In our Exhibitor Guide Part 1, we brought you a whole bunch of exhibitors who’ll have cool, fun, beautiful, geeky accessories and clothing for sale at the convention. Once you’ve dressed up your body, it’ll be time to dress up your walls, and what better way than with prints and artwork from the amazing artists in the main exhibitor room of GeekGirlCon ‘14.
Note: In addition to all this art exhibitor fun, we’ll also have the traditional artist’s alley, featuring many other painters, illustrators, and comic artists for your enjoyment.
Our exhibitors’ art comes in many different flavors, from Emily Fiegenschuh’s lavish fantasy creatures and Inuit mythology…
If geeky math art is your thing, look no further than Fleeting States, specializing in what artist Sienna Morris describes as numberism art–“illustrating the natural world with its underlying data.” Buy high-quality prints and t-shirts adorned with these fascinating images.
Universal Proprioception, a close-up detail, and the math that inspired the image.
If you’re looking for something a bit out of the ordinary to spice up your living space, several of our exhibitors offer artwork made from unusual materials. At the Nerd Adjacent Productions booth, find stunning etched metal fan art from many different fandoms, with a focus on Serenity/Firefly and other Joss Whedon shows.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Labyrinth, and Firefly art.
Quilted Geek brings wall hangings and tapestries into the Geek Age with beautiful hand-crafted quilts featuring images and characters from Lord of the Rings, a range of comic book titles, and more.
Batman Logo, Cthulhu takes Paris, and the One Ring
Finally, get your hands on some Geek Stained Glass. Stick them inside your windows to add some color to the drab Pacific Northwest winter, or just display them on a shelf or table.
One of the joys of any convention is the sight of hundreds of people dressed up in celebration of their favorite characters. Daenerys Targaryen playing board games with the Tenth Doctor; Pinkie Pie making superhero masks at a panel; Loki buying a poster of himself in artist alley.
Rufio, Peter, and a Lost Boy Photo by Tyler Pruitt at GeekGirlCon Flickr
Cosplay and geek fashion is a means of self-expression for people of all shapes and sizes–except that some shapes and sizes have a harder time of it than others. At GeekGirlCon ‘14 we have several panels exploring the role that clothing and costumes play in reclaiming female sexuality and moving toward a positive body image for people whose bodies are considered unacceptable in mainstream society.
Mickey Schulz of Geek Girls Rule leads “Cosplaying While Fat,” an exploration of the challenges fat geeks face, including negative reactions from other geeks, and the difficulty of finding pre-made costumes.
It’s easy to get into the mindset that it’s our bodies that are wrong, rather than the clothes, so in her “Costuming for Every Body” panel, theatrical costume designer Dodi Rose Zooropa offers practical advice on how to alter the character and the costume to fit your body. Cosplayers of all sizes and shapes are welcome!
For further practical advice, there’s “Working with Worbla”–a guide to using this versatile thermoplastic to create models, armor, and other costume pieces.
Sailor Senshi Jupiter and Labelle. Photo by Sayed Alamy at GeekGirlCon Flickr
Our panel “Cosplay, Parenting, and the Word ‘Appropriate’” is a great resource for parents who are helping their kids to navigate cosplay in a world that sexualises young bodies, and for kids hoping to get their parents’ support in their costumed adventures. There’ll also be discussion about ‘appropriating’ versus ‘appreciating’.
Meanwhile, “Crafting the Body” invites you to join the “participatory craftivism” movement, which uses crafting and cosplay to bring together geeks who think critically about pop-culture narratives and mainstream beauty ideals, and who undermine them together.
For a more direct way to translate geeky costuming into support for good causes, check out “CAUSEplay.” CAUSEplayers use their creativity for good, whether it’s running a toy drive or cheering up sick kids by cosplaying their favorite characters.
Paige New (left) and Michelle Thorstrom (right). Image source: GeekGirlCon Flickr
Outside the world of cosplay, as geek culture goes mainstream, it’s no surprise that fashion designers are taking pointers from geeky fashions. Call it a mash-up. “Geek Couture: Pop Culture in the High-Fashion World” discusses this trend, and the future of the fashion industry.
