JordanCon strives to be an inclusive experience for its membership. We work hard to make people of all kinds feel welcome and wanted within our great community. Since I came on board as director of the Science Fiction track, I have made a diversity of content part of the track’s core goals. This includes the width and breadth of the content as well as diversification of the content creators themselves.
There can be no doubt that SF is a genre that pushes us to open our minds to new ideas. At its best, SF challenges our visions of ourselves and of our futures and this challenge can be uncomfortable. At the same time these challenges can be enjoyable and eye-opening experiences. This is important too; after all we come to JordanCon to enjoy ourselves and SF touchstones we are familiar with have a comfortable feel.
More than a Feeling
But diversity has to be more than a word on a blog or a concept. It has to be more than a check mark on our social resume. It has to be pursued, nurtured, and offered in an authentic way. Every year I think we do a little better than the year before on the track, but every year we will try and do even better. There is so much wonder out there that I want to introduce to the membership. Stories both old and new that you might have missed. Voices that for unfortunate reasons may have been ignored by the mainstream. This year we will tackling this in content of our panels and how some of our panels are structured.
Suffice to say we will have two panels in particular, one focusing on SF literature by people of color and the other focusing on SF feminist literature, that directly address their subject matter. We will also be introducing (as we do every year) panels on content that may not be new to you but are new to JordanCon. Fans of these properties and creators will enjoy talking about them and encouraging new fans to come on board. And as always the Science Fiction track will support whenever possible our indie and self-published content creators. We will try and go outside the box.
Quick Notes
- I want to add Charlie Jane Anders’ All The Birds in the Sky to this year’s reading list.
- Our group read of Ancillary Justice starts next Friday, October 5th.
As always, if you have feedback, we appreciate hearing from you. Have some lesser known content and content creators to share? Drop us a line! sciencefiction@jordancon.org
