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BROAD UNIVERSE celebrates women's writing and art within science fiction, fantasy, and horror. The group grew out of a panel discussion at Wiscon 2000 entitled World Domination 101. There, panelists discussed Women Writing the West and Sisters in Crime and the many things they do for their members -- newsletters, book catalogs, listservs, chat rooms, awards, and conventions. At the time, women writers in our genre had an award (Tiptree) and a convention (Wiscon), but nothing outside of those two efforts to help promote their work year-round.
We wanted to change that. We wanted to do exactly what these groups were doing, only differently. Instead of paper catalogs and newsletters, we started our group on the web. Our website (www.broaduniverse.org) was launched four months after Wiscon, and has grown steadily to the point where it now boasts a newsletter, book catalog, listserv, FAQ, statistics page, and links to related activities.
The Carl Brandon Society (www.carlbrandon.org) is dedicated to addressing the representation of people of color in the fantastical genres such as science fiction, fantasy, and horror. We aim to foster dialogue about issues of race, ethnicity, and culture; raise awareness both inside and outside the fantastical fiction communities; promote inclusively in publication and production; and celebrate the accomplishments of people of color in science fiction, fantasy, and horror.
The Society was founded at the 1999 WisCon fiction convention in Madison, Wisconsin, when WisCon responded to a request from people of color in the community by scheduling more programming items that addressed race and by having a focus group where people of color could meet and formulate strategies for increasing the awareness and representation of people of color in the genres and in the community. This request was incited by Samuel R. Delany's "Racism and Science Fiction" article, published in the August 1998 New York Review of Science Fiction (volume 10, issue 12). This essay was recently republished in the anthology Dark Matter, which is available at most bookstores.
Conbust is a sci-fi, fantasy, anime convention run by Smithies (Smith College women). This three-day event is meant to allow sci-fi fans and the like the chance to enjoy their interests together. Such events as panels, workshops, and movies are held to strengthen the community, particularly that which is found right on campus.
This sci-fi convention, though it shares common features of other cons, is a primarily focused on the female sci-fi community (surprised?) This theme of female sci-fi fans is demonstrated through our woman guest speakers, panels that discuss this community and the challenges it faces, as well as having a predominantly female attendance (which is very rare in the convention world)
The Interstitial Arts Foundation is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the celebration, study, and promotion of Interstitial Art — and to the support of artists who work between or across genres and traditions. Our goals are to foster connections between interstitial artists in a wide variety of fields and to support the efforts of individuals and organizations (small presses, events venues, etc.) that bring various forms of interstitial art before the general public.
The mission of the Interstitial Arts Foundation is to give all border-crossing artists and art scholars a forum and a focus for their efforts. Rather than creating a new genre with new borders, we support the free movement of artists across the borders of their choice. We support an ongoing conversation among artists, academics, critics, and the general public in which art can be spoken of as a continuum rather than as a series of hermetically sealed genres. We support the development of a new vocabulary with which to view and critique border–crossing works. And we celebrate the large community of interstitial artists working in North America and around the world.
In February of 1991 at WisCon, award-winning SF author Pat Murphy announced the creation of the James Tiptree, Jr. Award, an annual literary prize for science fiction or fantasy that expands or explores our understanding of gender. Pat created the award in collaboration with author Karen Joy Fowler. The aim of the award is not to look for work that falls into some narrow definition of political correctness, but rather to seek out work that is thought-provoking, imaginative, and perhaps even infuriating. The Tiptree Award is intended to reward those women and men who are bold enough to contemplate shifts and changes in gender roles, a fundamental aspect of any society.
The award is named for Alice B. Sheldon, who wrote under the pseudonym James Tiptree, Jr. By her impulsive choice of a masculine pen name, Sheldon helped break down the imaginary barrier between "women's writing" and "men's writing." Her fine stories were eagerly accepted by publishers and won many awards in the field. Many years later, after she had written some other work under the female pen name of Raccoona Sheldon, it was discovered that she was female. The discovery led to a great deal of discussion of what aspects of writing, if any, are essentially gendered. The name "Tiptree" was selected to illustrate the complex role of gender in writing and reading.
Wiscon enjoys a close relationship with the James Tiptree, Jr. Literary Award Council. Wiscon hosts the annual Tiptree Auction and Tiptree Bakesale fundraisers, and is often the site of the Tiptree award ceremony.