Other geeky fashions raise interesting questions, too, such as the revival of Victorian fashions for steampunk costumes. At our panel “The Corset: Object of Propriety or Liberation,” explore the history of this often controversial garment, from its origins as a means of constraining female sexuality, to its modern reclamation as an expression of that same sexuality.
It’s a truism among those of my friends who use OkCupid that if a guy fills up his “Favorites” section with Important Male Authors and Classic Dude Rock, it’s a red flag. You’ll probably spend the first date listening to his Deep Thoughts, and if he doesn’t bail when he hears you have every Tori Amos album, it’s probably only so that he can show you the error of your ways.
Similarly, when magazines and websites publish lists of “100 books to read before you die,” they’re overwhelmingly male. (And white, but that’s a topic that deserves its own post. Typically, Salman Rushdie, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and Toni Morrison are allowed into the hallowed halls, so the list-makers can say they did their due diligence.)
Let’s have a quick overview, shall we? (I did the counts here by eye, so I may have missed one or two, but they’re generally accurate.)
Modern Library’s 100 Best Books clocks in at 91% male for the board’s list, and 87% male for the readers’ list (seemingly because their readers have an objectivist streak, and filled the top 10 with Ayn Rand).
As anyone who even vaguely pays attention to comics news has surely heard, Marvel Comics is continuing to broaden the diversity of their universe by spotlighting female characters in their own solo titles–and by making key characters Thor and Captain America a white woman and a black man respectively. Two of the new female solo titles of 2014–Storm and Ms. Marvel–feature women of color. It’s also arguable that the recent Kieron Gillen/Jamie McKelvie run of Young Avengers gave us the first all-queer superhero team in comics history.
Whether you think these developments are part of an ongoing commitment to diversity, or that they don’t go far enough, it’s true that the comics universe is leaps and bounds ahead of the Marvel cinematic universe in terms of representation.
Marvel Studios have been teasing us for a while now with the idea of a Black Widow film that’s supposedly “in development,” and Captain America: The Winter Soldier had a good-guy team backing up Cap that consisted of Black Widow, Maria Hill, Falcon, and Nick Fury (two white women and two black men). But Cap was still in charge, and so far, despite much pleading from the fanbase, there has been no definitive news of a female-fronted film.
So if you’re listening, Marvel Studios, here are my five top picks for women to head up their own movies.
Last year, we introduced the DIY Science Zone to bring real-live science to con attendees young and old, and we need your help bringing it back at GeekGirlCon ‘14!
What is the DIY Science Zone?
The zone is a hands-on, weekend-long extravaganza that makes science accessible to everyone, whether or not they have their own lab goggles at home. It’s open to all ages, and all levels of experience–and all equipment is provided.
At GeekGirlCon ‘13, more than 350 people participated in experiments ranging from making their own neurons, to crime-scene fingerprinting, to dancing raisins.
This year we’ll mix it up a bit with invisible ink, DNA extraction, dice roll science, slime-making, Cartesian drivers, making light, laser rules, pocket solar systems, and many more!
@_adverbia – general biology, anatomy and physiology, and animal diversity
Nicole Gugliucci @NoisyAstronomer – astronomy, radio astronomy, specifically low frequency radio astronomy instrumentation, CosmoQuest, education
Stephen Granade @Sargent – physics, lasers, quantum mechanics, robot airplanes, and sensors, Dragon Con Science Track Manager
Melanie Mallon @melmall – science communication, CONvergence and Skepchickcon staffer
Raychelle Burks @DrRubidium – chemist and GeekGirlCon volunteer staff
And of course, YOU!
Where do the funds go?
[thermometer height=250 raised=6230 target=6000]
In order to make this drop-in science fun once again available to everyone, we need to raise $6000 to provide travel support for our science superstars to get to the con, as well as for equipment, materials, and prizes.
As if the knowledge that you’re donating to a great cause is not enough, our zone workers will be performing “Acts of Whimsy” at fundraising milestones:
At $500, Raychelle will run the CASA Donut Dash dressed as Wonder Woman, and Chemjobber will do a dramatic reading of a scientific paper.
At $1000, Bethany will run the Boston half-marathon dressed as Batwoman.
More Acts of Whimsy to be revealed as our fundraiser progresses!
Do your part to help make this happen by donating to GeekGirlCon via PayPal!
