting. I would like to acknowledge that this feels to me, and to many others, to be against the spirit of our Bylaws which state that “Voting rights are granted at the end of the first meeting the member attends after joining.” However, I believe when both options result in an injustice the lesser must be chosen.

On that note I would like to make a personal plea, right now. In this moment Arisia is in urgent and important need of volunteers in the Corporation, Executive Board, and Convention Committee. In several months and years the work required may not be urgent but it will remain important. I ask now for people, who are willing and able, to come to meetings, make their voices heard, and vote for an Executive Board they believe in. I also ask for people to elect leaders who not only willing work to improve the culture of safety and inclusiveness at Arisia, but who are capable and willing to put in the important and mundane work down the line.

Logistical details such as accessibility and transportation can be found on the events Facebook page here https://www.facebook.com/events/1962717897361464/

Signed,
Gregorian Hawke for the Eboard

Four Resignations from Arisia Eboard

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The Arisia Eboard tonight announced four recently re-elected board members have resigned:

Update from the Eboard: 10/30

At this time I, Gregorian Hawke, have accepted the resignation of the following Eboard members (those who stood for re-election in September). Anna Bradley – Vice-President, Rick Kovalcik – Clerk, Benjamin Levy – Treasurer, and Sharon Sbarsky – Member-at-Large. Anna Bradley has resigned effective immediately. Rick Kovalcik, Benjamin Levy, and Sharon Sbarsky have resigned effective upon the election of a replacement (per Bylaws 3.12) at the November 11th meeting when elections will be held.

Gregorian Hawke is now Acting President as per our Bylaws. Andy Rosequist is now Acting Vice-President per Bylaws and Eboard vote.

The entire Eboard remains committed to doing what’s best for the community. Some of the resigning members have chosen to stay involved until November to continue the work required to, among other things, make the meeting happen and deal with Storage issues. Others have decided it would be best to step away immediately and we ask you to respect all their decisions.

If you wish to join the corporation, the overseeing body of the convention, you can join online at https://corp.arisia.org/membership. Dues are currently $20 and the Eboard grants dues waivers upon request.

The next Corporate Meeting (where elections will be held) will be at 2PM on 11/11/18 at Arts at the Armory, 191 Highland Ave, Somerville, MA 02143 and is open to the public. Information on public transit and parking available here: http://artsatthearmory.org/about/getting-here/

Our Bylaws state you must attend one Corporate Meeting (in person) before gaining voting rights, however new members may speak, ask questions, hold proxies, and run for office.

The calendar for Arisia meetings is at https://corp.arisia.org/calendar

As before, please send further questions about this situation, our Code of Conduct, or disciplinary policy in any capacity to [email protected]. This email address goes to the Incident Response Team Heads, Conchair team, and Executive Board. We are working on additional steps that we will announce in the coming weeks.

Signed,
Gregorian Hawke for the Eboard

Arisia 2019 Chair, Artist GoH Make Statements; Wu and Hopkinson Call for Action

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Arisia 2019 chair Daniel Eareckson has publicly addressed “what we are doing to make Arisia a safer place”, and artist Elizabeth Leggett announced why she has decided to remain as one of the con’s guests of honor.

Meanwhile, Brianna Wu is calling for feminists to stay away from the con, and “high profile men” as well. Nalo Hopkinson, who turned down an Arisia 2020 GoH invitation, says “There has to be a house cleaning.”

My name is Daniel Eareckson and I am the Convention Chairperson for Arisia 2019.

I have taken too long to make this public statement; I apologize for that. Between now and the convention, I intend to frequently put out messages like this one indicating what we are doing to make Arisia a safer place. Likely turning into a weekly update.

Several actions have already been taken:

– Noel Rosenberg will not be on staff and is banned from attending Arisia 2019.

– Joseph Averett will not be volunteering for Arisia 2019. I have asked the Eboard to open or reopen investigations into the incidents mentioned.

– We are reaching out to third party specialists to review our Code of Conduct and Policies regarding Incident Responses. As these recommendations become solidified, we will share them with you.

– The Eboard has approved refunds for Arisia 2019 memberships to anyone who no longer wishes to attend this convention.

I will announce more actions as they are taken; and recognize that these initial steps are not enough to produce lasting change. I encourage your input. Emailing [email protected] or [email protected] is the best way to make sure that people see your suggestions. Although there are a lot of people working on this right now, we may not be able to reply to every individual message, though each message is read and considered.

I want everyone to know what goes on in our meetings and how to be part of making things change. I invite everyone to please come to the next Arisia Corporate meeting on November 11th at 2pm at the Somerville Armory and the Convention Committee meeting on November 18th at 4pm at NESFA to learn about what we do, how we do it, and to become involved directly.

Our structure and Policies are at https://corp.arisia.org/documents. Improving our Policies is one way we can make changes last and prevent mistakes in the future.

I am personally committed to addressing the issues raised by the people who chose to come forward, and to seeing that Arisia 2019 takes place in a environment where people can feel safe. I want you all to feel that this convention is worthy of attending, that we as a convention can learn from and recover from our past mistakes, that we can improve and exceed the level that is expected of us.

Daniel Eareckson

Arisia 2019 Conchair ([email protected])

Dear Friends, Fans and Family,
This has been a very long three days.
I have made a decision. After a lot of thinking and soul searching, I have decided to remain as Arisia’s 2019 Artist Guest of Honor.

At no point was this an easy or casual decision. As I mentioned, Ms. Huff’s account is both something I believe and something that is all too familiar to me. The mistakes that were made in handling this and another incident were horrifying.

