Last year was the return of Fourth Street Fantasy Convention here in Minneapolis. It was a different kind of very good con. Minicon is book-focused, but it also has some programming on gaming, media fandoms, etc. Fourth Street is All Fiction, All The Time. It's single-tracked, so everybody at the con is chewing over more or less the same arguments, and it's small enough that everybody gets to talk to everybody--and cool enough that the everybodys you get to talk to have interesting things to say, whether they're pro or fan, writer or editor or critic or artist or what. Musician. Game designer. Jewelry-maker. Whatever.
I recommend both conventions very highly. People who are not familiar with cons and are feeling shy can track me down on either con; I tend to be on programming, and I know a ton of people and am happy to introduce folks around, as long as they're congenial and polite.
Panels help. But mostly I attend cons for the conversation. If it's a good con, panels fuel the conversation in off-panel times.
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Last year was the return of Fourth Street Fantasy Convention here in Minneapolis. It was a different kind of very good con. Minicon is book-focused, but it also has some programming on gaming, media fandoms, etc. Fourth Street is All Fiction, All The Time. It's single-tracked, so everybody at the con is chewing over more or less the same arguments, and it's small enough that everybody gets to talk to everybody--and cool enough that the everybodys you get to talk to have interesting things to say, whether they're pro or fan, writer or editor or critic or artist or what. Musician. Game designer. Jewelry-maker. Whatever.
I recommend both conventions very highly. People who are not familiar with cons and are feeling shy can track me down on either con; I tend to be on programming, and I know a ton of people and am happy to introduce folks around, as long as they're congenial and polite.
Panels help. But mostly I attend cons for the conversation. If it's a good con, panels fuel the conversation in off-panel times.