If you’ve been waiting to figure out where you’re staying and haven’t yet grabbed your passes for GeekGirlCon ‘14, now’s the time to do it; we’ve decided to extend our Early Bird deadline for one week UNTIL AUGUST 8, 2014. Last year’s con sold out before the doors opened, and we’re expecting to repeat that, so don’t risk missing your chance!
Getting ready for a con can be busy and challenging, what with planning which panels you want to attend, and all that last-minute costume making. That’s why we’re excited to announce that we’re partnering with two hotels in Downtown Seattle, very close to The Washington State Conference Center. Get your reservations sorted out, so you can concentrate on the important stuff, like making sure your steampunk bustle doesn’t get squashed in transit.
Use our online reservation links, or mention GeekGirlCon while booking over the phone, to get our special rates.
Sheraton Seattle Hotel
1400 6th Ave (corner of 6th Ave and Pike Street) (map)
Seattle, WA 98101
If there’s one thing nerds love, it’s stories: reading them, watching them, playing them, and for many of us, writing them. At GeekGirlCon ‘14, we have so many writing-related panels that you will need a Time-Turner to attend them all!
Have you ever wondered what geekdom would be like if it weren’t dominated by male heroic-journey sagas? B.J. “Lex” Priester of Fangirl Blog takes us on “The Heroine’s Journey: Moving Beyond Campbell’s Monomyth,” exploring how female-focused sci-fi and fantasy such as The Hunger Games, The Legend of Korra, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Disney’s Frozen differ from the established archetypes, and what that means for the stories they tell.
Kill your darlings! No, not literally; you must have been reading too many classic sci-fi short stories. Instead, join a professional editor and learn “Editing 101 for Writers,” skills that every writer needs whether they are writing for publication or for personal pleasure.
For the YA lover, we have two dedicated programming events. There’s the “Fierce Reads Young Adult Author Panel,” featuring four science fiction and fantasy authors talking about getting their work published. There’s also “Diversity in YA,” which will tackle the dearth of protagonists of colour, and LGBT protagonists (among others) in young adult fiction. For writers–and readers–who want to see more diversity, what are the current issues, and what can we do about it?
If your kid is an aspiring writer, or a natural storyteller, you might be interested in “Imaginary Worlds (for Kids).” Author and spoken word artist Danika Dinsmore leads an interactive story time for families, which is sure to inspire young imaginations!
As we’ve mentioned lately on the GeekGirlCon blog, fanfic is going mainstream. No longer the dirty little secret that you stay up indulging after everyone else has gone to bed, it’s now cool to share fanfic recommendations–gasp!–in public, to own up to being an author, even to get work published. But where does the law stand on this? Commercial publishers’ and authors’ stances range from, “I’m flattered when people play in my worlds,” through, “Do it, but I’ll avoid looking at it,” all the way to, “Cease and Desist.” Our panel “Fan Fiction: Sharing, Creating, and the Law” explores the nuances of copyright law for fanfic authors.
In this context, slash fic has its own specific problems. Now that it’s being acknowledged in the works that inspire it, how much of that acknowledgement is genuine recognition, and how much is exploitation, tokenism designed to hush the calls for diversity and meaningful representation? “21st Century Boys: Slash in the Mainstream” delves into these questions.
Finally, in “If You Can Write, You Can Make Games,” discover how easy it is to make interactive fiction using free, open-source programs you can find online. Take your existing writing skills and expand them into a whole new medium.
There’s something for every writer, storyteller, and daydreamer at GeekGirlCon ‘14–we’ll see you there!
Like a lot of kids, I loved the kind of unstructured make-believe games you’d play when all the toys got boring. Whether we were fairies with magical powers, or adventurers fighting minotaurs in the heart of a labyrinth, my friends and I loved telling impossible stories and being someone else for an afternoon.
I’ve tried many roleplaying games since, but nothing quite scratched that itch for collaborative creation–until I discovered Story Games, tabletop storytellng games with an emphasis on narrative and invention.
Whatever kind of story you want to tell, whatever scale you want to tell it on, however structured you want the game to be, there’s a story game for it.
