News

The DIY Track is focused on doing things yourself. Whether it be a new craft or odd jobs around the home or even running your own business, DIY wants to help you learn. Our panels will give people an opportunity to pick up new tools to use in their daily lives, a new hobby, or even an interest in a new branch of creativity.

Tell us in the comments what you like best about the DIY track: your favorite panels, events, and what you’d like to see in 2016 and the future!

We would love for you to submit a proposal for an event in the DIY track that you intend to present!

If you have an idea for a DIY event you’d like to see at Penguicon but don’t want to present yourself, please suggest an idea for our track head to look into!

Last year we saw the return of the Webcomics Track to Penguicon after its two year absence. Its return gathered many amazing talents and fans of the Webcomics world as they mutually explored how the digital age is the ever present future of the time honored comics medium. This year we’re upping the ante! This won’t be a celebration of just web based comics, this will be a celebration of every medium that comics have touched! Read em on the Web? Come on in! Hit your local comic shop every Wednesday for new issues?  Welcome home friend! Wait in line for every new comic movie premier?  Who doesn’t!?  Don’t miss this year’s festivities ‘cause it’s only the beginning!

We would love for you to submit a proposal for an event in the Comics track that you intend to present!

If you have an idea for a Comics event you’d like to see at Penguicon but don’t want to present yourself, please suggest an idea for our track head to look into!

Our Maker Market has really become something incredible over the past few years – unique local artists of every stripe get together to share the things they’ve created with us.

It is with much pride and pleasure that we announce that we are now accepting Maker Market applications for 2016!

We’ve heard from our attendees that they love knowing that the plushie or sketch they picked up at Penguicon is NOT available at Amazon, so we’re going to continue to only accept non-resale vendors – alternately, please feel free to write to [email protected] if you’d like to discuss a sponsor table.

If you have friends who sell their own (non-resale) work, whether it’s LED kits, crocheted super heroes, bionic implants, or nerdy woodworking, please SEND THEM TO US! Share our Maker Market Application page with your friends and with your art and tech communities so that we can continue to see the huge variety of Maker Market vendors that we love so much.

Do you love Anime? Manga? Then this is the track for you! There will be panels on everything from GITS (Ghost in the Shell) to MLP (My Little Pony).  You’ll find passionate fans to discuss anime with, presenters to show you some you’ve never seen, and thought provoking questions about some of the classics :).

Stop by one of the Anime panels to get your fix at Penguicon this year!

Anime is a new track for 2016, so tell us on Facebook what you’d like to see in 2016 and the future!

We would love for you to submit a proposal for an event in Anime that you intend to present!

If you have an idea for an Anime event you’d like to see at Penguicon but don’t want to present yourself, please suggest an idea for our track head to look into.

Introducing Penguicon Track Spotlights! Over the next few weeks we’re going to be spotlighting all of our programming tracks, and asking all of you to tell us the best things you like about each of them. Starting with…

Action Adventure!

The Action Adventure track has demonstrations and workshops on martial arts, learning to breathe underwater, archery, and Geeks with Guns. Learn to juggle in Action Adventure!

Talk to us on Facebook about what you like best about the Action Adventure track: your favorite panels and events, what you’d like to see in 2016 and the future!

We would love for you to submit a proposal for an event in Action Adventure that you intend to present!

If you have an idea for an Action Adventure event you’d like to see at Penguicon but don’t want to present yourself, please suggest an idea for our track head to look into.   
P.S. Action Adventure is one of our tracks in need of a track head, so check out all the awesome things about this track and if you’re interested, apply! 

I’m very excited to announce a Guest of Honor from the world of video game writing, Ann Lemay!

Ann has been inside the videogame industry for nearly 20 years. She has written for the big Bioware videogame franchises like Mass Effect and Dragon Age.

She’s also written a book about game narrative writing – check out our Special Guests page for more details!

Ann has told us she’s very excited to join us in April, and has already been an immense help in suggesting great panels that are perfect for Penguicon.

Welcome, Ann![clear]

Deb Nicholson is the Community Outreach Director at the Open Invention Network – an organization of major companies who pool some of their intellectual property (a shared defensive patent pool) in order to make it available, for free, to companies creating with Linux (including Android).

She also serves on the board of Open Hatch, a non-profit that encourages new people to get involved with open source software, and Community Manager at GNU MediaGoblin.

She also won the O’Reilly Open Source Award for her work with GNU MediaGoblin and OpenHatch.

She is very excited to join us as a Guest of Honor in 2016, telling us that she looks forward to talking about OIN and software patent misuse, pervasive surveillance and how it affects developer communities, and decentralizing the web. In previous talks, she’s helped people in the community understand how to “delegate like a boss” and how to “say no like a boss.”

Thanks for joining us Deb, we look forward to seeing you in April!

Penguicon is looking for volunteers to head some of our programming tracks!

Track heads are a vital part of programming – they are the front line in shaping the panels and events that make Penguicon what it is.  Track head duties include: generating panel and event ideas, coordinating with panelists and participants, recruiting participants and featured guests, reviewing and approving community-submitted panel and event ideas, keeping up regular communications with participants and with the head of Programming.

Open tracks are: Action Adventure, Food, Lit and Science.

If you’d like to apply, please complete the Track Head Application Form.

Interested, but want a better idea of what these tracks are all about?  Check out some of the panels and events from last year, and we’ll be highlighting these tracks on Facebook in the next weeks.

Think this might be fun but still not sure?  Contact Janet, our Head of Programming ([email protected]) and Julie, our Assistant Head of Programming ([email protected]) to talk about it!

We are very excited to announce our next Guest of Honor for Penguicon 2016 – author Catherynne Valente!

Catherynne is a New York Times Bestselling author of Science Fiction, Fantasy, poetry, and short stories, including the YA novel The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, and is a regular panelist on the multiple Hugo Award-winning podcast SF Squeecast.

Her latest book, Radiance, is coming out tomorrow, October 20th!

Check out our Guest of Honor page for more details!

Penguicon has attendees, guests, and staff of all kinds of gender presentations. It has long been our ConCom’s goal to help everyone feel safe and comfortable. This year, we have worked with the hotel to have an all-gender restroom as well as designated men’s and women’s restrooms, which will be clearly marked.

There are gender neutral designated restrooms at the White House, GDC (Game Development Conference) 2015, Emerald City Comic Con, and many other conventions and universities – their purpose is to make sure no one can be accosted for being in “the wrong place” when they go to the bathroom.

Additionally, we will have some sort of “I’ll go with you” identification available (ribbons or buttons, probably) for those who don’t mind keeping someone company who is feeling anxious about stepping into the restroom they feel most comfortable in. Many of the ConCom will be wearing one, including the Chair.

Please remember that when it comes to deciding which bathroom is “most appropriate”, it’s the person who has to pee who knows, and it’s up to us to give anyone the benefit of doubt, as fellow human beings with bodily functions.

No matter which bathroom you go into or who is in there with you, it is not appropriate to interrogate someone about their body – you wouldn’t want someone doing it to you.

If you’re not comfortable with a person’s presence, simply step out for a minute, find another bathroom, or ask someone to wait in the bathroom with you. If someone harasses you, please speak with someone at our Operations desk or find a ConCom member.

We must thank our Penguicon attendees for telling us that this is important to them, and for caring about everyone in the Penguicon family.

(Thanks to Sam Killermann for the graphic!)

P.S. if anyone’s seen the ECCC graphics, we’d love to have some that are unique to Penguicon (remember the “X-men’s room”?) – please send any you come up with to [email protected] with the subject: Restroom Icons!