Seattle Worldcon Recap, Pt 1

A couple of weeks ago, I travelled up to Seattle — first for fun and then for the 2025 WorldCon. During the touristy part, my mom and I drove around the Greater Seattle Area, from Tacoma to Gig Harbor to Seattle, Bellevue, and other spots. For my mom, it was a trip of nostalgia — she lived there when she was in her twenties and marveled at how much things had changed. For me, I just enjoyed exploring and seeing the sights of a place I’ve been daydreaming about visiting for months.

Leaving the heat of summer in California, I expected the weather in Seattle to be rainy and cool. Instead, we were met with sweltering heat I was not prepared for, with my suitcase full of jeans and long-sleeve shirts and sweaters. Even in the (mostly) air-conditioned halls of the convention center, I would suddenly find myself sweating just from the general mugginess of the days.

Arriving at WorldCon, hosted by the World Science Fiction Society (WSFS), was a bit overwhelming. The event is huge — five days of panels, readings, gatherings, film screenings, and after parties. I couldn’t decide between the multitude of possibilities, and at first, I filled every second of my schedule with panels and activities, with some hours having up to five different panels listed. As much as I wanted to do it all, I knew I couldn’t. I had to cut back significantly on my WorldCon schedule, making space for breaks and snacking. Even then, it was a lot.

On that note, I didn’t have the energy to write up my thoughts on all the panels I attended in this single post (despite seeing only a fraction of the experiences at the event). So, this week, I’ll will be covering the poetry and readings I attended, while a future post will cover game design, horror, and other interesting panels.

Poetry

The WSFS also runs the Hugo Awards, which is one of the most prestigious awards in speculative fiction industry. The Seattle WorldCon included a Best Poem award as its 2025 Special Category — presented to Marie Brennan for her poem, “A War of Words,” published in Strange Horizons. This is first time that poetry has been included in the Hugos since they were initiated in 1953, which is fascinating to me considering the vast importance poetry plays in literature at large, including science fiction.

With this introduction of poetry, the Speculative Poetry Initiative, a group of poets and writers, began a campaign to have the Best Poem category ratified as a permanent category in the Hugos. Attending WSFS meetings and providing education to members of the science fiction, fantasy, and horror communities, the group achieved their goal with the ratification of the Best Poem award for the next two years. At Strange Horizons, Lynne Sargent provides insight into why such an award is important for the community.

So, poetry was a key element of this year’s WorldCon, with poems published inside the event’s Souvenir Book and each day was full of poetry-focused readings and panels.

In Line Breaks, Prose Poetry, Prose Prose, and Experimental Formats, Linda D. Addison, F.J. Bergmann, Eva L. Elasigue, Angela Liu, and Holly Lyn Walrath discussed the nature of poetry and explored its vast array of available forms — both traditional and experimental. In poetry, the final emotion is often more important than meaning (compared to prose). In creating this emotional experience, the visual shape of the text on the page contributes to this emotion, while also informing the reader how to read the poem.

One of the first discussions was on the concept of line breaks. When writing, the poet should consider what the line breaks are doing. The classic explanation of line breaks is that they represent a breath, but there are a number of considerations. Maybe each line represents a complete thought, allowing the poet to reveal the depth of the poems imagery and concepts line-by-line to create a sense of surprise and complex feeling.

Maybe the line ends on an enjambment (when a line moves the next line outside of a natural pause, for example, William Carlos Williams' classic poem "The Red Wheelbarrow" reads, "so much depends / upon. a red wheel. barrow." One of the poets noted that this can make the reader feel as though they are chasing after the words, adding to the emotional effect of the poem. Another panelist recommended "Elegy for Bruce Lee" by W. Todd Kaneko as an excellent example,, because of that “one line break that has the power to devastate the reader.”

Prose poetry, in which the words are presenting in a single, unbroken block of text, create a different effect. The panelists noted that even without the line breaks, prose poetry can provide a musicality. It often presents a density of language and can sometimes create a sense of breathlessness. For example, “The Birds” by Rafiat Lamidi in Uncanny Magazine.

Other examples of how to play with form include:

• Concrete or shape Poetry, in which the words of the poem are used to create the shape of an object.

• Experimenting with traditional forms, such the poem "Sestina: Bob" by Jonah Winter

• Found poetry, which engages with an existing text, as in Jessica McHugh’s blackout poetry

• Taking existing forms in the world (lists, receipts, letters, board games, etc.) and making a poem out of it, such as “Amazon History of a Former Nail Salon Worker” by Ocean Vuong, which creates a huge emotional impact through a simple list of items.