If you like having the details of your setting defined, there are games like Durance, which explores power hierarchies on a prison planet, and guides the players through figuring out what particular shortages the prisoners suffer. If, on the other hand, you like a game that leaves the setting up to the players, pick something like Shooting the Moon, a game for three characters (one beloved, and two suitors vying for their favor). It has plenty of info on creating complicated relationships, but can take place on a pirate ship, in a law office, on an alien planet, in ancient Rome, or anywhere the players can imagine.
A few of these games need someone to step up and take the storyteller role, which is kind of like the Game Master in a traditional RPG like Dungeons & Dragons, but it usually has far less control over the direction and outcomes of the story. Rather than waiting for the storyteller or MC to fill in what happens next or what’s behind the locked door, players chime in with suggestions, making it a much more collaborative experience. A good example would be Apocalypse World (and all the games that grew from it, like Dungeon World and Monsterhearts). If you want your character to find the diary of their rival, just narrate that you find it. Of course, that doesn’t stop the person playing your rival from interrupting you reading it, or from saying you find out something you were better off not knowing. The Apocalypse World games also use dice to resolve some conflict situations, which can lead to some interesting unintended consequences.
Shock and Shooting the Moon don’t have MCs or storytellers, but there are very clear rules about taking turns in framing scenes, driving the scenes toward a conflict, and resolving that conflict.
At the other end of the scale, there’s Ribbon Drive, a meandering road trip set to a soundtrack. (And yes, players get to make the soundtrack!) Scenes tend to be longer, quieter, and more conversational. Scenes don’t have to contain conflict or obstacles at all, and when they do, it’s more likely to involve interpersonal tension than violence. One of my favorite things about Ribbon Drive is that the whole group collaborates on creating the setting and the characters based on the first two songs of the soundtrack, which gives you an excuse to sit your friends down and make them listen to songs you like. Or maybe that’s just me.
Most games I’ve mentioned so far are roleplaying games in the usual sense, where each player takes one character (or sometimes more) and speaks their words, narrates their actions, and advocates for their interests. While other players and MCs may introduce new events, facts about the environment, and so on, players get the final say on their individual characters.
Some games, however, are on a completely different scale. Microscope, described as a fractal game of epic histories, has the players explore vast swaths of invented history, only occasionally zooming in to play out scenes with individual characters. Even then, the characters don’t “belong” to any one player, and if they show up again in the story they might be played by someone entirely different. The typical scale of a game of Microscope might be the rise and fall of a galactic empire. This is a great introductory game for someone who feels nervous about roleplaying as specific characters.
Map-drawing game The Quiet Year is smaller in scope, covering one year in the life of a small post-apocalyptic community teetering on the edge of destruction, but rather than playing characters, players represent subgroups and factions engaged in a tug-of-war about how the community should prepare itself for the trouble to come. They don’t collaborate or make suggestions, they just show their contempt in the form of a token whenever another player takes an action they don’t like.
I hope this has given you some idea of the variety of different experiences you can have playing story games, and piqued your interest. If you want to try out the hobby among welcoming, experienced players, a group from Story Games Seattle camps out in the gaming area of most big local cons, including GeekGirlCon. They’ll help you figure out which game you might like, and then play a demo with you on the spot. There are also the annual gaming conventions Gamestorm (in Portland) and GoPlay Northwest (in Seattle), which both feature story games as well as more familiar roleplaying games.
If you can’t wait that long, get yourself to a meetup at Phoenix Comics and Games on Thursdays, or Wayward Coffeehouse every other Saturday. Phoenix’s next session is July 10 at 6:30 p.m., and Wayward’s next session is July 12 at 2 p.m.
When my fellow copy writers and I decided that I—as a non-sciency person*—would be the one to cover the DIY Science Zone at GeekGirlCon ‘13, I had no idea how much fun I would have. I figured I’d check out a few of the experiments, talk to a few scientists and a few participants, and be done in less than an hour.
Two hours later, I’d made liquids change color with the power of my breath, I created some Gak-like goo using common household items, and I got up close and personal with the DNA of some strawberries, to name just a few of the experiments I conducted with the guidance and encouragement from the friendly scientists on hand.
