WisCon is a science fiction convention that analyzes, educates, promotes, and squees over all things speculative storytelling with a special focus on feminism and social justice. It has been recommended to me multiple times as a fantastic online convention for SFFH, but this is the first year it has worked out for me to be able to attend. I unfortunately had a combination injury and pain flare the whole weekend, so I was not able to attend/take notes on as much as I wanted. But what I did participate in was all fantastic! I learned so much, and I cannot wait to apply it to my own work.
Without further ado—the WisCon 48 Round Up!
*Event descriptions taken from the WisCon public schedule of events.
Guests of Honor Readings and Q&A
Speakers: Premee Mohamed, Darcie Little Badger
Description: The traditional WisCon kickoff event! Our GoH, Darcie Little Badger and Premee Mohamed, read from their work and answer audience questions.
Key Takeaways:
Premee Mohamed read her short story “Everyone Keeps Saying Probably.”
Favorite quotes:
“I remember how things feel; she remembers how things were.”
“Where hope lives is uncertainty.”
“We never throw ourselves into battle for a sure thing.”
Gentleness is a gift given. When everything is on fire, being cruel to yourself or others doesn’t help.
Darcie Little Badger read from her upcoming comic/novel fusion book Children of Owl.
I am not saying a favorite quote because the book is not out yet, and I am not sure that is allowed, but trust that Little Badger is a top tier writer, and I could fill an entire page with fabulous quotes from the short section she read.
Little Badger made a deliberate choice to use elegant and deep descriptions to highlight the characters’ personalities, arcs, and lessons they need to and will learn over the course of the narrative.
The fusion of comic panels and traditional prose came about from Little Badger wanting the artist to be fairly compensated for their workload.
Spiritual Diversity in Speculative Fiction
Moderator: Mia V. Moss
Speakers: Benjamin Rosenbaum, Cameron Reed, Iona Datt Sharma
Description: Spirituality is a complex and sensitive aspect of world and character building. What are some possible ways to handle religion in your fictional worlds? How might characters' beliefs vary from the dominant ones? How can including spirituality and religion enrich your world and characters?
Key Takeaways:
Religion doesn’t have to involve gods/supernatural elements.
religion exists on a spectrum of beliefs and understandings of the world and people’s place in it.
“Religion is like sex.” —Sharma
at some point you encounter it and form an opinion on whether/how you want to engage in it.
“Religion is a genealogy of ideas.”—Rosenbaum
it changes over time.
SF is in a post-post religion movement right now.
Body Horror: The Body as a Worldbuiling Canvas
Instructor: Ayida Shonibar
Description: A sub-genre of horror, body horror repulses and disturbs readers by displaying transgressions of the human form. Traditionally, this has often represented a source of conflict, but increasingly diverse narratives also depict the liberatory potential of such bodily transformations.
Key Takeaways:
Body horror is about transgressions of the human form.
the limitations and capacities of the human body, both for conflict and for liberation
The body is in conversation with the worldbuilding at all times.
Control, and the lack thereof, is a huge element in body horror.
Who owns the body?
Works studied/discussed:
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
Womb City by Tlotlo Tsamaase
“Safe Face” by Ash Huang
“Ecdysis” by Samir Sirk Morató
“Vulture bees transfigure the man I tried to be” by Rick Hollan
Dystopian Visions One Inch From Reality
Moderator: A.J. Van Belle
Speakers: Valentin D. Ivanov, Vanessa Jae, J. A. Bowler, Premee Mohamed
Description: Many near-future dystopias in literature now trot out familiar tropes that feel uncomfortably close to our lived reality. How do writers decide what to fictionalize, what to keep literal, and how far to extrapolate? Some writers, from Harlan Ellison to Octavia Butler, have deliberately "shocked" readers in order to wake them up - how do we balance that tradition with the need not to re-traumatize readers who already live with systemic violence, and what does responsible outrage on the page look like now?
Key Takeaways:
Dystopias do not have to be violent or have violence on the page.
Raw honesty and openness can be just as shocking.
hidden and quiet horror—the dystopia you don’t know you’re living in.
Writing dystopias is writing about current fears.
Many popular dystopic stories are about the western world’s definition of dystopia and actually reflect the current lived reality of other areas of the world.
