by JordanCon Marketing | Mar 15, 2022 | Charity Auction
Hey, peeps!
As many of you may remember, last year JordanCon ran a fundraising event to offset the possibility that we wouldn’t be able to have a convention last year. We weren’t sure where we’d be in regards to our Covid situation and, because of the way things were in Georgia, had we found ourselves in the position to cancel the event, we’d have still been on the hook for all of the contracted expenses with the hotel. This would have included paying for the event space and all those hotel room nights that we wouldn’t have been using. Needless to say, that would have been bad.
As part of this fundraiser, donors were rewarded with a number of different reward levels. At the $400 or more level, donors were granted the ability to place a one-time bid on an item in the JordanCon 2022 Charity Auction after bids have closed. We would like to thank the 22 people who made that donation, and we have made the arrangements for them to make their last ditch bids. Each of them will be given a paper bid sheet with their name and one space for one bid on one item. We will then go in and manually enter their bids.
It is important to know that the way we have the Charity Auction set up allows for Proxy Bids. Just enter the maximum amount you wish to pay for this item. As other people bid on this item, 32auctions will bid for you up to your maximum amount. Your maximum bid amount will remain confidential unless you are outbid. This final, one-time bid, may cause some people to be outbid, or to have their bids increase to that final bid.
We are also making an additional change to the Charity Auction this year. Last year we noticed that there was a great deal of bidding action in the last minutes before the auction closed. Due to internet connection issues we couldn’t control, we had people unable to jump in at the last second to bump up their bids. What we’re doing this year is setting up the auction so that if there is a bid for any item in the last three minutes, the time for that item will be extended for 3 minutes. This could continue for up to 30 minutes past the official close of the auction.
So that we don’t force the Charity Auction/Dealers Hall/Art Show space to remain open much past the 7:00 pm closing time, we are moving the auction close time to 6:30 pm with a potential for some individual items to close as late as 7:00 pm. Once all items have closed, our late bidders will have the opportunity to provide their one last bid.
If you have any questions, please email the Charity team at charityevents@jordancon.org.
by JordanCon Marketing | Feb 17, 2022 | Charity Auction
As we’ve shared before, there were changes to the convention last year due to COVID-19 safety protocols. The Charity Auction did not escape these changes, and there are a few things you all should know about.
First, last year we moved back in with the Art Show and Dealers Hall. This will stay the same this year. We’re sharing a much bigger room, and you won’t be able to miss us when you enter. We’re the first thing you’ll see. You’ll have to come through us to get to the Art Show and the Dealers.
Secondly, the Charity Auction will have no paper bid sheets anywhere. We will be using 32auctions.com to conduct all the bidding. The site for the JordanCon Charity Auction is here, and it’s currently available for browsing. Everything that has been submitted so far has already been set up on the website. There’s some amazing stuff in there, and we expect to be adding more items as we get closer. The auction will open on Saturday, April 23, at 10 am EDT.
It is NOT TOO LATE to submit items that you would like to donate. We only have a few items that have been submitted so far, so we’d be more than happy to see more come in. Please make any submissions to the JordanCon Charity Donation Submission Form. We will accept these submissions until April 16, 2022. Depending upon room available, we MAY be able to accept additional items on site, but this is not any kind of guarantee.
JordanCon WILL NOT SHIP ANY ITEMS. Only people in attendance may bid. The auction will require pre-approval for bidding, and that approval will be granted on site by the Charity Auction Staff. Members will need to request approval through 32Auctions.com and then come to the Charity Auction on site so that we can confirm attendance at the convention. Anybody not attending is welcome to make arrangements to find a proxy attending JordanCon to bid on, pay for, and pick up Auction items. JordanCon will not coordinate this. All items must be picked up Sunday before noon and again, JORDANCON WILL NOT SHIP.
Please understand that NONE of these items are guaranteed until they’ve been handed over to us. At this point, this is only what we’ve been told will be there. Any of these items may be pulled from the auction if they don’t make it to Atlanta.