• Hypertext poetry, which includes links to create interactivity with the poem, such as "Penetration" by Robert Kendall or "The horse is dead" by Nico May.

For those wanting to further explore poetic forms, the panelists recommended the following books:

• The Book of Forms: A Handbook of Poetics, Including Odd and Invented Forms by Lewis Turco

• A Poet's Glossary and How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry by Edward Hirsch

• The Art of Poetry: How to Read a Poem by Shira Wolosky

In Self-Publishing for Poets, panelists F.J. Bergmann, Steve D. Brewer, Rath Mercury, Sumiko Saulson, and Holly Lyn Walrath emphasize that there’s a long history and tradition of poets self publishing their work. The panelists recommended multiple options for self publishing, ranging from digital and print-on-demand programs (like Ingram Spark, Smashwords, and Drafted Digital) to tiny, hand-folded zines to social media.

However, the first question the panelists asked was, Why do you want to self publish? Is it just to have a book? Is it to grow your audience? Self publishing can be a way of existing outside of the mainstream, directly connecting with readers, or publishing work that would otherwise be hard to publish (such as works that are very tiny or full color or so on). Understanding why you want to self publish will help when deciding what method would be best to self publish a particular work.

The panelists emphasized that, for self publishing, it’s important to have a connection to a community, otherwise the books will not sell. One method is to publish poems on social media, build a following, and then print a book afterward. Other methods include submitting poems to journals, running a Kickstarter, and attending open mics, readings, and gatherings. One poet was conducting workshops on grief at a community church and would sell her poems which explored her own experience of grief (selling approximately 2,000 copies).

Readings & Events

WorldCon offered so many great readings and events (of which I attended only a fraction. Linda D. Addison, a well-known author of horror poetry and the first African-American writer to win the Bram Stoker Award, gave a fantastic reading from her two new collaborative poetry books — An Illegal Feast and Everything Endless — which she signed for me. She was so lovely and charming, and I’m so grateful to have met her.  

I also attended a group poetry reading with EB Helveg (a slipstream artist and poet), Angela Liu (a finalist for the a 2025 Hugo Best Poem Award), Mari Ness (author of Through Immortal Shadows Singing, a novella in poems), Saulson Sumiko (author of The Rat King: A Book of Dark Poetry), and Ursula Whitcher (author of North Continent Ribbon, a mosaic novel formed from short stories). All of them provided phenomenal, compelling poetry.

Martha Wells, one of the WorldCon Guests of Honor and one of my favorite authors, gave a reading in a packed ballroom. She read from the sequel to Witch King and from — my personal favorite — the next book in The Murderbot Diaries. I am so excited for the next Murderbot book, and I may have to pick up and start reading the Witch King series.

Alexis Kaegi, an author, game writer, and friend from The Narrative Department, read her short story, “Mirror, Mirage,” published in the anthology, Morgana le Fay: New & Ancient Arthurian Tales. I really enjoyed her story and can’t wait to explore the full anthology.

One of my favorite events was an offsite reading hosted by my publisher Interstellar Flight Press at the Seattle Beer Company. It was so amazing to be able to hear readings from other Interstellar Flight authors, and I also read from my recently published collection of poetry, Necessary Poisons.

Brandon O’Brien, author of Can You Sign My Tentacle? and Poet Laureate of WorldCon, hosted a fantastic open mic. Brandon is always so welcoming and comforting as a host, and it was another amazing night of poetry and words. So, many amazing poets and authors, and I wish I remembered all their names.

All of which is to say that one of the best parts of WorldCon was the amazing people I had a chance to listen to, speak with, and befriend along the way.

What I’ve Been Working On

I’ve been focused on my freelance work, both the game I can talk about and the one I can’t. The one I can talk about — Monochrome Heights — is inching toward completion. I’m currently helping to finalize the ending scenes, and will be proofreading all of the game text for any spelling or grammatical issues, while Patrick Knisely (One Frog Games) finishes implementation and polishing. We’re hoping that the game will finally come out this Fall. Wishlist it here. 

In other goings on, Scuzzbucket published my pantoum on solitude, “Uprooting,” and The Writing Cooperative published an essay in which I explore the question: “Are Exercises and Prompts Worthwhile for Writers?”

Good Reads

Bryant Francis asks, "Is generative AI really 'just a tool'?"

Shannan Mann presents 13 reasons to keep making art even if no one gives a shit: