July 19, 2016: An important word about ArmadilloCon

Hey, folks. ArmadilloCon is in a little less than two weeks, and as usual, I’ll be attending this year. I’ll be posting my actual panel and other attendance schedule in the near future.

But that’s not what I wanted to talk about in this post.

As you may well know, there’s been an ongoing discussion over the past few years about sexual (and other) harassment at genre cons. Now, to my knowledge, ArmadilloCon has not had a problem with that, and they’ve got a pretty solid anti-harassment policy in place. But, of course, the fact that I haven’t heard about it doesn’t mean it never happens, and an incident can occur even at the best of cons.

So…

Below, you’ll see a photograph of me. (I’m the guy in the middle, with the beard.) If you are at ArmadilloCon, and you are being harassed or otherwise made uncomfortable by somebody, and you happen to see me? Come join me. Don’t worry about asking first, don’t worry about interrupting. If I’m having a conversation, come join it. If I’m sitting alone, come talk to me. If I’m in a panel, come find a place to sit–or even come sit up front next to the table, if you feel you need to.

Tell me what’s going on. I’ll give you a place to be part of a group, if that makes you feel safer. Or, if you’d prefer, I’ll escort you to go find a staff member, or out to the parking lot, or to your room, or wherever you need to go to feel safe. If you need me to call somebody, I will.

If you’re not comfortable with me doing it, either my wife will go with you (if she’s present), or we’ll go find one of the female guests of the convention.

Seriously, I mean this. Interrupt what I’m doing. I’ll help, or find someone who can.

Again, I want to be clear. ArmadilloCon is a good con, run by good people. I’m not doing this because I feel they’ve in any way fallen down on the job; they haven’t. I just want to do what little I can to make our community as safe and as welcoming as possible.

I hope nobody needs to take me up on this, but please, please don’t hesitate to do so if you feel the need. And I hope to see you all there, having a great time.