A couple of weekends ago hosted two conferences for writing:
SFWA Nebula Conference (which also includes the Nebula Awards)
June 6 - 9
In-Person/Virtual Hybrid
$150 to attend ($125 extra for dinner), Scholarships to waive costs available
WriteHive Conference
June 7 - 9
All Virtual
Free
I had a scholarship for SFWA Nebula Conference and I was slated for two panels for WriteHive so I had a lot to do during that week. Might as well compare and contrast.
SFWA's conference started in the 1960s and WriteHive started in 2019. Also, I'm biased since, for me, WriteHive is starting from zero with me, in terms of impressions, and SFWA is starting from negative numbers due to a negative number of interactions I've had with SFWA in person since I was teenager. Basically, it's up to SFWA to work those lost chips back, WriteHive just has to not suck.
The Nebula conference costs money to attend unless you get lucky and have a scholarship for historically disadvantaged writers they don't talk much about outside of their immediate sphere of SFWA.org. Otherwise, I would not have attended. Remember, I'm pretty long charred by SFWA so I'm not going to dole out money for a possibility of more of that. Yes, SFWA has said they have changed when it comes to dealing with historically marginalized writers but every White organization says that - and then go right back to Business As Usual so I tend to ignore that stuff. Plus, it doesn't help that they said this in 2020, when every White org with a half bit of sense said so - but they're all back to Business As Usual, as expected. So, at least I get to see the conference virtually for free because there's no way I'd drop a single penny to visit Cali (where it is held) to have the glowing chance to basically relive college: White people, White opinions, a whole lotta expensive bullsh#t for nothing.
WriteHive is free and all digital, I actually have been suggesting them to writers both local and afar because of their lack of cost and massive accessibility by being digital. I mainly learned about them because I think I was recommended to them from a different author friend and liked what I saw. I liked that they aim to be diverse - not as a PR thing but as part of the actual DNA of the conference. They show Black people, dark skinned people (I have been noticing colorism is mega on the rise nowadays), people who look visibly Not White, etc. It's more welcoming for people who didn't historically benefit from structural prejudice. Most of the world is not White, so I appreciate that WriteHive, despite being so small, works hard to cater to that world instead of imply that you have to erase what doesn't make you White/Male/Cis/Het to participate. Even all the Guests of Honor are all PoC, including Black and including dark skinned. (SFWA membership would probably riot over that if they did the same. They and the Hugos did have the Sad Puppies issue in their rank and file, and N.K. Jemison did get confused for Octavia Butler - two years after Octavia Butler died. Or SFWA would just do genuine inclusivity for one (1) year, maybe two (2) - and then promptly stop.) So, WriteHive is who I would suggest to authors without thinking. I also liked they have the creator of Melanin Library there to be on several panels, so it does show that WriteHive is way more modern in approach about diverse reads and doesn't act like a teenager that was told to clean up their room for the umpteenth time. Unlike SFWA and the Hugos.
WriteHive is a lot smaller than SFWA and doesn't have a due paying membership, which makes them more inclusive since not everyone can dole out the money. They do take donations and sell WriteHive related merch but despite all that, it seems they're pretty efficient with how they manage their time, digital space and money. They don't have to rent a physical place to be in so that probably cuts costs by a lot, I would imagine. They're pretty young as an organization so I don't expect the moon and stars but they are putting in work.
SFWA is a long-standing dues paying association. For the longest time, the rules of entry were pretty towering at SFWA; you had to be a traditionally published author with a certain amount of hefty sales. Given how White traditional publishing is and was, you could guess the membership layout in terms of diversity: There wasn't much of it and they were pretty satisfied about it. (That's why it's such a big commotion to change it even just a little. The Whiteness is by design, not by mistake - especially when they pretend it's not.) SFWA had to have big discussions and debates over stuff WriteHive just simply included, such as being genuinely inclusive - instead of lip-service inclusive - to writers who aren't White.
