Meet our Committee
Headed by convenor Deb Costello, the Swancon 50 con-com is made up of a dedicated mix of Swancon veterans and next gen. As is the case with most Australian regional conventions all Swancon committee and assorted helpers are volunteers and convention members and we bring you this yearly event as a labour of love.
Convenor
Deb Costello
Deb has been attending Swancon for about 20 years. She was Guest Liaison for Swancon 48, an experience that inspired her to bid for Swancon 50.
Deb has been an SF fan since childhood and loves SF-related movies, TV shows and books. She particularly enjoys the intersection of SF with crime/thriller/horror.
She is passionate about social justice. She runs a consulting business where she works to build the capacity of not-for-profit organisations.
Deb is honoured to be Convenor of Swancon 50.
Administrator
Anna Hepworth
Anna has been a member of the SwanCon community since SwanCon 18 in 1993. They intermittently decide that being on a SwanCon committee looks like fun, and have variously been administrator (as again this year), treasurer, and convenor.
Primarily a book fan, they enjoy an eclectic range of science fiction, fantasy, horror, and anything else that might be classified as ‘speculative fiction’. Their current special interest is digital privacy in an increasingly AI world.
Digital Gaming
Adam McCaw
Hi everyone! I’m your digital gaming coordinator for Swancon 50. I’ve been a part of Swancon for a long time and usually help run the video gaming stream or elements of the family stream at past Swancons.
Gaming has always been an essential part of Swancon, so I’ll be doing my best to have something for everyone to enjoy and play at the con.
Those of you might know me as the gaming dragon, or as that kid who grew up in the convention and has helped behind the scenes at many events over the years.
I look forward to helping make Swancon 50 the best Swancon ever.
Traders Coordinator
Cathy Cogan
My first time at a Swancon was back in 2002 Dragons of the World, at which I won a membership to Swancon 2003, Convergence. I was awol for 2005-6 but I manage to make an appearance in 2007 and from 2008 on, have attended every convention since.
I’ve been running the traders room from 2009 to present day, for various conventions, including Swancon.
My hobbies are stamp collecting and writing fan fics and my obsessions are KPOP, Matt Smith’s chin and the 13th Doctor and Yaz.
Committee Member
Bryn Hepworth
Bryn has been a member of the SwanCon community their entire life. They were the youngest person ever to receive a 20 year SwanCon badge. They’ve decided that it is time to give back to the community that raised them. They read widely and have a keen interest in representations of queer youth in media. Their SF interests are Anne Leckie and Warehouse 13.
Awards and Convention Events
Sarah Xu
Sarah is an artist, editor, film maker, radio announcer and longtime fan. They were involved in the running of Swancons and associated fannish events around the turn of the century and was honored to be fan guest at Swancon 36/NatCon 50.
After moving to the eastern states and finding that it is indeed true – Perth fans don’t know how lucky they are – Sarah is returning to Perth fandom to coordinate the return of the Tin Ducks, which are, according to Sarah, arguably the most important SF awards in the world.
Social Media and Marketing Assistant
Liam Xu-Franks
Liam was born to be a fan and it is inevitable that he would one day end up on a convention committee. As H.G. Wells discovered, even if you have the ability to time travel, you can’t fight fate.
Committee Member
Frances Brigg
Frances is an avid reader, science fiction and fantasy film and anime fan, who plays Eurogame board games and has attended many Swancons. Frances is interested in art and science and has been active in both. Her creative outlet is quilting and she has made over a hundred quilts.
Coordinator for the Swancon 50 Academic Program & Lead for the STEMM stream
Dr Bec Handcock
Dr Bec Handcock is a Senior Data Scientist who uses data to tell stories about our planet. She is an expert in satellite remote sensing, big data analytics, and data visualisation, bridging technical and applied domains.
Her research areas range from monitoring agriculture and water using satellite data, to multidisciplinary projects in health, and open knowledge.
Rebecca holds a PhD in Geography and an MSc in Environmental Modelling from the University of Toronto (Canada), and a BSc (Hons) in Information Technology and Geography from the University of Western Australia.
and Thank you to Former Committee Member
Jennifer Gladwell
When I think of fandom and community I think of Swancon. For me, it is a place where people are accepted for whoever they are and whatever they bring to the community. From my very first Convention I was welcomed and included. I have made some amazingly close friendships from the people I met at Swancon.
Previously I have been a Guest Liaison for Swancon 2013 and was the Convenor of Swancon 49 (2025). I am looking forward to the events, fundraising and marketing I will be doing for Swancon 50 in 2025/26!
