Access Fandom

wiscon is happening online this Memorial Day weekend.

WisCONline May 23-25 2025, online only
A feminist sci-fi and fantasy convention
$25 or pay what you can
Visit https://wiscon2025.sched.com
Guests of honor: ANDREA HAIRSTON; NAOMI KRITZER
Volunteers welcome--email personnel@sf3.org

Disability-Adjacent Panels include

• The True Diversity of Neurodiversity
• Going Beyond Representation: Speculations on Creating Disabled World Building
• GOH Naomi Kritzer’s Hugo award–winning novelette, The Year Without Sunshine demonstrates how organizing mutual aid for disabled people guides a neighborhood through a very bad time. (Both text and audio at Uncanny Magazine).

This conference is “unapologetically” online for now, forever and is free and open to all.

The IDGS ‘25 theme is “Crip Narratives: Controlling our Stories.”

Disabled researchers, journalists, artists, authors, musicians, and other creators have worked to center the voices of their communities through their projects—and have succeeded in many arenas. The digital landscape presents opportunities for innovation and collaboration in advancing disability rights, but accessibility is often seen as an afterthought. Through collective action and a commitment to accessibility, we can ensure that the digital world becomes a place where all voices are heard and valued, regardless of ability.

Registration, volunteer opportunities, and questions at

https://including-disability.org/2025-registration/

This brief documentary introduced me to a disabled hero I’d never known. Del Rey edited and published the science fiction and fantasy I loved growing up.

Explore the story of a woman with dwarfism who revolutionized the world of science fiction by editing and publishing books from sci-fi writers such as Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov and Philip K. Dick. See how science fiction narratives offer a more inclusive and equitable lens through which to redefine disability.

It’s part of RENEGADES, five stories of disabled artists from U.S. public broadcasting’s American Masters series: https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/

I appreciate that Lachi, the blind host, includes realistic assessments of the current state of access in SF as well as some aspirational "this is the world that’s open to everyone."

The film is available in three flavors with different access strategies —

1. as broadcast: with closed captions and closed audio description, runtime 12:52 https://www.pbs.org/video/judy-lynn-del-rey-3q6lsp/
2. on-screen ASL plus open captions, runtime 12:52 https://www.pbs.org/video/judy-lynn-del-rey-the-galaxy-gal-asl-oc-yfedu4/
3. larger captions and open audio description, runtime 15:35 https://www.pbs.org/video/judy-lynn-del-rey-the-galaxy-gal-extended-audio-description-oc-rkf6ic/

SF/F scholar Dennis Wilson Wise, who’s interviewed in the documentary, has more to say: https://theconversation.com/the-woman-who-revolutionized-the-fantasy-genre-is-finally-getting-her-due-240198

The Yellow Balloon Movement by Maria Temming

Within jam band fandoms often dominated by substance use, clean and sober fans are building their own communities

Fansplaining — a podcast and publication by, for, and about fandom — published a thoroughly reported piece, in both text and audio, about mutual aid and peer support for recovering addicts and alcoholics in jam band fandom. The Grateful Dead set the pattern for musicians who celebrate substance use while creating a nomadic community of listeners. Maria Temming dives deep into when and how clean and sober fans are building safe spaces within these communities:

( 365-word excerpt forom 4000-word article )

Academic Sean Yeager seeks autistics to discuss experiences of time and narrative. Get paid! Participants will be compensated $100 for discussing their experiences of time with an openly autistic interviewer.

Interviews will take place in June-July 2023. Most interviews will take place over Zoom and last approximately 60-90 minutes. The interview format is flexible and can be adapted to accommodate participants’ access needs (e.g. typed and/or AAC interview is OK)

About Sean: https://english.osu.edu/news/sean-yeager-recipient-2022-2023-alumni-grants-graduate-research-and-scholarship. They discuss the importance of neuroqueer narratives in a 36-minute podcast https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/n4sj/episodes/Neuroqueer-Narratives-e1d3neb with transcript and bibliography

( Eligibility and Narrative Focus Points )

Kevin Gotkin’s free weekly newsletter is full of interesting links to people making disability culture. Kevin’s intention-setting post acknowledges that crip horizons are broad. This Monday, Gotkin examined how Joni Mitchell’s recent return to performance is entwined with impairment and disability, disability loss and gain.

Uncaptioned YouTube video of Joni Singing 'Summertime' at Newport Folk Festival 2022

Quoting Crip News:

( 286 words exploring the disability dimensions of that video )

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