Join myself and some other Dragon Con-loving friends as we talk all things Dragon Con – general info, insider tips, what our plans are for Dragon Con 2018, and more! Oh, and there is lots of drinking involved as we do so.
Click below to watch in webcast form!
This fan-run panel at Dragon Con 2017 focused on History Channel’s Vikings – both a brief recap of past seasons and a lengthy discussion about the more recent events of season 4. And now that part of season 5 has already aired, you can see how right – or wrong – we were about what was to come!
First things first, the second annual Drinkin’ Con webcast is scheduled for Saturday August 18th at 5 PM Eastern! I definitely suggest following the Facebook event I created for it to get updates and so that you can post any thoughts or questions you might have between now and the 18th. Like last year, this webcast will feature news and tips as well as Dragon Con 2018 prep discussion.
Now, barring any schedule changes on the part of the three tracks I’m working with, my Dragon Con 2018 panels – and events! – are pretty much set in stone:
Friday 8/31
@ 1 PM Author Reading: Excerpts from The Way of Reckoning, How to Start Living in the Zombie Apocalypse, and She’s Kinda Hot, But Then She Talks: Essays & Insight from a ‘Fake Geek Girl’ (Hyatt Vinings)
@ 2:30 PM Join the Resistance: Dystopias of Change (Apocalypse Rising (Westin Chastain F-G)
@ 4 PM Sons of the Dragon: A Song of Ice and Fire Novella (Marriott L401-403)
Saturday 9/1
@ 4 PM Friend Zone: The Importance of Platonic Relationships in an Apocalypse (Westin Chastain H)
@ 5:30 PM There Must Always be a Stark at Dragon Con (Marriott L401-403)
@ 10 PM The North Remembers How to Party: A Game of Thrones-Themed Bash (Hilton Grand East Ballroom)
Sunday 9/2
@ 2:30 PM Religion in High Fantasy (Marriott L401-403)
@ 10 PM Loony ASOIAF/Game of Thrones Theories (Marriott L401-403)
Monday 9/3
@ 1 PM White Walkers, Wargs, & Weirwoods (Marriott L401-403)
Cosplay-wise, most of my ‘schedule’ for this year involves repeats. A couple of these will have some minor upgrades, and I have two entirely new costumes, although one of them is just a party cosplay for Friday night, so it’s not stressing me out TOO much (minus some drama with the wig I ordered).
Of course, I say all of that, and just this past weekend I realized that the belt I was going to use for one of my new costumes is suddenly about two sizes too big, so who knows what will happen between now and the convention itself!
THURSDAY
Day: It’s Always Sunny-themed t-shirt
Night: Suicide Squad-style Poison Ivy
FRIDAY
Day: A Disney-themed Dapper outfit – possibly not the one pictured, but it will be close…
Night: Secret Cosplay!
SATURDAY
Day: Aurora-as-Prince-Phillip
Night: “Hot Mess” Party Melisandre
SUNDAY
Day: Victorian-era Captain America
Night: Steampunk Hufflepuff
Finally, a Reddit user who clearly doesn’t know me at all has been going on a rampage, reporting every single thing I post to my local subreddit…and when they make these reports, they leave some pretty interesting comments to go along with them. Some have been more rude than others, but my favorite ‘epithet’ of the lot was “Fantasy Bitch”. So if you see me at Dragon Con, ask me for one of my Fantasy Bitch stickers! (Just please don’t approach me after a panel that I’m on, as I’ll almost always be rushing off to another panel or to do a quick costume change.)
I also have some Fantasy Bitch koozies to give away at my author reading on Friday, so if you’re interested in one of these bad boys, make sure to come to the Vinings room in the Hyatt at 1 PM on the 31st! (And yes, I might also have some Ice & Fire Con water bottles on hand…)
So yeah, 23 days until Dragon Con (at least for those of us arriving on Wednesday)! I can’t wait!
This fan-run panel at Dragon Con 2017 focused on adies living in post apocalyptic worlds, both fictional and what we as women believed would be most difficult (and even in some cases most ‘fun’) about living in the worlds of shows and movies like Mad Max Fury Road, The 100, Hunger Games, and more!
This SDCC 2018 ASOIAF/GoT fan panel featured discussion about fan theories, comparisons of the books to the show, and a general Q&A.
I have been struggling to write my annual love letter to this convention even more than usual, because I truly don’t know how to put the way I feel about Ice & Fire Con 2018 into words. In the past I talked about how Ice & Fire Con went from being a goal, to being a reality, to being a lifestyle (for me, anyway), and last year I wrote an ode to this family of ours. I keep thinking, what else is there to say? How can I possibly explain the immense amount of happiness that this event – and the people who attend it – bring me?
The truth is, I can’t. Not really. Anything I write is going to fall short of describing the crazy combination of stress and excitement and anxiety and love that I feel for and about Ice & Fire Con. I’m only human, and sometimes words fail even me.
This year marked our sixth con and our second location change, and with the latter always comes a huge learning curve, one that didn’t exist in 2014, 2015, or 2017, and one that we have hopefully now conquered, as we are returning to Deer Creek in 2019.
Another big change this year was that it was the first time I was the sole organizer of the convention, and I’ll be honest, that was scary as hell. From 2013 until 2016, we were three organizers with an additional four people on the Small Council, while in 2017, it was K-K and I and five Small Council members. There are a lot of pros and cons to being part of an organizing *team* versus being a single organizer with a six-member Small Council to at turns discuss big, important decisions with and go to for back up, and I swear I experienced every single one of those pros and cons leading up to Ice & Fire Con 2018.
The point of spilling my guts about how difficult location changes and organizational upheavals can be – no matter how positive the reasons for them – is to lead into one big ol’ “THANK YOU, all of you.”
