2025 Baycon Report

In the past, my convention reports have included highlights of panels and other events, both those I participated in and those I attended as an audience member. This report will be different, for reasons that will soon become obvious.

Baycon is my local speculative fiction convention (“speculative” encompasses science fiction, fantasy, and horror), with programming that also includes fannish pursuits, science, history, diversity, and other areas of interest, author readings, and Regency dancing, crafts like knitting chain mail, and so forth. I’ve been attending on a more-or-less regular basis since the mid-1990s. It’s not only a fun convention but a chance to meet up with friends whom I don’t often see.

This convention, however, was different. For the past few years, Baycon programming has invited potential panelists to write up topics and list folks they’d like to include, then the entire proposal is either accepted or passed on (aka, rejected). This means more work for anyone wanting to be on a panel since you need to not only write a bang-up description but figure out who you know that would be at Baycon and have juicy things to say. Hence, much less work for the programming committee. Also, more predictable panels by restricting the pool of panelists. I’m not a fan of the system, as you can tell. I’ve loved being assigned panels with folks I don’t know who then turn out to have fascinating and often unexpected things to say. I’ve also made some great writing friends that way.

It is an understatement to say that this year, the process did not go smoothly. I was invited, I submitted two panels with panelists, and I waited. I queried and was told to be patient. Somehow, perhaps because I checked last year’s email verifying that my proposals had been accepted, I arrived under the impression that all was well and expecting to receive my schedule. Nope, no such schedule existed. The poor volunteers at ProgOps (Programming Operations)! I asked if I could be added to an existing panel. At this point, the head of programming arrived and, after many apologies for the shortcomings of their software and assurances that I was by far not the only author in my situation (hotel room booked, reporting for schedule, etc.), offered to add one of my panels for the following evening: Science Fiction as the Literature of Resistance, at 9:30 pm Saturday. Okay. They’ll try to contact the other panelists to make sure they know it’s been added. Since I was planning on seeing most of them, I could do this myself. In addition, they’d added genre luminary Larry Niven to the panel. Oh, my. Talk about name recognition.

With Larry Niven

So I went about Friday evening and Saturday morning in finding my panelists, discussing the topic, and not attending anyone else’s panels. I did, however, have a great time catching up with my roommate and her wife, as well as checking out the dealers’ room, getting myself a decent breakfast (a challenge in itself), and holding many impromptu reunions in the hallways. Upon returning to ProgOps, I was told that yes, the panel was still on and a bunch of folks had checked “Attending” on the phone app, but no, it was not that panel. It was my other proposal, Finding Our Inner Guide to Political Action. Which I was very happy to hold forth on but felt I ought to give the other panelists a bit of advance warning. In the process of tracking them all down again and enlisting an additional person, I ran into Larry Niven in a hallway. I knew him slightly, as in in-passing, from many conventions over the years. I explained that the panel topic had changed and he should not feel obliged to come if it wasn’t his area of interest. He said he’d like to come.

By Saturday night, I’d advised all the panelists and done a bunch of preparation, the most important being having a plan to keep the conversation slow enough so we could listen respectfully and deeply to one another (that’s the “inner guide” part) and avoid current political hot issues that could derail things. One panelist in particular had been concerned about a specific news item devolving into an argument. I said, “Do you trust me?” They agreed they did.

The panel itself was an inspiring experience for me (and for the panelists and audience, given their comments afterward). I asked for stories about times we’d taken action, not because we were pressured into it but arising from a spontaneous inner prompting, an act of love. These ranged from the nonviolence practiced in aikido (a martial art in which force is turned into harmony) to Larry Niven’s story about how he and other science fiction writers participated in NASA during the Reagan era to my own story about how a single, impulsive email led to statewide activism, writing for the blog of a national organization, and then an invitation to an international conference. I loved the audience feedback, as authentic as the panelists’ stories.

After that, a great Indian dinner my roommates arranged via Door Dash, and a night’s sleep, I got to hang out with more friends and attend a great panel on collaboration in writing. I’ve done this, both in-person and posthumously (the other author, not me!) so many of the issues were familiar to me, but it was a joy to relax and listen. It didn’t hurt that one of my favorite authors, M. A. Carrick (Marie Brennan and Alyc Helms), were on the panel.

Note to self: next year, submit panel proposals early and bug ProgOps for a decision before arriving at convention.