The 2024 Flights of Foundry con will run from September 27-29. I’m looking forward to lots of interesting panels and discussion groups—including a celebration of speculative flash fiction! And WOOHOO! I get to moderate that discussion! The program looks amazing, with a wide variety of topics scheduled around the clock so every time zone gets to participate. Registration is free (but a donation would be appreciated!).
Huge thanks to Cislyn Smith and Jessica Eanes, convention co-chairs, for taking time out of an insane schedule to answer my questions!
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Myna: Tell us about Flights of Foundry!
Cislyn & Jessica: Flights of Foundry is a three-day virtual, interdisciplinary, international SFFH convention. It’s a packed weekend of interesting discussions, making connections, and leveling up skills.
Myna: How did FoF get started? Who is involved in managing the event?
Cislyn & Jessica: In early 2020, when the pandemic was getting really real, Dream Foundry was planning a kickstarter style fundraiser. We saw an opportunity to do something different and bring the SFFH community together when we were all feeling separated, and we haven’t looked back since.
Myna: What’s unique about FoF?
Cislyn & Jessica: We work hard to be truly global and offer programming not just in a North America-centric bunch of time zones. We are also 100% virtual and will always be free to attend.
Myna: What can attendees expect?
Cislyn & Jessica: Near round-the-clock programming with panels, readings, presentations, workshops, chill-n-chats and more, on topics relevant to anyone working in the SFFH industry.
Publishers, writers, editors, translators, illustrators, poets, game writers, comics creators, streamers, folks who play or create ttrpgs – we aim to have multidisciplinary content for as many mediums as we can!
There will also be co-working sessions, hangouts, and lots of chances to meet other creators. This year in particular, we’re featuring the community as our guests of honor – that means everyone who registers has a chance to be on programming and to influence our program. We’re looking forward to featuring so many awesome creators around the world.
Myna: How can folks volunteer to help?
Cislyn & Jessica: We have a form for that: https://flights-of-foundry.org/volunteer/
Myna: What do you wish more people knew about FoF?
Cislyn & Jessica: FoF is free to attend, but it’s also Dream Foundry’s biggest fundraiser, and enables a lot of other cool stuff we do throughout the year. There are lots of ways to support our work, and because Dream Foundry is a 501(c)3 nonprofit, donations are tax deductible.
Myna: Tell us about your role. What do you do? What takes the most time? What is your favorite part of this job?
Cislyn & Jessica: We have a very lean team this year, so convention chairs Jessica and Cislyn are managing the back-end systems, the website, the event volunteers, and developing the program. That includes outreach, communication, scheduling, re-scheduling when it turns out that time zones are confusing and bad, re-re-rescheduling… Dealing with time for a multi-day virtual event that’s aiming to be truly global is the hardest part. The connections and new awesome projects and schemes and people emerging from the convention energized and fired up is definitely the best part.
Myna: What do you wish I’d asked?
Cislyn & Jessica: “Tell us about your gryphon mascots!” Meet the Flights of Foundry official mascots – Toast the cockatoo gryphon, Swooperton the bald eagle gryphon, Hoodini the barn owl gryphon, and Bartholomew the harpy eagle gryphon! They were created by Lauren Blake, one of the Dream Foundry art contest winners, and named by the community. In 2022 they got a makeover by Tyler Renee Broussard.
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Cislyn Smith is a writer and Rhysling-nominated poet whose works have appeared in Strange Horizons, Flash Fiction Online, The Deadlands, and many other magazines. She’s co-editor of Small Wonders Magazine, the operations manager at Dream Foundry, and has helped to put on every Flights of Foundry Convention. She lives in Madison, Wisconsin where she wears many hats (figuratively and literally), and pets many cats (just literally).
Jessica Eanes, also known as Anaea Lay, is executive director of the Dream Foundry, and lives in Chicago, Illinois where she engages in a numinous love affair with the city. Her short fiction has appeared in a variety of venues including Lightspeed, Apex, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and Pod Castle. When she works for money she has sold real estate, wrangled IT as a PM, and talked people into buying very nice couches. She drinks too much tea. For fun she reads, cooks, eats, plays board games, interrogates people about the logistics of their chosen field, and forms intricate business plans over brunch.
Flights of Foundry website
Myna Chang 