First up was the goo, with Raychelle Burks, aka Dr. Rubidium, aka the driving force behind the DIY Science Zone! Joining me for the sliminess were two awesome girls, friends Dana and Chloe. Their enthusiasm was contagious as we poured substances like Borax, food coloring, and glue into plastic baggies and squished and squished and squished. Eventually, the familiar substance began forming and we were able to take it out of the baggie and play with it. It had the sort of wet, squishy texture of Gak, but way less stinky. Dr. Burks did a great job explaining the science behind the substance’s properties, but I was having too much fun to take notes. Oops!
I said good-bye to my science buddies and moved on to making craters with Dr. Matthew Francis. I used rubber balls, marbles, and cake-sized tins full of cocoa powder to create mini-craters. When meteorites crash into the cocoa earth, and create craters, they leave behind traces that help us work backward and recreate geological history. But the coolest part was when he showed off a tiny piece of the famous meteor that crashed down in Russia last winter.
I couldn’t resist stopping at the table promising a CSI-like experience. Professional chemist Chemjobber led me through the process that uses the molecule ninhydrin to reveal fingerprints. Fingerprints are colorless, and ninhydrin (suspended in acetone) is colorless, but when you heat it up (we used a clothing iron), it speeds up a chemical reaction that results in the fingerprints turning a purplish color. I had an “a-ha” moment when he started explaining that ninhydrin’s molecular structure is similar to that of indigo dye: I’d never before thought about how molecular structure plays a big part in color!
Next up, Dr. Charity Lovitt (who teaches chemistry at Seattle University) helped me remember some of that long-forgotten high school science: acids and bases. Basically (she punned), red cabbage juice is a base and the CO2 in your breath (or club soda) acts as an acid. We started with a pale purple cabbage juice (science is stinky!), which I blew into using a straw. After a minute or so, the color changed noticeably to a darker purple. A few squirts of lemon juice —citric acid—rendered the liquid suddenly pink! Getting back to basics (okay, that pun was mine), we added baking soda to the mixture and ended up with a blue-green concoction. If memory serves, she said that what we were doing was adding and subtracting hydrogen ions, which resulted in all these color changes. Again: molecules and color in close relationship.
Moving on, I met Dr. Stephen Granade—a physicist by trade, he was helping out today in the field of genetics. Two delightful co-experimenters joined me this time: Moire and her mom Holly. We covered some basics of genetics (DNA makes up genes which make up chromosomes), and he used an analogy that captured my mind: if DNA are letters, then genes are a sentence. And alleles are the different kind of sentences you can have.
To illustrate, we tested one gene (out of over 20,000 that humans have) by placing small paper strips on our tongues for a few seconds. Immediately, Moire and Holly (related biologically) made noises of disgust and spit out the paper. They said it kind of tasted like earwax, bitter and icky. I was puzzled because I didn’t taste anything whatsoever. It turns out that the strips were loaded with phenylthiocarbaminde (PTC). Being able to taste PTC is a dominant trait, which explains why mother and daughter both picked up the taste. Because I could not taste it, that means both my birth father and my birth mother also could not taste it. As an adoptee, I tend to find things like genetics especially fascinating—I had no idea when I woke up this morning that I would be making a discovery about my biological family!
Finally, I landed at the strawberry table. Lali DeRosier, member of the rad Curly Hair Mafia and high school biology teacher, came all the way from Florida to show GeekGirlCon attendees how to extract DNA from strawberries. First, we smashed the strawberries inside a baggie to help the wall around the DNA come down. Next we added detergent to get rid of the membrane. Why detergent? Well, membranes are made of lipids. Lipids are oil and grease. And what does detergent do? Cuts through oil and grease! Bam! We then poured the extraction into a test tube and added alcohol. And suddenly, there was DNA. Cloudy, stringy DNA, visible to the naked eye. We were able to pull strands of it out of the test tube using a small stick. I was totally fascinated by this process, and DeRosier was an excellent teacher, encouraging my tablemates and I to think about what we already knew and apply it to what we were doing.
I can honestly say that this was the unexpected highlight of my first GeekGirlCon, and I hope it becomes a regular fixture for years to come. More than one adult I talked to said that they wished something like this had existed when they were younger but were so glad to have it now to encourage kids’ (especially girls) interest in science. The opportunity to get hands-on and to meet actual scientists of all genders and ethnicities and disciplines was more than just educational—it was inspiring and heartwarming.
