Readercon and me

[pocketnaomi]

This is the full text of what I wrote to the Readercon concom today. It's a long story, and one which many people who know me closely have heard the vague outlines of, but which I have not told to anyone in detail. Even the person who figures largely in the second piece of the story, the friend who helped encourage me back into fandom in the late

Comments

[hitchhiker]

i'm sorry you went through that :( i hope that readercon at least listens to everyone coming forward to explain just how big a mistake they're making.

[pocketnaomi]

They appear to have done so. The next post has their public statement, which is as well-done as it reasonably can be under the circumstances. They are dealing with a royal mess, no doubt about it, but they're doing a decent job (and, clearly, their earnest best) to clean it up. I'm satisfied; I don't know whether Ms. Valentine is but I hope so.

[ext_316066]

I relate to many elements of your story. I also attended conventions at a young age, and stopped attending for many years starting around age eighteen. This was largely due to the behavior of many people in fandom, and their attitudes of ignoring or downplaying many conflicts, giving the general message that everything goes, which was confusing as a teenager and which I didn't have the resources to handle at the time.

[redaxe]

As a member of NY fandom then, I apologize for the incident, and I hope that I wasn't among the insensitive friends (I could have been; my attitudes then were still being hammered into reasonable adulthood, and I had good days and some really, really bad ones).

Huzzah to you for having written this; it's both powerful and illuminating. It clearly took great courage.

::standing ovation and offers hgus::

[pocketnaomi]

Thank you for the apology. It turns out to be unnecessary, at least on an individual level -- while you may have been part of the culture which made such a reaction from my friends (and such an attack) possible, you weren't one of the people who said such things; I didn't know you well enough at the time to have talked with you about it.

[batyatoon]

That was well said, and took a lot of saying.

*hugs* Thank you for writing this.

[pocketnaomi]

Thanks. *hugs* I like what the Readercon board came out with. Dunno if my letter had anything to do with it, but they did the right thing. If they follow through on everything they've decided, it has the potential to make Readercon, not merely a safe place, but a prototype that other cons can learn from, for what a safe place really looks like. I'm still watching what they do from here (and I've volunteered for the safety committee they're setting up), but I'm pleased with what they've said so far.

[joecoustic]

Thank you for sharing this with us! I'm so sorry you had to go through it but am glad you are sharing it partly for your own growth and peace of mind and partly to help others. I too have been through similar situations, sadly more than once in my life and it's just a hard place from which to find your way back.

*hugs*