Lead Programmer
Michael Cogan
Michael first stepped into Swancon in 2006 and has attended every con since. He has been involved in several roles over the years including Convenor, Programmer, Gaming Coordinator & Volunteers Coordinator. He has also done some DJ work for the masquerade.
Outside Swancon his interests include radio presenting, which he has done for 12 years. Creating Machinima and other gaming related video content. Formula One, board gaming, space exploration, comics and of course spec fic.
Michael’s spare time is often taken up by being judged by his small cat Skipper.
Treasurer
Margaret Watts
Margaret has the treasurer role for Swancon 50. She is looking forward to a fantastic convention that will celebrate our past and our future. Margaret’s fandom is pretty diverse. She loves dystopian fiction and fiction podcasts. She also watches a huge amount of TV.
Outside of fandom Margaret cooks, reads, crochets, sews, travels, plays the banjo and rides a bike (not all at once). She cares deeply about the environment and climate change and does volunteer work in that space as well.
Venue Liaison
Sandra Norman
Sandra was involved in the local SF scene initially through UniSFA. In 1993 she was lured to her first Swancon with the promise of meeting Terry Pratchett and has attended every con since.
She was treasurer for Swancon 26. She was part of the Gynaecon Collective, who were jointly awarded a Silver Swan in 2016. Having a background in physics, she enjoys hard SF, but also reads broadly across all speculative fiction.
Board Gaming
Wez Lamont
I am a random assortment of interests and talents. This is the second year supporting SwanCon on the Committee but I’ve also been on numerous other committees over the years in mostly geek areas.
I was an avid Fantasy reader, sci-fi lover and Anime lover.
I also love making and designing things of all manners such as Sci-Fi artwork or publishing boardgames (when I find time).
Eastern States Liaison
Cat Sparks
Cat Sparks is a multi-award-winning Australian author, editor and artist with a PhD examining the intersection between ecocatastrophe science fiction and climate fiction.
Career highlights include five years as Fiction Editor of Cosmos Magazine, directing two speculative fiction festivals for Writing NSW, participating in the Science Fiction as a Lens into Future War seminar at the Centre for Defence Research ADC, running Agog! Press, working as an archaeological dig photographer in Jordan, studying with Margaret Atwood, 90+ published short stories, two collections – The Bride Price (2013) and Dark Harvest (2020) and a far future novel, Lotus Blue (2017) best described as ‘Mad Max meets Ghost in the Shell’.
Calvaria Fell, a shared world collection with Kaaron Warren, was published by Meerkat Press in 2024. Other interests include climate activism & photography.
Art Show Coordinator
Emma Hawkes
Emma has been a member of the Swancon community for many years. She is an active creative artist who has curated the Swancon Art Show numerous times.
Emma was also instrumental in the creation of the Norma K Hemming Award, that celebrates exploration of race, gender, sexuality, class or disability in SF.
Volunteer Coordinator
Ruth Turner
Ruth attended her first Swancon in 1993 and hasn’t missed one since, was quickly a fixture on the front desk and on her first committee in 1995, then swore not to do it again ! (spoilers she did !)
Ruth loves SF (TV mostly and the odd space opera book) Urban Fantasy, High Fantasy and Crime/police procedurals, put more than one in the same book and she’s a fan. She is also a Gamer (Mostly PC games)
She’s also a big fan of Anime & Manga and is a Self confessed Japnonphile and is an avid practitioner of Qigong
In Her day job you will find her helping Famers wrangle Technology
Lead for the HASS stream in the Swancon 50 Academic Program
Dr Gillian POLACK
Dr Gillian POLACK is an Australian speculative fiction writer with too many PhDs. In 2020 she was awarded the A. Bertram Chandler Award (lifetime achievement in science fiction). Her most recent novel is The Green Children Help Out. Her next (much-delayed) novel will be released this year. Her study of culture in speculative fiction, Story Matrices: Cultural Encoding and Cultural Baggage in the Worlds of Science Fiction and Fantasy was released in 2022.
In 2023, her short story from Other Covenants was a finalist for the Sidewise Award, which is wildly appropriate because she is an ethnohistorian with a special interest in how story transmits culture, both Medieval and Modern.
She has recently researched how Modern Western Germany sees its Jewish past, and into what speculative fiction novels tell us about world building. Gillian can be found on much social media under her own name. For her books: https://gillianpolack.com