SFWA now has lowered their barriers of entry, such as you can be independently published (which is what a lot of PoC and Queer authors do due to the oft-studied, long standing, cemented-in prejudice of traditional publishing), and you just have to prove you have accrued at least $100 in royalties across all bodies of your work over the lifetime that you have been putting work out. This means that I can actually get an SFWA membership but I rather trial-run the conference. No point in paying money when I can hear myopic literary White bullsh#t for free. I already have my English degree, I don't need to waste another penny.
I, however, will always say I like SFWA's Writer's Beware. I have nothing but nice things to say about them. And GriefCom, while I have not used them, does seem useful, but one author in the BIPoC meetup talked about being ignored by them. They're supposed to hand handle contract disputes of SFF authors but this one wasn't cared for and things took a turn for the worse, which the author wanted to prevent, hence going to GriefCom. Given SFWA's age in comparison to WriteHive, they should have eradicated a lot of the prejudice problems from their ranks. As I have said time and time again, SFWA started in the 1960s - during the same time as the Civil Rights Movement. They had zero excuse then and less than zero excuse now to be more inclusive. These folks could imagine hobbits and Narnia but equal rights? Apparently they need a minute. Or a few decades.
As for the panels, both have a slew of them. SFWA starts a day earlier than WriteHive, but they also offer Office Hours, where you talk to a member of SFWA about some skillset they have, such as how to write a good query letter or how to promote your work better. You peruse the list, see what you like and sign up for them. If you are picked, you get a 25 minute digital slot with the person. I must say, the Flight Check crew, the volunteers who help get you to where you are going digitally, are amazingly ran like a well-oiled machine. Even if you were bad at tech, you just pressed the button in the email and away you go, to be sorted to the right space and person. The office hour convo I had was pretty ok, it was about learning promotion. I do wish the selection had more diverse selection of people but it seems the writers of color had their own batches of subjects that I unfortunately did not have much of an interest in. But the Flight Crew does not kid around, they get you to where you are going.
WriteHive doesn't have Office Hours but you already have the discord so there's that, more on Discord comparisons later. Back to the panels.
I personally feel that WriteHive was the better conference. More actual diversity, great panels that were super informative (I really loved the "Passive Marketing: How Authors Can Leverage SEO" panel/presentation) and are diversity focused. WriteHive was ran pretty well for a newer conference that mainly takes place on Discord. I liked how there were really informative panels focused on people who aren't straight White guys, such as "Deconstructing Colonization in Fiction" and "Marginalization and the Querying Process" - panels that SFWA barely would touch with a 20 foot pole. On top of those panels, they have other general industry panels as well such as "Breaking into the Serialized Fiction World", "How to Handle Receiving Critiques", "Breaking into the Publishing Industry", and "Penny for your Thoughts: Giving Insightful Critiques".
The people who went to Write Hive were usually younger (but they did have older folks there, as evidenced by the panel "The Older Beginning Author: Never Too Late For a Plot Twist") and it was pretty diverse. Meanwhile, SFWA still presents itself as fairly staunchly White and very old with few young people, especially few young people who are not White. Yeah, SFWA tries to change but in their DNA, they don't actually want to or they would have done so by now in leaps and bounds. WriteHive was pretty White as well but it wasn't by an overbearing amount. They could actually find panelists that were BIPoC for many panels, including panels that have nothing to do with discussing historical marginalizations. Because we can talk about those subjects as well. Some panels at WriteHive still had the Token effect (everyone but one or two people are White) but at least they also weren't cringing towards bringing up historical marginalizations. (More on that all later.) It was moreso talked like a normal subject, not with a knee-jerk I-swear-I'm-not-a-bigot reaction or hesitance. I don't like panels where discrimination is talked about with coded language of "some groups", "certain eras", blah blah blah, either talk about it earnestly or STFU and get off the stage.
