Conventions

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Conventions can play a vital and important role in fan fiction culture. They are a place where fen can get together, in person, chat, share fanzines, discuss various topics effecting the community, network and more. Over time, there have been a number of important and not so important conventions that have played a role in the fan fiction culture that is present today.

There were several early fan fiction communities which had made inroads with conventions. One such community was the Star Trek community.

Another community involved with conventions was the Dark Shadows fandom. In 1975, ShadowCon was held. It was the first national Dark Shadows convention and was organized by fans of the show.

The anime community's convention history also dates to the mid 1970s. In 1976, the first Comic Market was held in Japan as a backlash to company sponsored and national sponsored manga. Harada Teruo was the event's first chairperson. It was the first fanzine convention in Japan.

In 1977, Sharon Ferraro and Paula Smith created the Fan Quality Awards (FanQ) awards in conjunction with SeKwester*Con Too. The original categories were Star Trek fandom awards for Best Writer and Best Artist.

By 1984, Blake's 7 conventions had become a fandom mainstay. At them, actors would interact with fen and fan fiction would be shared. There would be auctions and vid rooms. Interaction at these conventions led to a number of friendships between fen and the actors on the show. These interactions extended to correspondences, personal phone calls, and general chit chat. (Langley) This practice would last well into the late 1980s.

In February of 1990 Escapade a long-running slash convention was first held in Goleta, California. It reached its 17th year in 2007. http://www 2000 /escapadecon.net

In September of 1991, AnimeCon '91 was one of the first conventions dedicated to anime and manga in the United States.

" Fan Fiction on the Net discussed some of the history of fan fiction of popular TV shows and its future on the Internet." -- Necronomicon 98 was held on October 9-11 1998 http://home.earthlink.net/~sanmiguel/articles/necro98.htm

2000s VCon had a panel listed as follows: "PENTHOUSE 686 -- 'ADULT FAN FICTION ON THE NET' -- (Panel moderated by Jo McBride with Alyx J. Shaw) - Smurfgasm? G.I. Joe? All your favourite characters bed wrestling? Say it ain't so! The phemonena of adult fiction written by fans of assorted media. You'll be amazed!" and another panel with the following description: "PENTHOUSE 686 -- 'THE PHENOMENON OF SLASH FICTION' -- (Panel moderated by Alyx J. Shaw, with Jo McBride, Michael Walsh and The Graeme) - Homoerotic Fan fiction involving Star Trek Characters (Spock/Kirk, Sulu/McCoy, Spock/Kirk/Sulu/McCoy/Scotty! Etc.) The origins. Is it really exclusive to women Fan artists and Writers? Is it a feminist phenomena? A healthy outburst of women's erotic fantasy? Or what? Sit in and find out more about this unusual genre."

Redemption '05 - Blake's 7/Babylon 5/Beyond - 25-27 Feb 2005 had several fan fiction related panels including one named "Turkeys of non-SF fanfic." The convention report by Anna Simpson located at http://www.conventions.org.uk/redemption/red03/anna_simpson.html says of fan fiction discussion at this convention:
"Then we had Jane Carnall's second slash history panel, during which I was rather loud due to G&T and the bottle of wine with dinner. It was still, however, very interesting, although we probably spent too much time on first time stories and not enough of 'developing a gay sensibility, which the organisers had changed to 'Realism in slash'." ... "After that, I stayed in the same room for a debate on 'Is Slash Canonical', which was another panel with a lot of different view points and thoughtful debate, and no shouting."

By 2005, traditional media fan fiction conventions had become friendlier to Real Person Fic (RPF)[1]

Minicons

Minicons are a long fandom tradition. One example is 1997's Bridging the Knight which was a Forever Knight mini-con.

Sources

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