We look forward to seeing you all in just a few weeks. And to help tide you over, here are a few items up for sale in this year’s Charity Auction! Enjoy.
Wheel of Time CCG – Starter Decks
Mat’s Dice and Cup
Framed Fox Skull Sketch
by JordanCon Marketing | Jul 14, 2021 | Guests
We’re thrilled to welcome the fantastic Marie Brennan to JordanCon 2021!
Marie Brennan is a former anthropologist and folklorist who shamelessly pillages her academic fields for material. She most recently misapplied her professors’ hard work to Turning Darkness Into Light, a sequel to the Hugo Award-nominated Victorian adventure series The Memoirs of Lady Trent. The first book of that series, A Natural History of Dragons, was a finalist for the World Fantasy Award and won the Prix Imaginales for Best Translated Novel.
Her other novels include the Doppelganger duology of Warrior and Witch, the urban fantasies Lies and Prophecy and Chains and Memory, the Onyx Court historical fantasy series, the Varekai novellas, and nearly sixty short stories, as well as the New Worlds series of worldbuilding guides. Together with Alyc Helms as M.A. Carrick, she is the author of the upcoming Rook and Rose epic fantasy trilogy, beginning with The Mask of Mirrors that came out in November 2020. (See the interview below for some sequel news!)
Marie recently sat down for a Q&A session with JordanCon. From us to you, we present the fruits of a chat with Author Guest of Honor Marie Brennan!
JordanCon: What are you looking forward to the most about JordanCon 2021?
Marie Brennan: Honestly—given the circumstances—I’m looking forward to simply being at a con! I haven’t attended one in person since FogCon in early March 2020. The chance to hang out in person again and geek out over fantasy just sounds hugely appealing.
JC: What is your favorite type of book? Be as specific (or not!) as you’d like.
MB: It’s hard to narrow down to a specific type, but I’ll say I really like a well-done series arc—the kind of thing where the books are all building toward a conclusion, rather than something more open-ended and episodic. I also love secondary-world fantasy that feels truly immersive with its worldbuilding. But I also enjoy historical fiction… I’ll stop before I wind up listing everything I read!
JC: Do you remember the first thing you ever wrote? Can you tell us a little about it?
MB: The first thing I remember writing dates back to when I was a mystery reader, not a fantasy reader. It was the summer either before or after third grade—I can’t recall which—when a woman was babysitting me, my brother, and the two sons of another family. She taught us how to make little books with fabric-bound cardboard covers and the pages stitched into the spine; well, naturally I wrote a story in mine. All I recall is that 1) it had to do with someone stealing local pets (the line “you’re mine now, kitty” sticks in my memory to this day) and 2) I somehow got it into my head that I had to fill all the pages… so as I got further along, my handwriting got bigger and bigger and eventually I wound up listing every last thing my main character packed when she went on a trip at the end of the story.
I like to think I’ve improved a bit since then.
JC: Our theme for this year is Con of Legends, in reference to a particular time period (Age of Legends) in the Wheel of Time series. With that in mind, tell us:
Do you have a favorite legend (story)?
MB: Oh, yeesh—I have a degree in folklore, so I know too many to really pick out a single favorite! But the Scottish border ballad “Tam Lin” is a big formative influence on me, specifically through Diana Wynne Jones’s novel Fire and Hemlock, and then later Pamela Dean’s Tam Lin.
Are there any legends in which you’ve taken a deep dive (or would like to) in terms of research/nerding out?
MB: This isn’t legends in the technical sense, but I’ve done deep dives into both English fairy folklore (for the Onyx Court series) and Japanese yōkai lore (for The Night Parade of 100 Demons). As for what I’d like to learn more about… frankly, everything! I love feeding my brain lots of different tales.
JC: What do you believe makes a character “legendary”? And/or, what do you believe makes a setting or fictional world “legendary”?