All the scientists were so friendly and down-to-earth; any fears I had about being intimidated by the science were completely quelled as we chatted. They all talked about the importance of introducing folks to science, and, as Dr. Granade said, taking science down off the pedestal and making it accessible to everyone. If the consistently packed DIY Science Zone and the laughs and looks of wonder of the participants of all ages are any indication, they succeeded and then some. They’ll still be going strong until mid-afternoon on Sunday, the last day of GeekGirlCon, so while you’re checking out all the merch options on Level 3, stop in at the Zone!
*Please note that any scientific errors here are my own and feel free to correct me in the comments if needed!
GeekGirlCon strives to provide a safe and welcoming place where everyone is comfortable, respected, and can be themselves. All attendees are expected to treat other attendees, contributors, performers, staff, and the general public with respect. Therefore, physically or verbally harassing behavior is not tolerated.
Creating a welcoming, safe environment is a top priority for us here at GeekGirlCon. Of course, there’s no such thing as 100% absolutely-without-a-doubt safety, but we do our best to make our convention as safe as possible. We expect all attendees (including staff, agents, exhibitors and other contributors) to follow our code of conduct. Below is a bit of an overview of our expectations and our responsibilities.
No Means No
If someone says “no,” “stop,” “go away,” or anything similar, they really do mean it. This is Respect 101 (closely related to Consent 101): when someone has a boundary, you respect it. Sometimes people have a hard time saying the words, so paying attention to body language is important, too. We all have different personalities and come from different cultural backgrounds around touch and language, but backing away, averting eyes, and stiffening body posture are generally signs that someone is feeling uncomfortable and possibly threatened.
Use your common sense, pay attention to words and body language, and respect your fellow attendees!
Attire Is Not Consent
There’s a lot of cosplay at GeekGirlCon, and it’s fantastic! But just because someone is dressed in a chain-mail bikini does not mean they want your touch or your lascivious comments. Even if you’re just interested in how something was made or want to feel the texture of something, ask first!
I sometimes have to remember this one myself: as a knitter, I’ll see a sweater or scarf on someone that I’m intrigued by, and my hand will thoughtlessly reach for the texture. By now, though, I’ve trained myself pretty well to stop and say, “Oh hi, I’m a knitter and I love your scarf! May I look at it more closely or touch it?”
The same idea applies to cosplay, whether it’s that chain-mail bikini, some fuzzy satyr leg coverings, or a shiny Cyberman mask: ask before touching or even ogling.
Offensive Behavior
Racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, or any other kind of hate speech or imagery is just. not. tolerated. Part of how we create a welcoming, safer-feeling event is with our words.
That said, sometimes you just don’t know that something you’ve said is offensive until somebody lets you know. If someone tells you that you’ve said something offensive, try to take a breath and sit with it before reacting. And generally, the best reaction is to just say “I’m sorry, thank you for telling me.”
GeekGirlCon ’12 Agents; this year’s Agents will be wearing blue shirts.
How to Get Help
If you feel threatened or harassed and want help (or if you’re concerned about something), find an Agent. We’ll be wearing dark blue shirts with yellow writing on the back that says “AGENT” in large, friendly letters. We’ll help you out and if needed, get one of our Reaction Team volunteers there to assist.
Our Reaction Team folks are there to help with any sort of tough incident or crisis; they’re the ones with the level heads, calm demeanors, and quick thinking to work with you to find solutions.
Photos and Video
If you don’t want to be captured on film, make sure to ask for one of our bright yellow “please, no pictures” stickers, and make sure to wear it in a clear, visible place—preferably somewhere on your chest so that our photographers and videographers know to steer clear when they see you. This will also help us after GeekGirlCon ‘13 is over: if we see someone wearing the sticker in a picture, we’ll try to ensure that we crop them out or not use that photo at all. And of course, you can always contact us to request that an image be removed.
And when you’re documenting your own GeekGirlCon adventures, try to be thoughtful about who else might be in the frame!
These are some of the ways we’re creating a safer community. Please let us know (in the comments below, via email, or in person) if you have any other ideas or concerns—we want you to feel safe so you can get down to the serious business of having a good time!