WriteHive has comparatively less hoops to jump through to join the conference. It's free, yes, but it's also just all ran in a Discord server, and comprehensively well. You can slate what you want to see and not have to slog through what you don't. You can talk to panelists in the chat. I do wish that the panels were live and not pre-recorded but WriteHive is new and small, only but so much they can do, especially since so many people have so many different time zones. (On one of the panel I was on, one person was in Australia, another was in the UK.) Perhaps it's also because I use Discord regularly but I'm also in the SFWA's Discord and it is stiffly ran.
SFWA's conference was ran on their site so you needed to register, get a login, things like that. It's very big on "if you're not supposed to be here, you won't be". The Discord was hard to get into, the "Affinity" groups (BIPoC, LGBTQ-Plus, Neurodivergent) were even harder to get into - you had to email the Discord handler (who is a super nice person that's pretty on-top of things, I gotta say. 10/10, would talk to again) - there's a bunch of rules that seemed to be very "all emotions are actively monitored". And people talked a little in the Discord (there was some healthy chatter going on during the conference weekend tho), but the Affinity Groups? I only joined BIPoC and LGBTQ-Plus but BIPoC was silent, crickets. Stale and the conversation is pretty stiff, like anything will get someone booted, especially having a potentially deep conversation about race and racism. The queer one was heavily White. Had more convo going, though. They talked more and socialized more - but also SFWA is less likely to bounce someone for queerphobia (White queers do exist, after all), but race? SFWA is more strained about it. Even the BIPoC Writers Virtual meetup became an agony discussion after a few minutes. The Black SFWA rep was super nice and helpful and tried her best to show SFWA was changing itself and changing for the better … but SFWA is just SFWA and their longstanding behavior about race is still, well, pretty longstanding.
One thing I definitely noticed: All the BIPoC writers at SFWA basically knew each other. All the White writers didn't. That's a problem. The White writers don't see themselves as the Other (nor are they treated like Other and regularly reminded about it), they do not get iced out of things for simply existing, and they do not exist so few in a group that they all basically know each other by name. That is a major problem. SFWA has a membership of roughly 2,600 but it's obvious that most of it is White. It's all woven in the atmosphere of the convention and even the panels I saw. I may not like seeing the Token effect on panels but seeing White authors Lorax on and on about the issues of BIPoC authors and Queer BIPoC authors - as if they couldn't find one to put on the panel is a problem. All SFWA can do is blame itself for that. I went to the LGBTQ virtual meetup, it was super White and I just didn't bother to stick around for that. I'm not the only BIPoC author who dipped out of virtual meetups because it was just too White. And these meetups are supposed to include everyone who has a conference ticket, whether they made the trip to Pasadena, California, or stayed home. In other words, even without the barriers of travel, SFWA was still a very White space. It's nice the older BIPoC folks want to strive and fight for a more diverse SFWA but for me as a younger, Black queer writer? I'd rather take my ball and go play elsewhere that's not going to be so burdensome a place. I've notice many younger BIPoC writers feel that way: why join? Let SFWA die out with the crowd it's always had if it wants to be so difficult when it comes to modernizing and diversifying. No point in fighting this kind of atmosphere when you can just make a new spot in a new place. All the Black or BIPoC exclusive places I'm part of have growing memberships, not waning.
At least in WriteHive, there was a pretty sizeable BIPoC community, both on the panels and in the crowd. All the BIPoC didn't know each other. The BIPoC channel on the WriteHive discord had a lot of vivacious discussion and chatter. It was less "We have to be careful of our words" and more, well, regular discussion. The queer discord wasn't so "White Queers Party Central - and Maybe Some of the Others" as SFWA, it was a pretty decent mix. (It also was basically Ace Town, lol. So many people from the asexual community. I'm demisexual so I found it humorous.) WriteHive just had a more fluid community that was about writing. SFWA conference didn't strike me like that, and you have to dole out money for that event. A BIPoC group shouldn't have the same welcoming feeling as a nerves-inducing nuclear fallout shelter in the middle of an air siren during the '50s.