I wanted to see what was going to be done. I wanted to see the actions behind the words. Here is what I know.
In the past few days the following things have come from Arisia leadership:

* The person accused has resigned from being president and has been officially banned from any and all current and future Arisia functions.
* Some previous incidents are now being re-examined.
* Arisia leadership has opened acknowledged their several mistakes in this, and have announced steps that they are currently making towards changing their policies and improving their awareness of how to handle future such incidents.
* The BRCC will continue to provide training to con-staff.
* Arisia’s no-refund policy has been rescinded, allowing anyone who wishes to pull out to do so.
* They are holding a corporate meeting on the 11th, which the public is (as always) welcome to attend.
* They are reaching out to an outside company for review and assistance with the process so that there are more eyes other than just Arisia volunteers on this issue.
* As of Sunday evening I know that there are several other steps that they are looking to take, but are not finalized.

In the desire to make sure that I was not misinterpreting what I was reading from the corporate emails I made a point of checking with an Arisia affiliate that what I’m saying is right. This was important to me to make sure that *I* clearly understood what was being said and wasn’t getting anything mixed up as it informed my decision in staying with, and supporting the convention.

These steps, along with the many conversations I have had with Arisia staff this weekend have left me believing that Arisia is taking this with the heavy seriousness it needs. I have faith that they will continue to make improvements to their process in the next few months and over the upcoming years.

In addition all sales of my Arisia piece featuring the jellyfish mermaid under Boston Harbor now named, “Depth” (originally entitled, “Illuminate”) will be donated to the Boston Rape Crisis Center. This includes the one issue 24”x36” limited edition dye sublimation along with the 12×18 prints. After that time, the Boston Harbor variant will be gone for good.

Thank you for your patience with me.
Light and Laughter,
Elizabeth Leggett

  • Brianna Wu

(Thread starts here.)

  • Nalo Hopkinson

https://twitter.com/Nalo_Hopkinson/status/1056940390975123457

 

Arisia Bans Rosenberg, Authorizes Membership Refunds

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The Arisia, Inc. Executive Board announced today that Noel Rosenberg, removed as President yesterday, has been permanently banned from the convention.

The action came on the heels of revelations in Crystal Huff’s post “Why I’m Not At Arisia Anymore: My Rapist is President. Again.” charging the convention with failing to enforce its code of conduct in situations where she had been the victim.

And the Arisia committee has continued to be rocked by statements from people inspired by Huff’s post to go public with their own criticism of Arisia’s handling of incidents they reported.

…This year (2018) was my first Arisia. I knew it was a stretch for me to go, but because Arisia is an important event to my partners I wanted to give it a try. While playing in a Dungeons & Dragons game, one of the other players repeatedly and intentionally misgendered me. When I corrected him, he rolled his eyes at me. This game had a sign up sheet, and was part of a three part series. Given that we were using character names, I don’t remember the name of the person who had done this.

…After the report was filed I was told that staff would find and follow up with the person who had aggressively misgendered me and then be in touch. I received two emails, both of which felt formulaic and left me with a sense that my hurt wasn’t important to Arisia….

… In June 2013, J and I had to recap the events in detail because Morgon wanted to get back on staff. In response to our reiterated complaints, Arisia finally banned him from being on staff—though not from attending—and gave him a wide path to reinstatement: “After Arisia 2014, he is welcome to ask the EBoard to change this decision if: he apologizes for his actions at Arisia 2011, he has a position lined up and agreed to pre-con by the area-head responsible, and he presents a letter from a doctor saying he is capable of volunteering for that position.”

This is why I haven’t attended Arisia since 2011. I didn’t and don’t give a shit about whether serial harassers get teachable moments. (I also don’t feel it’s the place of a convention to request any kind of medical documentation of, presumably, a person’s mental health.) I felt absolutely unsupported by Arisia’s executive team at the time and after.

As these reports have come out, Arisia has been losing staff and volunteers:

Mark Amidon

I have just notified the head of Programming and my track’s Head that I will not be attending Arisia 2019. I will not be a guest, panelist, moderator, nor Assistant Track Head.

Tamar Amidon

I am withdrawing from attending and staffing Arisia 2019. Maura’s report on her treatment, the results of that, and then putting the predator back onto staff as an ADH enraged me, Finding out that one of my kids had issues with that predator, when she was 14, around the same time, makes it impossible for me to even be in the same room as some of those involved with the extremely bad decisions made all over that case.

Today’s Arisia Eboard statement makes membership refunds available, and tells fans the next open-to-the-public corporate meeting will happen November 11.

Update from the Eboard: 10/28

We are announcing that Noel Rosenberg is banned from attending Arisia and Arisia functions permanently. This decision will be reported to the corporate membership at the next corporate meeting. Per policy, this decision may be overturned by the corporate membership, or revisited by a future Eboard if new information comes to light.

We are also examining some of our previous IR decisions in light of new information.

We understand that some people will still not want to attend Arisia 2019 or feel unsafe doing so. Although normally Arisia memberships are non-refundable (but are transferable) the board has authorized refunds to people who request them. Email [email protected] so we can help with this request.

The Eboard is continuing to discuss and explore further options and will continue to share updates.

The next Corporate Meeting will be at 2PM on 11/11/18 at Arts at the Armory, 191 Highland Ave, Somerville and is open to the public. Information on public transit and parking available here: http://artsatthearmory.org/about/getting-here/

As before, please send further questions about this situation, our Code of Conduct, or disciplinary policy in any capacity to [email protected]. This email address goes to the Incident Response Team Heads, Conchair team, and Executive Board. We are working on additional steps that we will announce in the coming weeks.

Signed,
The Arisia Executive Board