FanWorks Staff
The FanWorks convention staff celebrates all fan creations as art. The convention is dedicated to the creation, sharing, enjoyment, and preservation of fanworks in all their forms.
As a staff, we are committed to creating an inclusive, accessible space for fans to discuss, share, and discover works, teach and learn new crafts, hone skills, and build community. Above all, we want fans to have fun and celebrate everything fans make, in a space that is entirely ours: by fans, for fans.
We have years of experience running fan conventions and work in event planning, publishing, and technology in our professional lives. Cons that founding staff members have worked on as con staff in the past include VividCon, Escapade, Pacificon, Wincon, and The Bite Convention.
Founding Staff Members
Con Chair
Jen went to her first con as a young Star Trek fan in 1997 and never wanted to leave. Since then, she's attended dozens of cons, has been a prolific vidder and writer in more fandoms than she cares to count, and has organized years of fanworks exchanges, including the current Equinox vid exchange.
She worked on Pacificon in 2010 and served as VividCon's programming and technology chair from 2011 - 2018.
Creative Director
If you google sweetestdrain, you will find a recipe for crab omelets (alas, unrelated) and close to twenty years worth of her various fannish exploits.
Formerly a writer, now primarily a vidder, sweetestdrain adores many varieties of fanworks and serves on the con committee for VividCon, where she is responsible for maintaining the con's vid archive, formatting & editing the con's program book, and anything else that needs doing.
When not vidding or reading all the fic, sweetestdrain can be found in her professional life as poet, small press publisher, and manager of a small independent bookstore.
Accessibility Chair
For two decades, verity has been creating and consuming fanworks including fic, vids, and fanmixes. Their first convention experience was Nimbus 2003; since then, they have served as audio/visual coordinator for Wincon 2015 and The Bite Convention 2014 and 2015.
Online and offline, they have been involved in disability rights advocacy for ten years.
Panel Programming Coordinator
elipie has been involved in fandom for over two decades, mostly as a vidder, writer, and consumer. She finally attended her first convention, Muskrat Jamboree, in 2009, and ever since then has been attending and working on fan-run conventions across the country. She has been part of the con committees for both Escapade and VividCon, which has involved running social media, assisting with tech and lending her hand in other needed areas. She is also currently one of the mods for Equinox, a fanvid exchange that runs biannually. She has been actively vidding for 8 years, loves consuming all types of fanworks, and is multi-fannish.
Web Coordinator
Ian has been attending conventions since 2001 and has actively been creating fanvids since 2000. He has hosted panels, published articles and written software for the fanvid community. At his first Vividcon in 2005 he helped on the vid submission side of that convention's tech team before becoming a member and eventually building apps and websites to automate the authoring of vidshows at the con.
He built the site you are looking at now and hopes it's working ok.