It’s taken me a few days to process the Sirens Conference. For those that don’t know, Sirens is a small conference focused entirely on women (and non-binary folk and queer culture) in fantasy and science fiction. Basically, it’s a sanctuary for the marginalized in this genre. The attendance is overwhelmingly female/non-binary — I think I counted three or four dudes there, and they were, awesomely, there to listen and learn and connect, not to mansplain or talk over or patronize. This year’s theme was Love and Relationships. I had wanted to attend last year but couldn’t make it, and I was delighted to be able to this year. It was an absolutely amazing experience, start to finish.
The whole conference is such a celebration. Of women, of magic, of writing, of fantasy. The conversations were scintillating. From a roundtable on how our anxieties can either cripple or motivate us to a workshop on herbal magic to a panel on the role of love in fantasy novels to a keynote on imaginary friends and how writers never really outgrow them, every session I attended was just delightful and led to great discussion. Over the coming weeks, I expect I’ll be churning out quite a few posts based on those conversations. The chance to discuss writing-related matters that are so very important to me with others who are there, in the trenches, wrestling with their manuscripts and figuring out how to promote themselves and how to engage in the world’s wider conversations, was just so valuable. It’s an opportunity I rarely get outside the virtual confines of Twitter.
There was also a delightful yet natural emphasis on diversity, particularly racial, sexual, gender, and neurodivergent. I’ve been consciously trying to expand my reading along these lines, and I came home armed with a reading list that should certainly see me through 2017! Someone on the conference hashtag noted that a panel discussion about representations of love did not include a single straight white person on it. Every panel I attended was itself diverse, not because it was about diversity, but because the conference promotes the natural diversity of our world.
What made it so special, though? Was the feeling of community. It took me no time at all to feel right at home. Everyone I encountered was eager to say hello. At the opening reception, I got waved over to join a table simply because “You looked like the new kid in the cafeteria” — but by the next afternoon, I immediately had a new friend to sit with in any room I entered. These women are incredible: brilliant, funny, warm, snarky, sharp, and so talented. And I encountered no snobbery or stratification based on publication status — readers and bloggers entered conversations with fanficcers, casual writers, aspiring authors, and published authors alike. Everyone’s opinion got to be a thread in a gorgeous tapestry.
Best of all, I felt seen and heard. The whole experience was so wonderfully validating. Everyone there wanted to share with each other — share stories, share experience, share a plate of chips and salsa, share in a rousing rendition of Hamilton‘s “The Battle of Yorktown” at the end of the Ball of Enchantment. For a few days, I could be utterly myself, without artifice, and that was not only accepted, but cheered. It was a feeling I didn’t know had been missing until it was suddenly there.
I am so, so delighted that I can now consider myself a Siren. What a brilliant group to have connected with. I’ve got a reading list a mile long, and half of it consists of books and short stories written by new friends. And next year, I sure hope my fellow Sirens will be able to see A Flame Arises on this shelf:
Cass Morris -- Author 