MB: I don’t know that there are any fictional settings I think of as “legendary”—I’m more likely to attach that word to a character. In that context, I tend to assign it to the characters that become timeless in some fashion, where we tell many stories about them long after they were first created. (Though the pedantic folklorist that lives in my brain immediately points out that this is not what a “legend” is. The pedantic folklorist can hush.)
JC: Is there anything else you’d like to share about yourself or your work?
MB: Since not everybody realizes there’s a connection, I should mention that in addition to my work as Marie Brennan, I’m also half of M.A. Carrick (the other half being my friend Alyc Helms), author of The Mask of Mirrors and its sequel The Liar’s Knot, coming out this December! And I always like to plug my Patreon, for anybody who’s interested in anthropology and worldbuilding.
Catch Marie Brennan in person at her book signing (Friday, July 18, 3 – 4:00 p.m. ET). Attend her Guest of Honor Spotlight panel in person or online (Saturday, July 17, 12 -1:00 p.m. ET). Additionally, get more Marie at her website, swantower.com.
by JordanCon Marketing | May 5, 2021 | Activities, Announcements
Every year JordanCon features a Silent Charity Auction on Saturday for the Mayo Clinic. This year we’re moving back in with the Art Show and Dealer Hall. Our normal space is too small to maintain appropriate social distancing.
The auction will run while the room is open on Saturday. We’re still working out the details for those times, but we already know about some amazing items again this year.
Speaking of donations: do you have something you’d like to see in our auction? We’ve had everything from memorabilia from Robert Jordan’s personal collection, to signed books, to prints of the Wheel of Time eBook covers, to hand-made crafts, and every year we receive more amazing items from people all over the world. If you have something you wish to donate, let us know by filling out our Charity Events Donation Submission Form. We will not be accepting any items that were not submitted beforehand. The cutoff date for submissions is July 9, 2021. If you’d like to donate something but will not be attending JordanCon this July, please contact CharityEvents@jordancon.org to arrange shipping details. We can’t wait to see you all in July.
-JordanCon Charities
by JordanCon Marketing | Mar 30, 2021 | Announcements
JordanCon is a tax exempt 501c4 non-profit organization that holds a yearly sci-fi and fantasy literature convention to honor the late Robert Jordan by supporting the Mayo Clinic. But we’re also so much more than that. JordanCon is a family of incredibly diverse people who come together to celebrate not just their love The Wheel of Time, but also the many lifelong friendships they’ve made over the years. JordanCon often feels more like a family reunion than a convention, and we wouldn’t have it any other way.
But Covid-19 stopped us from gathering last year, and we all felt the effects. We weren’t just missing an event (though the event itself is fantastic); we were missing each other. JordanCONine allowed us to interact as much as we were able, but we missed the hugs, the high-fives, the dancing, the costumes, the panels, the… the things that make JordanCon so special. We missed being together in one big space, enjoying our favorite weekend of the year as a family.
Now 2021 is here and it’s clear that Covid-19 is going to continue to cause disruptions for events and organizations moving forward. We already had to postpone our usual weekend in April, and now we’re working hard to try and figure out how to continue to bring you the best JordanCon experience we can.
But we can’t do that alone; we can’t do it without our family. So as much as we didn’t want to ask, especially since we know many of you are hurting financially during this time, we find ourselves in a situation where our operating costs are much higher than they’ve ever been. Like many organizations, especially non-profits, we’re worried about the future. JordanCon doesn’t make money. We’ve always focused on using the funds we receive to make the convention fantastic, and more importantly, to support charities such as the Mayo Clinic. Because of that, we don’t have an emergency fund. And who could have possibly anticipated a global pandemic and the increased operating costs associated with it?
If you can’t afford to help financially, we completely understand. Times are hard. But if you have some money to share, we would definitely appreciate any help you’re able to give. We’re even offering donor rewards based on how much you donate to the campaign. We just want to make sure we can keep hosting this incredible family reunion (that is technically a convention) and donate to charities like the Mayo Clinic for as long as we possibly can.
Donate here.
