20 May 2002

If We Can Imagine
Guest of Honor Speech, Wiscon, May 2000
by Jeanne Gomoll

Jeanne Gomoll has been involved in the planning of every WisCon since the con was born in 1976. A member of the Tiptree Motherboard, Jeanne has had a hand in the graphic design and publishing of all three of the Tiptree books. She has received several Hugo nominations as both a fan artist and editor and her work has appeared in far too many fan publications to list. In her copious "extra time," Jeanne is an artist for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and a freelance graphic designer.

I've sat next to quite a few of our past guests of honor right here in this room while they waited to give their guest of honor speeches. Sometimes they've been nervous. And in my capacity as a one of WisCon's Founding Persons, I've often reassured them that there is nothing to worry about, that you are all extremely nice people, all eager to hear whatever they have had to say.

No one's thrown a tomato yet, I tell them.

Sometimes I've reassured these WisCon guests that the footnotes in the OTHER guest's speech do not mean that the audience will take offence at their anecdotes and comical recollections. Sometimes I've reassured a guest that the hysterical laughter punctuating the other guest's speech does not mean that their serious and inspiring call to action will be unwelcome by the audience. We all enjoy the unique visions our guests bring to WisCon, I say.

And no one's thrown a tomato yet, I remind them.

But now, in spite of all that reassuring I've done over the years, I find myself worrying if what I have to say will be appropriate or entertaining enough. My long experience as a member of the WisCon concom provides me with a comforting bit of knowledge. I'm quite certain that Concourse dessert menus do not include tomatoes!

Not to complain, of course, but let me assure you that it is possible to get a lot more nervous about ones speech when you're not just comparing your performance with the eagerly awaited words of a famous professional fantasy writer co-guest-of-honor like Charles de Lint. I've got the standards of 23 years of WisCon guest-of-honor speeches to live up to — 55 speeches in all. I counted them! It's intimidating ... and pretty darn thrilling ... to think about the writers, artists, editors, critics and fans who have accepted our invitation to join us here at WisCon and who have stood up here and inspired us, challenged us, and made us laugh and have sometimes even changed our lives.

Those guests, this convention, this literature, this science fiction group, all the people I've met through Janus and Aurora and the Tiptree Award and WisCon, and the friends I've grown to know so well and worked with on all these projects — have certainly changed my life. I can't even imagine who I'd be or what I would be doing now without feminist SF, without fandom, or without WisCon in my life. And I can't tell you what a huge and amazing honor it is for me to be standing up here thanking you for recognizing my part in our mutual history ...

It started out for me as a hobby, a way to feel good about the parts of my life outside of work. It was 1974 and I had recently graduated from the University of Wisconsin here in Madison and was earning my living as a Kelly temp-typist, looking for a real job, and auditing English classes in my spare time. Tragically, I suffered from a severe case of academic withdrawal. Several friends who were also having trouble kicking the student habit and I formed a support group ... er, I mean a reading group, that felt and acted very much like a University literature class except that we met regularly in each others apartments instead of in classrooms. We put together a long reading list of feminist fiction and non-fiction, and discussed what we read with one another. Around this time, the new women SF writers and an exciting focus on social and political issues in SF intrigued me. Some of my contributions to our group's reading list were SF titles. We had some great discussions and I kept suggesting that we write down some of our ideas and consider doing some kind of publication. But that sounded too much like a term paper and my suggestion was nixed by my friends who apparently missed some things about college less than I did

So I was ready when the opportunity arose to join a fledgling new SF group in town that advertised for volunteers to help publish a magazine. The Madison SF Group — or Madstf as the group called itself then — was founded by Hank and Lesleigh Luttrell, Jan Bogstad, Phil Kaveny, and Tom Murn in 1974. I believe I showed up at the second meeting. Janice Bogstad announced the new publication and I think I said, "I'll help." It wasn't until a few months later that Hank told us that what we were publishing was called a fanzine. Who knew?

At first I drew illustrations, and typed for the new publication named Janus. Then I contributed a couple articles and reviews. By the fourth issue I was co-editing Janus with Jan. Things got intense. I kept color-coded graphs of our schedule, covered the floors of my apartment with tiny little scraps of paper each time I laid out an issue. This was of course in the olden days, before computers, even before Selectric typewriters. The week we went to press, it wasn't unusual for me to work 40 or 50 hours on the zine.

