Set Phasers to Read

By Darien Yawching Rickwood

Our writers leave the everyday ordinary and seek out the strange, and the provocative

I meet Farrell McGovern and James Botte in the latter’s office at Carleton University. Jumbled with old computer parts, monitors and motherboards, it makes for the perfect environment to talk speculative fiction. Both men work in the high-tech industry and James is in the middle of getting his degree at the school, where he also works as a research assistant. More importantly, they are the founders of CAN-CON (not to be confused with the CRTC edict on broadcasting), Canada’s first speculative fiction convention that brought the focus to the literary side of fandom, rather than the “media,” a catch-all term they use to describe more profit oriented affairs than writing.

CAN-CON was founded in 1991 after the two friends became dissatisfied with what they saw as “the orphaning of the book.” They set out to differentiate themselves from the start, offering video rooms and computer gaming, “back when three computers networked together in a room was pretty cool,” as well as live performances for entertainment. Of course, the unique feature of the convention has always been the chance to interact with the writers themselves; the best in the Canadian science fiction and fantasy field, including Charles De Lint, Guy Gavriel Kay and Dave Duncan. “Up until about 2001, if the person was a Canadian writer, worked in the speculative field, they’d be there,” boasts Farrell, before admitting that they never got Spider Robinson or William Gibson to attend.

The entire endeavour has been a labour of love, with the money coming out of their own pockets. “Self underfunded,” is the way the pair describe it. CAN-CON has never been a financially profitable cause for the two men; in fact they lost money every year except 2001. They rarely receive grants from the Canada Council, and even then it has only been to pay for bringing Canadian writers to the city. Their average budget has always been around $4000 and the convention has been purposefully structured to be an intimate affair—one of its draws. Still, with a cost of $500 per guest, it’s easy to see how quickly that budget can be used up.

When I ask them about the actual mechanics of running the convention, they explain that it has always been a collaborative affair. Naturally everyone involved is a volunteer and they are roughly divided into two groups: committee and staff. They keep their committee small; five people are responsible for coordination and point to another organization they’d rather not name that had a committee of 30. Though Farrell and James co-founded CAN-CON, James has resigned as chairman following its re-launch in 2010, in order to focus on his work and his studies.

My mentions of 2001 are not incidental. While it was arguably their most successful convention, it would also be their last for nine years. Following the collapse of Canada’s tech industry, both of them then had to leave the country and work in the United States. “For better or for worse, again, because it was a labour of love, there were never any succession plans, nobody came and said, ‘Hey, I really want this to continue, let me take all the financial responsibility and management responsibility’ No one was willing to pay the price. But we proved it could be done,” says James.

Still, by around 2000, after only nine years of the convention, things had changed. Other, more media-focused conventions had started featuring Canadian authors. Thanks in part to CAN-CON’s “pioneering effort,” writers, publishers and editors were given a place to gather together and make connections. For James and Farrell, the ultimate compliment came from David Hartwell, the senior editor of Tor Books (a major publisher of science fiction and fantasy literature in the US), who started attending in 1995 and said, “I did more business at CAN-CON than I did at Worldcon.” For reference, Worldcon began in 1939, and its turnout can be as large as 10,000, while CAN-CON’s usually maxes at around 300. It is no coincidence that TOR’s interest in publishing Canadian authors began that year. No overblown egos here; the duo refer to themselves simply as “facilitators.”

CAN-CON is small, but it gets by on that close-knit feeling of community. The convention takes place in hotels rather than convention halls. “The thing about CAN-CON, while we have the guest of honour, readings and bigger kinds of events, one of the keys is always that it’s a really intimate event. Even if there’s a bunch of people there, you can always break out into smaller groups,” says James. This is no accident. “We don’t have a green room,” adds Farrell. “Which is where the guest can be away from everybody. We want our guests to meet the fans in the con-suite…So you can actually sit and chat with them, like this. Which you don’t get at most conventions, where there’s a panel.” They start the planning phase fresh each year, choosing to redesign the program every time. The two men call their organization an “activist effort.”

I am surprised to hear about the Quebecois speculative fiction scene from the two. But it exists, they assure me. And flourishes. As well as playing host to the Aurora awards, CAN-CON resurrected the Prix Boréal awards in 1995, a French-language prize. They only held the ceremony one year, however, as the Boréal organization was surprisingly suspicious. When I ask whether Quebec science fiction and fantasy literature was only being published locally, they tell me that part of the Tor deal involved writers from that province and that the translation business has prospered over the years.

Farrell and James have nothing but positive opinions on the Canadian speculative scene today. “It’s grown,” Farrell says, simply. He goes on to explain the way the literary aspect of the fanbase has entered other conventions, from Star Trek to comic book get-togethers, and lists a number of big names in the genre; all Canadian. Even the media have gotten deeper and more involved. “Not so much a ‘shoot-em up of the week on some alien planet,” laughs Farrell as James talked about the ways aspects of science fiction have infiltrated more mainstream shows, as exemplified by CSI and its impossible, crime-fighting machines. Speculative work has become more accepted among literary circles too; the Ottawa Writers Festival actively courts sci-fi and fantasy authors now. Both men are less impressed with Ottawa’s involvement however; two thirds of their guests come from out of town— some fans even fly in from Europe to meet their favourite authors.

The interview ends and they lead me downstairs, to where James works. He shows off his current project, a device that forms a cloud of electrons that could be used to scan and build 3D maps of the a container's contents without leaving any radiation like traditional x-rays. He also shows me the area where a component of the Large Hadron Collider was built; Carleton’s pride and joy. James is no longer actively involved in running CAN-CON, but a new co-chair was named this year, the first time the organization has had one. I didn’t get to meet the person, but apparently she has been with them from the very beginning. The convention founded 20 years ago will live on, attended by writers who ask the question, “What’s next and how do we get it today?”