Swancon 50 // Natcon 2026

The Swancon 50 away team was dispatched to Conflux 19 – Brave New Worlds – in Canberra, tasked with the mission of boldly reminding the Eastern States fandom community of the fun they can look forward to at next year’s Natcon in Perth.

The landing party consisted of Deb (Convenor/Command), Marg (Treasurer/Engineering), Sandra (Venue Liaison/Science Officer), Sarah and Liam (Red Shirts), and special operational support from Annabel (special guest star). Despite not being an official committee member, Annabel did a stellar job as our impromptu Chief Swancon Table Officer. We were joined on the scene by Cat Sparks (Eastern States Liaison/Foreign Ambassador) who was, coincidentally, on a separate side mission as Conflux Chair.

Excellent moderation and well prepared panels – Something that stood out to me was that all the panels I attended, regardless of topic, were well-moderated and balanced. This definitely enhanced the experience and is something we will want to take on board for our upcoming con.

Saturday night movie and pizza night – The screening was excellent (for fans of horror, probably not so much for the squeamish!): A-Positive, an intriguing short film based on a story by author Kaaron Warren, followed by The Furies. This was a feature film shot in Canberra that creatively played with one of my favourite tropes, the final girl, and was followed by a fabulous Q&A session with Kaaron Warren and The Furies director Tony D’Aquino.

Launchapaloosa – a consolidated, multi-author launch party—was great fun and a really good way to showcase local authors.

Late Night with Nick – an informal chat with Nick Stathopoulos, was also a standout. He shared outrageous stories from his extraordinary life. From premonitions to surreal nipple anecdotes, this was definitely worth staying past my bed time for.

Workshops – In addition to the main stream of panels, several in-depth, hands-on workshops were on offer as pre-bookable events. I attended a ‘writing with ephemera’ workshop led by Kaaron Warren, who brought along an amazing collection of old documents, photos, and trinkets collected from op-shops to be used as inspiration. It was an engaging experience that had me writing fiction for the first time in nearly 20 years.

Conflux has most definitely found its niche, deliberately, as a writers’ con, and I love that for them. Yet it was a different focus to what I was used to, and I found myself reflecting on why that was. It started when we noticed the default small-talk question seemed to be, “What do you write?” People often seemed surprised to learn that this particular Swancon Away Party was comprised more of readers than writers. Not that they held it against us—most were thrilled to encounter dedicated readers—it’s just that this didn’t seem to be what they were expecting.

This got us collectively thinking about who we are as a community. Writers always have been and will continue to be an important part of Swancon, but equally so will other creatives, and perhaps even more importantly, so will Fans.

At Swancon, you are equally likely to be asked, “What do you read?”, “What have you been watching?”, “What have you made lately?”, “What is your favourite game?”, or just generally, “What are you into?”