Five issues of Janus were typed with manual typewriters and printed on Hank's mimeograph before we finally upgraded to offset printing. Our zine made its entrance onto the fannish scene with a quarterly publication schedule and a provocative feminist perspective. The only feminist fanzine we knew about was Amanda Bankier's Canadian fanzine, The Witch and the Chameleon, which stopped publishing very soon after we started. Janus was the group's "only child" in those days and it was lovingly and obsessively groomed. (Later, of course, we raised two children — the fanzine and the convention.) Thomas Murn wrote long articles on popular culture, John Bartelt contributed short stories, Jan wrote very serious articles from a Marxist literary perspective, I began to experiment with a humorous style, and everyone wrote book reviews. Typing and proofreading chores were shared among all of us, though I was fired from that task abruptly when it was discovered that I could spell a word in five different ways on the same page, all wrong. Feminist SF was flourishing and we made our zine available for conversations between its writers and readers. Letters of comment flowed in, surprising us because we hadn't understood that we were joining a vast letter-writing community when we began publishing our "magazine."

I came to depend upon Janus and WisCon to provide an outlet for my political ideas, for my own personal take on feminism. Feminism, for me, has always been about making the largest number of choices available to everyone, regardless of sex. For me, science fiction and feminism came together beautifully in those days. There is a line in Monique Wittig's classic SF novel Les Gu&eaccute;rillères that still raises goose bumps on my skin. Wittig urges women who lack historical precedent or role models for their choices to use their imagination. Her phrase is, "...and failing that — invent!" To me that's always embodied the thrill and value of speculative fiction. I interpreted that to mean that writing and reading science fiction could have as profound an effect on people as actual experience — that we could try out a myriad of virtual futures, that we could choose and more importantly REHEARSE the ones that seemed most promising. It meant to me that this process could change our own lives and the world around us; and what better place to imagine different selves and worlds than with science fiction?

Coincidentally, we embraced feminism in our zine at the same time that the women's movement was getting re-energized in this country. We were engaged in a dynamic sea change in society and those changes were mirrored in fandom. Feminist fiction and ideas were being celebrated by a large number of readers and fans at the time. Within ten years of Janus' publication, Hugos were awarded to Ursula Le Guin, Chip Delany. James Tiptree, Jr., Susan Wood, Kate Wilhelm, Joan Vinge, Vonda McIntyre, C.J. Cherryh, John Varley, Joanna Russ, and Octavia Butler. Janus itself received three nominations for best fanzine during those years, and I was nominated a couple times in the category of fan artist.

But that wasn't enough for us. We decided to expand our franchise into convention running. We had plenty of free time!

Practically none of us had ever attended a convention before the 1976 Minicon, but it was our second con, the 1976 worldcon in Kansas City, on which we fannish newbies imprinted. At times you may have wondered why WisCon programming resembles a 3-ring ... or rather 6-ring circus. Well, we've always done it this way. Even the first WisCon in 1977, which after all, attracted barely two hundred attendees — boasted four tracks of programming. The reason is because MidAmericon's programming had been scheduled in multiple tracks. OK, we said, that's must be how conventions worked.

But other parts of WisCon were invented almost from scratch. Several of us attended a serious, feminist panel at MidAmericon that Susan Wood had set up in spite of the concom's opposition. The concom didn't believe that a panel on women and science fiction would be of interest to anyone, but they eventually gave into Susan's demands and scheduled her into a rather small, out-of-the way room. Of course, a lot of us found it anyway and there was standing room only, and afterward the panel overflowed into an extended discussion, party, and consciousness-raising session, that lasted for hours after the panel's schedule. A Women's Apa got its start in that room and both Jan Bogstad and I joined. The day after that panel, we interviewed Suzy McKee Charnas and Amanda Bankier and printed the transcript in Janus. And we resolved to do LOTS of panels for WisCon like that great feminist panel we'd seen at MidAmericon.

We didn't realize at the time how few women attended SF conventions, much less that few women ran cons or dominated SF groups. But we improvised.

We had no models of feminist fanzines or feminist SF conventions, and so we took what we liked from the fanzines and cons we knew and we ... invented the rest. And some of us ended up inventing new lives for ourselves.

Finding my voice and my pen in the world of science fiction changed a lot of other things in my life besides gobbling up all my spare time. I learned a profession in fandom ... two professions, actually. The illustrating and layout work I did for Janus and other fanzines gave me experience as an artist and it gave me an interesting portfolio. Five years after I joined the Madison SF group, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources hired me as a graphic artist, despite the fact that I had no formal training in art. I'm now a Senior Graphic Designer for the DNR.

