GGB Twin Cities: WisCon Brunch

May kicked off a summer of awesome brunches for GGB TC. Our first brunch was a relaxed affair at Trotter’s Cafe. We welcomed a few new members (lots of transplants!) and talked about geeky faves.

Our second May brunch took place in Madison, Wisconsin. Why Madison? Because every Memorial Day weekend Madison is the location of WisCon, a feminist science fiction and fantasy convention. Here’s the official description:

“WisCon is a 1,000-member science fiction convention with a feminist/social justice focus.  Every year we celebrate, dissect, and transform speculative literature, television, film, comics, and games.  We specifically aim to foster conversations about feminism(s), gender, race, disability, and class.”

A bunch of us carpooled from Minnesota and spent the weekend attending panels on Sex and Sexuality in Fanfiction, Myth and Fairytale, Metaphorical Minorities, and Emotional Labor, to name a few. In the evenings we went to parties hosted by con organizers and attendees. (Panels went as late as 11:45 and started as early as 8:30). My personal favorite part of WisCon is the Guest of Honor speeches. We picked up our desserts and drinks and sat down to listen to Justine Larbalestier, Sofia Samatar and Nalo Hopkinson talk  (respectively) about the importance of YA lit, allowing art to flourish under constraints, and the true goals of social justice activism. Because of the full schedule (several brunchettes, including myself, ran a vendor table where we sold our self-published novels) we had an “evening brunch” Saturday night at Short Stack, which serves breakfast all day. There we talked about everything we’d done so far, or seen, or learned from panels.

Most of our attendees were women who’d come for the con, but we had one new member and one Wisconsinite join us as well.

This trip was a great example of what Geek Girl Brunch can be! Most of us met through GGB and we were able to plan an awesome trip together, expand our horizons, and split the expenses :D!