What does dystopia mean to a non-western culture?
People read dystopias for inspiration on how to survive/destroy the dystopia.
How are we utilizing our characters and settings to give the reader space to pick up the narrative for themselves in the real world?
Your character doesn’t know everything. Those gaps in knowledge are just as effective as story lore for reader engagement.
Poetry can be a wonderful medium to help a reader understand a dystopia through metaphor and lyrical language.
“A Local TV Weatherman Describes the Apocalypse” by Marcus Whalbring.
Guests of Honor Panel: Climate Change & Climate Fiction
Moderator: Sumana Harihareswara
Speakers: Darcie Little Badger, Premee Mohamed
Description: Climate change presents humanity with so many different potential challenges, it's no surprise that fictional imaginings of its effects are already so copious. Both our Guests of Honor, Premee Mohamed and Darcie Little Badger, have used their own scientific backgrounds to highlight climate change in their stories. In this panel they'll discuss their perspectives on climate change as scientists and as writers.
Key Takeaways:
Location is very important when writing about climate change.
Climate change/science is an umbrella field that affects so many other layers of life.
As climate change worsens, all these other things do as well, and priorities shift on what is/is not important to solve/fund/research right now.
The fantasy of agency.
“We’re not going to change the world; the world is going to change us.”
Unintended, unknowable consequences play heavily into climate fiction narrative.
At this point, you cannot realistically write a story set in the future on earth without addressing climate change, specifically the negative fall out of its devastation.
Using Clothing and Food in Worldbuilding
Instructor: Krista D. Ball
Description: A workshop focusing on food, fashion, and shopping and the many layers of each as they affect a society as a whole and the individual. The workshop included historical facts and contexts for many things we as authors take for granted about food and fashion as well as tips and tricks to convey deep worldbuillding with the inclusion of food/fashion elements.*
Key Takeaways:
Hyper-focusing on details can be polarizing with readers, however this should not discourage anyone from doing so if you want to.
Germ Theory—how are eating utensils being used, shared, and cleaned?
and the consequences therein
Stationary vs. nomadic cultures will change the food being made.
Chimneys are the best!
Food insecurity, discrimination, rank, and rules all play a role in how characters engage with their food.
Historically, clothes were made to fit bodies.
Now, we have to make our bodies fit clothes. 😒
Corset rant!
Corsets weren’t always required or worn. They were usually gown specific to change how the dress/body looked.
Corsets didn’t touch skin. They were hard to wash so no one wanted them to get sweaty.
Done right, corsets aren’t uncomfortable.
Men wore corsets, too!
*Description was written by me since there wasn’t one on the WisCon website.
How to Write a Fight Scene
Moderator: Rita Chang-Eppig
Speakers: Madeleine E. Robins, Rita Briar, Jamie Riedesel
Description: Many of us find fight scenes particularly challenging to write, especially if we've never done any fighting or martial arts ourselves. What can you do to make your fight scenes stand out and hold your readers' attention? How do you keep the physical action plausible? What is the line between over-detailed description and a confusing lack of detail? How much should you focus on mental strategy vs. physical action?
Key Takeaways:
Writing a fight scene is very similar to describing being in a car crash.
Everything is moving very fast, but there are moments of slowed down observation.
It is incredibly hard to fight for a long time.
90 seconds is a plenty long fight.
If longer, build in beats of rest for your characters to recover.
Don’t forget to write the reactions and consequences before, during, and after a fight.
Things that will impact a fight: physics, distance, kinetics, climate, environment, clothing, weaponry, fighting styles, character personalities, melee vs. one-on-one, time period, history, consequences, injury management, etc.
Throw the chicken!
Retold Tales
Moderator: Nancy Jane Moore
Speakers: Marley Rose-Teter, Millie Abecassis, S. M. Hallow, Premee Mohamed
Description: When tales are retold, the retelling casts a new light on the original, and on the people doing the telling. From Angela Carter to Malinda Lo to Ursula Vernon, how have fairytale retellings changed over time? What keeps bringing us back to them? And what happens to their moral messages when they shift into new historical, cultural, and identity frameworks?
Key Takeaways:
A retelling should be in conversation with the original piece.
