Worldcon has been over for more than a month now. I’ve had time to reflect on the things that we did in the run-up to Dublin 2019, and am still marveling at everything that happened at the convention itself. The Raksura Colony Tree turned out to be much better than I had imagined, and brought together a community of crafters. As the convention neared its end, I talked with a lot of people inside that community as well as others who enjoyed what we did. We discussed what it is that makes craft opportunities so important at a huge event like a Worldcon. There’s many good reasons I’ll discuss in a future post, but one thing we were all agreeing on is that we want projects like this to be part of future Worldcons as well. And since just wishing something into reality only works in fairytales, I want to provide us with a place to discuss ideas, document things that have been done and provide a bit of continuity in this area, which in particular for Worldcons isn’t easy to create, with a new team taking care of things every year.

For the moment, here’s how I see the scope for this blog: community art projects that encourage creating things together, as well as other self-directed craft activities that can be offered, such as colouring pages or origami. Those have some of the same benefits for people at a convention as the community projects while often being easier to organize, which is why I’d like to include them.

In the next weeks, I’ll slowly reorganize this page to reflect its new, extended mission. I will keep the name, since it is kind of fitting: In the Books of the Raksura, the Arbora are described in loving detail as craftspeople, and I’m sure they’d approve of the kind of work we’re trying to do here. I hope that in a few years our Dublin 2019 community project will have been only the start of something that’s become a permanent fixture at Worldcons and maybe beyond them.

~ Constanze