I had the good fortune to be able to attend both Yaoi Con and Bascon this year in San Francisco. The conventions were held two weeks apart in October and early November.
At Yaoi Con, for the first time, I presented a panel. The name of the panel was "Slash, Yaoi and M/M Romance." I was thinking it's interesting that there are three separate and distinct types of m/m stories, and that there doesn't seem to be much overlap between the fan bases for each. Meaning, that slash fans don't tend to also be yaoi or m/m romance novel fans, and the same goes for the other two categories.
There seems to be the most overlap or crossover with people who are yaoi fans and who are also into m/m romance books. I felt that with my experience as an anime/manga editor--including yaoi manga and novels--as well as being an author in the m/m romance field that I could offer a unique perspective on the two different kinds of m/m stories, as well as on slash. I also wanted to share my experience in editing and English adaptation writing for books such as the Code Geass novels, Cigarette Kisses (a yaoi manga) and the Yashakiden horror novel series for Digital Manga, Inc.
The small room was packed and I enjoyed giving the talk. I gave away a copy of Kaminishi to a young woman for answering a trivia question (Who was I cosplaying as? Answer: Tieria Erde from Gundam 00 ;)). I found myself speaking more about the process of writing and getting published than I'd intended, as I sensed the audience wanted to hear more about that.
All in all, it was fun and I hope the audience found it worthwhile and entertaining. :) Of course, the big moment this year at Yaoi Con was DMI's announcement that it would be taking over the convention and moving it to L.A.
I have mixed feelings about the move, as many Yaoi Con veterans do. San Francisco, with its attitude of anything goes as far as sex between consenting adults, plus the Asian cultural influence, was really the perfect place for a niche con like Yaoi Con. Los Angeles will be a different atmosphere altogether. It's possible that it will work out, but I think many will be waiting and watching with some nervousness to see what happens.
My publisher Dreamspinner Press had a table in the dealers room, where I spent time talking with fellow DSP authors Clare London, Felicitas Ivey and Andrew Grey. There were some twenty Dreamspinner authors at Yaoi Con--so maybe there's more crossover between yaoi and m/m romance fans than I thought. ;)
Two weeks later, I was back in San Francisco for Bascon 2011.
Bascon (Bay Area Slash Convention) is a smaller convention and the focus is completely on slash fandom.
It was a trip down nostalgia lane for me. I started out in slash fandom in my 20s, following m/m pairings from series like The Professionals and Blakes 7. Years later, it was reading slash fan fiction on the Internet that got me back into m/m stories again: at first reading them and then, eventually, writing them.
Bascon is fan-based, not commercial-focused. The panel rooms were small and I think the total membership for the convention was around one hundred. One panel I attended was about writing sex scenes. Another was on Stargate fandom. The Stargate panel (more just a round table free-for-all discussion actually) brought back memories of informal get-togethers with other women to talk slash, as I used to do in the late 1980s and early 1990s. At Bascon, I even met one of those women again. It was the first time I'd seen her since 1991(!).
There were a lot of zine sellers in the dealers room. For those too young to know about zines, zines (short for "fanzines") were hard-copy collections of fan fiction and fan art produced in the pre-Internet era. Fans would write, bind together and either give away or sell their zines at conventions.
Dreamspinner Press had a table at Bascon too, and I spent an enjoyable few hours sitting and chatting with editor Julianne Bentley and author Amy Lane.
Throughout the short weekend, I kept wondering where the younger fans were. My fellow attendees were like me: women over 40. Were the slash fans in their 20s and 30s all talking to each other on the Internet rather than meeting in person?
Like Yaoi Con this year, Bascon had its own surprise announcement--and for Bascon it was a sad one. This year's Bascon will be the last Bascon, as the economic downturn has forced the con to cease operations as of this year. Slash is a fan interest, one with little or no commercial application so the lack of funding is not surprising in that respect. I do find it startling that neither Yaoi Con nor Bascon will be in San Francisco again next year, albeit each for their own reasons.
One convention moves, and another quietly fades away. Like the world itself, particularly these days, change appears to be the only constant--even in the world of m/m stories and fandom.
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