Retellings are often a way to diversify and take back stories that excluded, misrepresented, or otherwise neglected the oppressed.
A villain origin story is how the character became a villain, not how they became a hero.
understanding why a villain does what they do doesn’t make them any less villainous.
Check yourself before retelling myth or folktale outside of your own cultural background/experience.
Retellings should be handled with respect, empathy, and intelligence.
Does it need to be you writing that story?
Cultural appreciation vs. appropriation.
Are you educated/experienced enough to properly appreciate?
Write the story the way you can tell it; don’t try to write from another’s perspective.
A lot of us are alienated from our own cultural background thanks to assimilation pressure, and using retellings to explore our heritage is valid, but should still be handled with care.
Nested Storytelling
Moderator: Susan Ramirez
Speakers: Marley Rose-Teter, Reina Hardy, Darcie Little Badger, Erin Brown
Description: Darcie Little Badger's books are shining examples of Ursula Le Guin's "Carrier Bag" theory of storytelling - all her characters are themselves storytellers who tell stories to help pass the time, to get to know each other better, to share knowledge, or just because they can't resist an opportunity to talk about their special interest. Stories-in-stories can be sources of world-building information, and they're useful for developing the plot and characters. Let's talk about how Little Badger and other writers use them!
Key Takeaways:
Storytelling is magic, ritual, history, tradition, and more.
Characters need to get something out of the act of storytelling, not just the reader.
Story teller and story listener are equally important.
Pitfalls of stories within stories:
the story being just exposition.
letting your authorial voice override the character’s voice.
being preachy, especially with morality based stories.
We all tell stories about ourselves, each other, and the world within our life story.
imaginative play, gossip, social media, internal narration, etc.
Guests of Honor Speeches & Otherwise Presentation
Moderators: Tahlia Day, Sumana Harihareswara, Rita Briar, Kerry
Speakers: Darcie Little Badger, Premee Mohamed
Description: WisCon's traditional Sunday night event. Speeches by our guests of honor, followed by presentation of the Otherwise Awards and a speech from the con chairs.
Key Takeaways:
Hope inspires action; action brings change.
Prion diseases are terrifyingly fascinating.
We all need to be prions for hope and art.
Art begins with our values: what we believe is worthwhile being brought into the world, what opposes our values, and how we defend those values.
Congratulations to Silvia Park for their novel Luminous winning the 2025 Otherwise Award!!!
Liminal Spaces in Speculative Fiction
Moderator: Wendy Van Camp
Speakers: Nicole Glover, Elis Montgomery, Kalin M. Nenov
Description: Mythic criticism has long focused on the significance of liminal spaces - those borders between worlds and realities where anything can happen. What do such spaces mean when we move beyond myth and into the proliferating spaces of fantasy, science fiction multiverses, or the non-natural borders of urban fantasy?
Key Takeaways:
Liminal spaces thrive with omission and ambiguity.
These “holes” in the story create an interactive element for the reader to then engage, be challenged, and fill in/wrestle with the empty spaces.
Ambiguity works best when readers have something concrete elsewhere to ground them.
ex: if the setting is ambiguous, then pin down the understanding of the characters.
The digital age has offered a new liminal space for stories.
Short fiction/poetry naturally have liminality thanks to the limited word space and are great avenues to explore.
Liminality isn’t always a physical thing.
emotional liminality, periods of great change, transitions, times of uncertainty.
stories that reflect and address feelings/experiences/internal worlds that can’t be pinned down in reality.
WisCon is overflowing with excellent content, amazing people, and inspiring work. It is officially on my radar for a con I’d like to attend every year.
I encourage everyone interested to check out WisCon and the work they do. They are an excellent community, and I am delighted I was able to take part in it this year.
Hello!
I’m Catherine Tavares, speculative fiction author. My work has appeared on the Nebula Reading List, Reactor’s Must Reads, and Locus Online, and my short story “Ghosts of Summer” won the 2025 Apex Reader’s Choice Award for Best Original Fiction. You can find my stories in magazines such as The Dark, Nature Futures, Flash Point SF, Heartlines, and more. Learn more about me and stay up to date on my work by visiting my website and subscribing to this newsletter.