Thank you for being understanding when there were little hiccups here and there.
Thank you to the person who gets my vote for Newbie of the Year, Nate, for your invaluable help when we were struggling with the new sound system.
Thank you to Sarah for the use of your iPad to record when we ran into a snag with ours.
Thank you to Australian Chris (gosh I hope I’m not using the wrong spelling there) for the pizza Saturday when I was running on fumes.
Thank you to Aibhril, RJ, Arthur, British Kevin (sorry, gotta distinguish from other Kevins!), and all the other people who bought me drinks just because. (I wish I could remember every single one of you who did but my memory isn’t great even when I’m *not* drinking 😉 )
Thank you to the people who danced with me at the Flea Bottom Fete, because I am a damn silly dancer and have no shame about that and you let me be my ridiculous self.
Thank you to the Fandom Faves for plugging us throughout the year and for running some great panels and activities at the con.
Thank you to Beth for the photos…and to Beth AND Andrew for putting up that darn backdrop.
Thank you to the volunteers, because without you, the con itself wouldn’t run.
Thank you to the Small Council members for the extra level of work you guys put in, because without you, the con wouldn’t happen.
(And thank you especially to Chloe for being the closest thing to a second organizer that I had. If anyone can imagine what I look like both with steam coming out of my ears and when I’m craughing like an idiot because I’m so darn hexcited, you can.) (Craughing = cry/laughing; hexcited.= happy/excited)
Thank you to Brian for the musical. While it wouldn’t have been quite what it was without Dom’s lyrical help and a great group of people willing to record themselves and then stand on stage in front of almost the entire convention, Brian was the heart and soul of the production and he’s the one who truly made it what it was…which was, in a word, AWESOME.
As I write this, I keep thinking of new things to add, but if I keep going no one will ever read the whole thing and then what’s the point of having written it at all? Suffice it to say that if I didn’t thank you directly, it’s not because I’m not thinking of you, but rather because this was our biggest year yet and if I listed every single thing and person I was grateful for this would take me ten times longer to write than it already has.
The bottom line is that as much as Ice & Fire Con is my baby, all of you – the Small Council, the volunteers, the fandom faves, the attendees – all of *you* are what make the planning and the work worthwhile. Several times during this year’s Flea Bottom Fete, I found myself stepping off to the side to just watch all of the people dancing together, and I know this is cheesy but to me, it was beautiful. As someone who was (difficult as it may be to believe, if you only met me in recent years) a shy, quiet, bullied little bookworm for most of my life, in my opinion the most important goal each year is to make sure everyone who comes to Ice & Fire Con feels welcome, that everyone goes home having met at least a few new friends, and – hopefully – that you all feel like part of our weird, silly, ASOIAF/GoT-obsessed family.
Obviously it’s next to impossible for me to meet and/or talk to everyone while I’m running around like a chicken with my head cut off at the con, but whether or not we did meet one-on-one, whether or not we had any sort of conversation, please know that my inbox is always open. I know we have room to improve and I’m always willing to hear people out…but hey, if you just want to tell me you had a good time, that sort of shit makes my day 🙂
In my humble opinion, this was the absolute best Ice & Fire Con since our very first one way back in 2013, so again, thank you, thank you, thank you, to everyone who was a part of it.
Yours,
Tara
This Ice & Fire Con 2018 panel focused on the past, present, and future of Dorne and House Martell, and featured some very salty panelist opinions about how they were handled in HBO’s Game of Thrones versus the Song of Ice and Fire book series.
This Ice & Fire Con 2018 panel featured prominent fandom members representing the Brotherhood Without Banners, Ice & Fire Con, the ASOIAF subreddit, podcasts, and YouTube channels. They discuss how they got involved in the fandom, how they represent it in present day, and where they feel it is going in the future.
In case you’ve missed the very few bits and pieces of my personal life that I’ve shared on…well, I guess just on Twitter…the past four and a half months have been one long struggle for me. Shoot, I’m struggling to write this at all, not because it’s anything difficult to say, but because it’s simply not very interesting.
The thing is, while some things about my life are going very well and therefore keeping me busy (work, Saga Event Planning, The Geekiary), creatively I am in one heck of a rut. I don’t even know if I could call it writer’s block; perhaps it’s more like writer’s exhaustion? In the course of about two and a half months toward the end of 2016, I finished writing my second novel, edited the first draft, and then edited nearly 50,000 words of another book I was working on. That, combined with my writing spurts for The Geekiary (which do unfortunately tend to drain me), have led me to this point where I can barely bring myself to put out an article, let alone pull quality fiction writing out of my completely exhausted brain.
And then there’s my physical health. I’m not getting any younger, but it wasn’t until this past fall that I really started feeling my age. I have a herniated disc in my cervical spine, and the debilitating pain that caused left me – quite literally – flat on my back for most of November and December. I’m still trying to figure out how to live with a herniated disc, because although I haven’t been in that extreme can’t-eat-can’t-sleep-can-barely-function zone for about three months, I also can’t just go back to being physically active in the ways I’m used to. Which is, I’ll be honest, really damn depressing.
So while I’d like to just blame writer’s block, my biggest worry is that I’m just tapped out. That maybe I’m not meant to write fiction but to merely give my opinions of or organize events around others’ creations. I don’t believe that is the case, not really, and I’m hoping that if I shake things up a bit this wall in my silly brain will tumble down. It’s certainly worked before, so hey, keep your fingers crossed for me?
In the meantime, I suppose I’ll keep opening up my latest novel and/or a blank blog post and staring at my computer screen in hopes that this dang wall will start crumbling on its own.
This fan-run panel at Dragon Con 2017 focused on CW’s The 100 and included discussion of the show’s past seasons as well as its most recent [fourth] season!