About 12 year ago, right after I returned from a trip to Great Britain as a Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund (TAFF) delegate, I set out to replenish the TAFF coffers by running a mail auction. (The postal kind.) I laid out the catalog with my new computer — a Macintosh SE — and then started doing other fannish graphics and layout on the Mac. After a year of learning how to do graphics electronically, I convinced my bosses at the DNR that we needed to get rid of the t-squares, technical pens, wax, rubylyth, and the typesetting machine — and that we needed to convert to computer production. My second career was that of an electronic graphic artist. And once again, I have fandom to thank for it.

And I found religion and converted to Macintosh as a result of that experience, too, and now have a slight tendency to proselytize on the one, true computer.

And of course Spike Parsons introduced me to the love of my life, Scott Custis, at a science fiction convention. Talk about changing your life....

But the thing that kept me involved with WisCon was a sense that we were building something important, something unique, something that — when I look back on my life — I expect will be just as important as a satisfying, productive career; just as fulfilling as a good relationship. So, even though I no longer rely on my spare-time activities when people asked me the question, "What do you do?", I couldn't quite bring myself to step too far back from WisCon.

I almost did walk away from the convention towards the end of the 1980s. It seemed to me that our local SF group was running precariously low on the energy needed to publish a fanzine and run a convention. Many of us in the SF group were getting on with our lives: careers, lifetime commitments to partners, children, and mortgages. Few members were devoting themselves quite as obsessively to the group's activities as had been the case we were mostly students and temp workers. In addition, the rest of society seemed to be getting a little bored with the women's movement. In spite of all the high tech electronic publishing machines available to us, it was a struggle to publish the last two issues of Aurora. I wrote an article for the second-last issue — "An Open Letter to Joanna Russ" — about what I perceived to be a subtle form of suppression of women's writing. Feminist SF of the 1970s was being dismissed with sentiments like, "It was the Me Decade...they were selfish;" or, "Women SF writers wrote, but it turns out they were only a fad." In fact, the attacks were aimed at more than just feminist SF, but also at the women's movement in general. Susan Faludi named the phenomenon a "backlash." What was needed at that point, I thought, was a concerted effort to remind people that many of us had not been at all bored by the likes of Suzy McKee Charnas, Vonda McIntyre, Ursula Le Guin, Joan Vinge, Suzette Haden Elgin, and Lizzy Lynn. I plotted that we would find a way to support the work of writers whose work revolutionized the field and to point out that these authors and lots of new ones were still writing, still appreciated. I hoped to rally the troops to keep Aurora alive. Although that plan did not work out, I vowed to do my part. I wrote at the end of that article that I didn't want it to be necessary to do it all over again in another generation. Nevertheless, my ideas of what needed doing were a little nebulous. Write articles, I thought. Speak up at retrospective panels. Do Something. I really wanted to Do Something.

Well, in retrospect, I think that the most important thing to do at that moment in time was to keep WisCon going. It wasn't obvious to me then, but it's clear that there is no other place where large numbers of feminist SF writers and artists and readers can meet and talk face-to-face; where the idea of a small, secret cabal seems like such an understatement; feminist SF is on the top of the agenda. There is no other place where programming and invited guests provide so many possibilities for cross-pollination of ideas, mutual support and confidence building that happens when ALL OF YOU get together here. No one is doing this kind of convention anywhere in the world. We've got to keep it alive.

Where else could Pat Murphy have announced hers and Karen Fowler's idea for the Tiptree Award for gender-bending science fiction and fantasy? That's what happened at WisCon 15 in 1991. Pat says now that she was mostly joking, that she and Karen hoped that maybe a prize could be awarded as a sort of symbolic action, but that neither of them expected it to turn into a juggernaut of an institution. But remember: Pat was standing in front of a critical mass of people, all of whom cared deeply about the kind of science fiction that speaks to feminist values, who questioned the validity of gender roles imposed by society, who were feeling frustrated by politics of the day and the conservative attacks on abortion rights and women. Frankly, we were all in a mood to Do Something So it shouldn't have been a complete surprise, that after Pat made her historic announcement, the crowd rose and cheered and clapped and laughed for a long, long time. And that we started to Do Things....

Bake sales were staged, Cookbooks were published, a panel of judges was rounded up and the next year Eleanor Arnason and Gwyneth Jones won the first Tiptree awards. And there was money left over. And more panels of judges were rounded up and publishers began submitting more gender bending fiction. And Freddie Baer started creating beautiful Tiptree T-Shirts and Ellen Klages started entertaining us at Tiptree auctions and inducting the most surprising people into the feminist cabal. And there was more money left over. And we made other awards — a retrospective Tiptree and a Fairy Godmother Award. We even published an anthology of short fiction shortlisted by the Tiptree Award. That was Flying Cups and Saucers, of course, edited by Debbie Notkin and the feminist cabal. Next year, at WisCon 25, will be Tiptree's tenth year and we're still going strong.