WriteHive still sometimes had "fly in the milk" (one BIPoC person, the rest of the panel is White) panels, however. I even wound up on one, which I usually include in my panel suggestions to not do. I hate being the token because it sucks and makes me wonder if the runners of the convention suck even more. Tokenization is a form of racism because it takes concious thought to say "We will have one (1) person who is not White among our sea of White - and now we look anti-racist while maintaining racism, yay!" So I prefer to not to be involved with that. Hopefully WriteHive next year will flesh out its panels better.
Although, discussions about racism and the issues about it at Write Hive were not hampered or forbidden with a "Won't someone please think of the feelings of White people!" which was the vibe at SFWA. I don't mince my words about prejudice nor do I soften my approach for those with privilege. Privilege is a cushion, they'll be fine. I don't get up in arms when non-Americans rip on America, when trans people complain about cis people, etc. If you have privilege in the area spoken about, learn how to STFU and stop with the narcissistic alligator tears.
So, WriteHive is good about having actual open discussions from the historically marginalized to talk about their feelings without going, "You're only have certain feelings and only to a certain level, then you better stop or the historically benefitted might have a dampened mood - but they're free to say whatever messed up stuff they like, you just need a thick skin and stop letting what other people say affect you. They don't mean it like that, they're good people, we don't keep a bad crowd." That sentiment I just described is super common in White spaces. That exact sentiment. They may think their weirdness or their queerness may save them but it really doesn't when they still don the proverbial Klan hood. It may have a little rainbow hem or a embroidered UFO on the corner - but it's still a Klan hood. I do appreciate that WriteHive allows such discussions but part of that is because they also have people of actual different races and backgrounds, not just White people and some Sunken Place light skinned lackeys to assist and be a human shield from accusations about prejudice. So that's a positive. It reminded me of Multiverse, which is a good thing. They run roughly the same way. Part of being genuine about being inclusive is not shutting up the people who always been told to shut up for decades and centuries. WriteHive isn't perfect but at least they're actually trying.
SFWA panels weren't too bad, but they weren't as meaty as WriteHive's. And, again, with a limited BIPoC community (that they kept limited over decades. Again, it's not a mistake, it's a design), it was common to see the same names over and over and usually for BIPoC topics. The rest of the panels were stiflingly White. I didn't even want to sit through all the panels I had an interest in because of that. I did like the Contracts meetup but that's because I like Writer's Beware. It basically felt like Writer's Beware Live, which I like. WriteHive didn't have that and I was surprised that there was so few people in the contract meetup - the meetup was meant for people to ask about contract issues, get advice on contract stuff both good and bad, etc. While I was the only person of color and, for the vast majority of the meetup until the last 5 - 10 minutes, the only woman (I'm demi-gender but you get the drift), it was a good chat. I kind of expected it to be all White and male but still, I didn't think there would be so few people in there, especially given how many people have contract grievances. I super recommend that meetup. Even if you don't have contract problems, it's always good to go to hear what is being said. They had a great discussion on subjects like AI, small presses, terms and conditions/ToS stuff in general, contracts in different languages (or lacktherof), and traditional contracts.
I didn't watch the Nebulas, I don't care much for the award for reasons I have already talked about. WriteHive doesn't have an awards show and that's fine by me.
SFWA has to work to be more inclusive but frankly, I am not really sure they have it in them to do so. Not because it is impossible - because that's lightyears far from the truth. It's intensely possible, SFWA is extremely and wholly capable - but at the core of SFWA, they don't really want to full-commit to the change. Some do but quite a few don't and especially at the core. What they have done so far is half-hearted and sluggish. WriteHive is much smaller, much younger, and much lesser known - and they have a more diverse population. And there definitely were people from SFWA at WriteHive. One was even a fellow panelist of mine.
I would do SFWA again only if I get another scholarship and to attend the Contract meetup but I wouldn't be heartbroken if I didn't go back. I would definitely like to do WriteHive again, though.
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