“Palais des congrès de Montréal” Credit: Gavin Schaefer CC BY

Over at The Bias, we’ve published “Volunteers, Professionals, and Who Gets to Have Fun at Cons” by Michi Trota.

We’re thrilled to be able to publish this and hope you like it as well. A small taste:

All that fun, however, is largely dependent on the fact that we treat our events, organizations, attendees, and each other with professionalism, because that’s part of our responsibility as fans of the things we’re doing and the communities we’re celebrating. These events aren’t just about us having fun, they’re about everyone attending having fun. The two aren’t mutually exclusive, and our having fun shouldn’t depend on ignoring harmful behavior on the part of other attendees or members of the organizer staff.

Funny thing about this essay: as Annalee was opining on Twitter on this very subject, I was drafting something on this same topic–and then we saw Michi also tweeting about it and talking about writing an essay and we said to each other: “Aha! We will trade shiny rocks for words from Michi for The Bias!” Which is precisely what we did.

Thereby saving me from having to turn my shitty first draft into something readable. Thanks, Michi. You’re the best.