And it's not just feminism, though that's obviously where my heart and passion go to. WisCon has provided a platform and a laboratory for other political ideas and groups. Ever since WisCon 1 we've scheduled discussions of gay, lesbian, and bisexual issues in SF, fandom, publishing, and society in general. This was such an outrageous idea at the beginning that the first WisCon was nicknamed "Pervertcon" by some fans I'll leave nameless. Ever since then, WisCon has encouraged programs on union organizing, alternate political and economic systems, gender issues, and most recently we've been pushing to make WisCon into more welcoming place for people of color, and for the SF community in general to become a more diverse place. I personally hope that WisCon programming follows the lead of the remarkable activism happening worldwide around WTO protests. Just as SF provides the perfect opportunity for us to imagine and rehearse a revolution in relationships among the sexes, SF is a great place to incubate ideas about how to build an economically just world.

I'm proud of the work we did that made it possible to ignite the Tiptree juggernaut at WisCon, and of the work that keeps projects like these going. I'm proud to have been part of the creation of a convention like no other. Several WisCon guests of honor have told us that they were able to say things here, to us, that would have been impossible for them to have said in any other forum, and I'm proud to be part of the convention that made those speeches possible. But I wouldn't have been part of this incredible community if it were not for all of you being there in the first place.

And so, I want to thank some people.... Janice Bogstad for her vision and work on our fanzine, Janus. And I'm eternally grateful to Hank and Lesleigh Luttrell who moved here in the early 70s so they could introduce us all to fandom in the first place. Diane Martin and Dick Russell joined the SF group just as we were embarking on a plan for a new convention. Dick made us a corporation and Diane wrestled a shoebox full of receipts into a professional budget and both of them donned many hats in the new convention. Without them, WisCon may never have happened.

And there are dozens of other stalwarts of the WisCon concom who have kept WisCon going all these years, and have kept our focus on feminist SF. Jim Hudson calmly reassures us that anything is possible and just as calmly shows us how. Ellen Franklin taught us how to build a professional relationship with the hotel. Tracy Benton's and Bill Bodden's opening ceremonies this year gives you a hint of the creativity that they bring to the group. Hope Kiefer who has done such an excellent jog of running the consuite, that we can't seem to find anyone willing follow her act. And now would be a good time to say "Thank you Kim Nash," for chairing WisCon this year. I hear you gave good meetings, not that I would know because I was on vacation from WisCon meetings this year. Of course, we very much miss the energy that Spike Parsons, Andy Hooper, Carrie Root, Bill Humphries, and Steve Swartz infused into the group when they lived in Madison and were major WisCon planners. Thank goodness, their departure has been balanced by volunteers from outside Madison who recognize that WisCon is as much a convention for the feminist SF community as it is a Madison convention. Debbie Notkin's and Jane Hawkins' work on programming, Amy Hanson's work on the writers workshops, and Victor Raymond' work on security, has been a huge boon to the convention. Well, I could go on for a long time with these thank-yous, but this isn't the Oscars. But needless to say there are dozens of other people in the local SF group and among the regular attendees of WisCon whose work and dreams make WisCon possible.

With the Internet, our community communicates more easily than it ever did before, but I think these face-to-face reunions are still important for the re-energizing of our passions and strength. It was with renewed energy and optimism for the possibilities of WisCon and of feminist SF that prompted me to volunteer to chair WisCon 20, four years ago, and makes me hope very much that we can continue getting together like this and inventing anew for many years to come. We will need help from all of you.

One of the fantasies I used to have was that an alien visitor gave me a machine — a little box with a button — that could stop time for everyone else except me. Well of course the first thing I did with it was to stop time so I could get a little more sleep in the morning. Unfortunately, the button I pushed turned out to be the one on my alarm clock and I got to work very late that morning. Another fantasy I had when I was a really little kid was that an same alien gave me a machine that could do anything. An anything maker, I called it. Very handy, all purpose, unlimited number of wishes magic lantern. Well, in a sense, that's a bit how I see science fiction — a machine that can make anything happen virtually, a machine that provides the first step to actuality. And maybe one of its buttons is WisCon.

Remember, if we can imagine it, we can do it.