Why WisCon? A Quest: Utopia Found!

I learned about WisCon, the feminist science fiction convention, while writing a paper on feminist literary utopias for my MFA in creative writing. I knew, one day, I would have to go. WisCon 35 was my year.

I was dubious though, "Wisconsin?"

It seemed far to go from Seattle.

And, "Utopia?"

Yes, quite a bit actually, as it turned out.

But I took a long route to WisCon. In high school I was reading Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein and Ray Bradbury. Asimov, especially, amazed me. I had a job shelving books at the Yakima Public Library and, with godlike omnipresence, Asimov had books in every section — science fiction, non-fiction, mystery, poetry!

My mother modeled some feminist ideals and my dad gave me Clarissa Pinkola Estes' Women Who Run With the Wolves, but my brother provided my first formal introduction to feminism. He brought me Ms. Magazine, "Have you read this?"

Then, sometime in college, perhaps after my in Women in Politics class, it occurred to me that the writers I was reading, admiring, and idolizing were men — all men. To rectify this, I sought out female names in science fiction on the library shelves and found Sherri S. Tepper's The Gate to Women's Country. By the end of college, my favorite writers — the ones I wanted to be like — were now women: Margaret Atwood and Octavia Butler.

When I began writing in earnest, I wanted particularly to write science fiction. I began by researching hard science: quantum physics and neuroscience. I bristled to hear my work called fantasy. I loved the power of science fiction to imagine and shape the future and I wanted to claim that power for my own. At the same time, I felt like my reasons for writing sf were different. I wanted to channel its predictive power to envision and thereby, create, wonderful futures. Meanwhile, other sf writers I met were writing dystopias in post-apocalyptic worlds. Also, they were men. I felt frustrated — If we only imagine the worst, possible futures; that's all we're going to get! — and alone. 

Say what you will about MFA programs, mine taught me how challenging and enriching deeply reading and studying fiction can be — as opposed to reading books like bon-bons or turning to non-fiction exclusively for stimulation — and it got me reading what was, for me, the right stuff.

In my first semester, writer Carol Guess introduced me to works by contemporary authors including Rebecca Brown (The Dogs, The Terrible Girls) and Nicola Griffith (Ammonite, Slow River). They also lived nearby. I would learn that I could be in awe of the works, but I could also meet the creators. They didn't have to exist only as unattainable, mythic beings or author gods. When Octavia Butler died, I learned she had been a regular at the bookstore where my writing group met. It would have been fabulous to have seen her at a reading or event, and could have been easy to do.

At the beginning of my second semester, I read my adviser Victoria Nelson's work of literary criticism, The Secret Life of Puppets, and understood more about why I was drawn to science fiction. I read Italo Calvino, Bruno Schulz, Jorge Luis Borges, Leonora Carrington, and Angela Carter and fell in love with imaginative, surrealist fiction.

I began work on a critical paper and found that there were many writers imagining and writing about positive futures in a way similar to my ideal. In fact, there was a long tradition of utopian literature. And women were writing it.

I wrote about Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Herland (1915), Joanna Russ', The Female Man (1975), and Nicola Griffith's Ammonite (1992). I learned about the Tiptree Award, Alice Sheldon, bake sales, and chocolate prizes. Inspired, I concluded my paper with "A Four Part Treatise on the Reinvigoration of the Utopian Tradition."

Not only was I not alone as a writer, I was part of a conversation — and I could see it live at WisCon.

What makes a utopia feminist? Instead of a technological solution, there's a humanitarian intervention, a biological, social or environmental change that clears the way for transformation and human transcendence. It's not about better stuff; it's about better us. It's the flip side of a robot or zombie apocalypse. When I say utopia, I'm not talking about a non-existent no place. I mean the ideal place, a well planned, thought out, wise example of social planning.

This is what I found at WisCon beginning with that first reading of Joanna Russ' "When It Changed" at a Room of Her Own Books. Often, I was happy just to see and hear some of the women  — including Pat Murphy, Karen Joy Fowler, and Suzy McKee Charnas — I had read and read so much about. Perfect for me, especially, were the readings: by Broad Universe members, Aqueduct Press writers, and by Karen Joy Fowler, Mary Doria Russell (still so in love with her characters in Doc), Hiromi Goto and Alan John DeNiro. There's something magical about hearing authors read from their works. It's illuminating how writers can bring people together with words. We open our ears when we want to hear a good story. Pamela K. Taylor, who writes On Faith for Newsweek-Washington Post, read part of her "50 Fatwas for the Virtuous Vampire" (Nov. 2010, Apex Magazine) and then spoke on the "Where are Your Gods?" panel. Geoff Ryman gave a stunning reading of "K is for Kosovo (or, Massimo’s Career)," which told of rape as a war tactic, from Paradise Tales.

I loved seeing and hearing women honoring each other's work: Mary Doria Russell lauded Karen Joy Fowler's reading of her novel in progress, "Finish that book!"; the celebrations of Carol Emshwiller's 90th birthday included a reading of her works during which the author herself kept saying, "I'm sure I'm having more fun than any of you!"; Seanan McGuire sang “Wicked Girls Saving Ourselves” and S.J. Tucker and Stealthcello performed at the launch party for Catherynne Valente's The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland In A Ship Of Her Own Making, party-goers sang "Nisi is our queen" to fete WisCon35's Guest of Honor Nisi Shawl.

WisCon's Guest of Honor Speech and Tiptree Award Ceremony included a remembrance of Joanna Russ at which a tearful Eileen Gunn reminded the audience, in Russ' honor, to encourage future writers. There was also celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Tiptree Award (Pat Murphy initiated the award in her Guest of Honor speech in 1991) and its growing effect. The Tiptree Motherboard has received the 2011 Thomas D. Clareson Award for Distinguished Service from the Science Fiction Research Association, which recognizes outstanding service activities in promotion of SF and leadership in the field. Pat Murphy and Karen Joy Fowler will accept the award in July at the SFRA’s annual conference in Lublin, Poland.

The 2011 Tiptree Award winning book Baba Yaga Laid an Egg presents the mother, maiden, crone archetypes in an unusually structured three-part story — and seems a fabulous representative of an award that points the reader to smart, creatively-free, expressive books with something to say. I now want to reread Leonora Carrington's The Hearing Trumpet, another book that features a feisty crone and offers a fresh view of aging women interwoven with myth.

Back from WisCon, I have made many more additions to my to-read list — bubbling to the top are The Secret Feminist Cabal by Helen Merrick, The Mount and Carmen Dog by Carol Emswhiller, and The Orphan's Tales: In The Night Garden by Catherynne Valente. I'd like to take Margaret McBride's challenge to read more Tiptree Award winners and definitely will take the list of winners to my local library so that someone can stumble across more great books or find what they are seeking. I'm alone again, in my writing my room, but there's a conversation sparkling out there, around us. It's a big party, actually, and not so far away.

An aside: I could have had more faith in the feminists. Far from being stranded in a bleak hotel in the middle of farmland, WisCon at the Concourse was set in between the state capitol and the University of Wisconsin on an isthmus of land between Lake Mendota and Lake Monona. On a stroll down State Street, I found Tibetan food (vegan and gluten free!), gourmet popcorn, and a modern art museum. On Saturday, a farmer's market encircled the capitol. Landscape architect John Nolen (1869-1937), a pioneer in the development of professional city planning, helped design the city. All rather utopian, really.