Holiday Membership Special 2024—EXTENDED!
Did you buy your membership to Norwescon 47 before the start of the new year? Don’t fret–the current price of $95 for a full four-day adult membership is extended until January 15, 2025! This is an amazing deal for four jam-packed days of science fiction and fantasy programming and entertainment. Now is the time to get your membership so you can start focusing on other important things like, “Which costume am I going to wear each day of the con?” or, “Is my bag of holding big enough?”
The rate will increase to $110 on January 16, 2025. Visit our Memberships Page to register. You will also find instructions on how to reset the password for your registration account and how to obtain a membership for someone else. If you have any questions, please contact registration@norwescon.org.
Hotel Rooms Are Filling Up Fast
Are you thinking about staying at the hotel so that you don’t miss out on the fun but haven’t booked your room yet? You still can! Make your hotel room reservations now before our room block fills up. Remember, our special room rate includes parking for one car. Find out more and make your reservation on the Hotel Page of our website.
Welcome to the Norwescon Writers Workshop
Welcome to the Norwescon Writers Workshop (NWW), presented by the Pacific Northwest’s premier science fiction and fantasy convention. This is a Milford-style workshop: a peer-to-peer critique facilitated by professional writers, editors, and agents. Critique sessions will be held in person during the convention.
All participants must have purchased a convention membership by March 1, 2025. There are no additional fees. We accept one manuscript submission per attendee, either a short story or novel excerpt in the science fiction, fantasy, or horror genre.
There are a limited number of spaces available in the workshop and it will be curated, so submit your application as soon as possible. The deadline for submissions is March 1, 2025.
Science Guest of Honor Tracy Drain
Tracy Drain is a Systems Engineer with a career steeped in deep space exploration. She received a Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Kentucky in 1998 and a Master’s Degree from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2000, both in Mechanical Engineering. As an undergrad at the University of Kentucky, she interned at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, VA. After graduating from Georgia Tech in 2000, she officially joined the NASA family as a full-time employee at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA.
In her 20+ years at the JPL, Tracy has been involved in the development, testing, and/or operation of five missions: Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (a science and relay orbiter at Mars), Kepler (a space-based Exoplanet hunter), Juno (Jupiter orbiter), Psyche (currently on its way to study an asteroid), and now Europa Clipper (a mission to one of the icy moons of Jupiter, launched in October 2024).
Her roles on these missions have included the following: Transition Phase Lead and Lead Systems Engineer in operations for MRO, the Mission Readiness Lead for Kepler, Deputy Chief Engineer in operations for Juno, Deputy Project Systems Engineer for Psyche, and until recently the Lead Flight Systems Engineer for Europa Clipper. She has now taken on the role of “Launch to Mars” Mission Manager for Clipper. In that capacity, she will lead the operations team in preparing for and executing the first four months of checkouts and the Mars flyby gravity assist (a key milestone in the spacecraft’s 5.5-year journey to the Jovian system).
Drain has received NASA Exceptional Achievement Medals for her work on Kepler and MRO. She has also been honored with the JPL Bruce Murray Award for exceptional support for the education of minority and female STEM students through community programs, distance learning, and public events.
A life-long learner, Tracy loves encouraging people to nurture their curiosity and explore the wonders that surround us. She serves on the planning committee for the National Academy of Science’s Science and Entertainment Exchange and on the advisory board of Arizona State University’s Interplanetary Initiative. In her spare time, she enjoys mentoring, reading (sci-fi, psychology, sociology, and history), watching shows/movies (sci-fi, documentaries, and K-dramas), and studying languages (Spanish and Korean).
Norwescon 2024 Announces This Year’s Charity
Each year we ask Norwescon members to donate items for sale during the convention to support a nonprofit of choice or to offer prizes to our hard-working volunteers. This year our nonprofit of choice is Page Ahead. Page Ahead provides new books and develops reading activities that empower at-risk children. Founded in 1990, Page Ahead Children’s Literacy Program has given more than four million new books to more than one million children through collaborations with schools, social service agencies, preschools, and early childhood programs across Washington.
We will also be accepting donations of items that are fannish in nature such as art, jewelry, books, and games at the convention. Items will be available for sale throughout the convention in the art show or used as volunteer prizes. Please be sure to stop by the art show and see what we have to offer. It’s all for a good cause! If you would like to make a donation, please drop items off at the art show with a staff member. You can also email us about making a donation.
Norwescon is proud to be working with Page Ahead to help eliminate book deserts and get books into the hands of under-resourced children in the greater Seattle area, as well as other areas in the state of Washington. You can also donate a book directly to Page Ahead, or you can donate money directly at GiveDirect Fundraising Platform: Page Ahead Children’s Literacy Program.
2025 Lazer Tag / Nerf
This year the Lazer Tag / Nerf arena will be in an open format. This means that the members in the arena will vote on what will be played for each 20-minute timeframe. PLEASE NOTE this year you must bring your own Nerf gear and eye protection. EYE PROTECTION IS REQUIRED FOR NERF PLAY!
Club Table Applications Are Now Open
Club table applications are open, and we can’t wait to see what clubs, groups, conventions, and organizations that promote science, science fiction, fantasy, costuming/cosplay, and other fannish pursuits want to join us for four days of fun! Come meet our fabulous members, advertise your organization, and support fandom of all kinds. Apply on the Club Tables page of our website.
Meetups Open Still!
Have a club or interest you would like to talk about with other like-minded fans? Here is your chance! Sign up to run a meetup in our beautiful pro suite. You can relax on soft furniture and chat about whatever your meetup is about. Meetups are 50 minutes long and have a few requirements but are well worth getting to hang out with new friends.
Single Pattern Contest and Masquerade Updates
Show off your mad costume skills at Norwescon this year! Enter our Single Pattern Contest and have fun with our unisex sweatshirt and pants pattern. Rules and entry forms can be found on the SPC Page.
Or go for broke and enter our Masquerade. All skill levels welcome! Masquerade entrants have a chance to win a membership to Norwescon 48. We look forward to seeing you shine! Rules and entry forms can be found on the Masquerade Page.
The Shire Update
Hear Ye! The Shire is back for its second year. We are looking for prize donations (e.g., water bottles, messenger bags, stickers, full-sized candy bars). This year, the second-year Shirelings will be learning basic hand sewing such as patches, hems, and buttons. We are also hosting an Elder who will be teaching all ages “Magic The Gathering.” We hope to see new faces and meet old friends in the Teen Lounge. For questions, suggestions, or to arrange prize donations, please contact The Shire.
Announcing Norwescon Gaming Host
This year Dragonflight is generously hosting our gaming! As we get closer to Easter, look for schedules and sign-up sheets.
Help Expand Our Digital Archives
Norwescon has been around for almost half a century! Pretty exciting, isn’t it? But did you know that you can explore Norwescon’s past in our historical archives? We’ve been working on collecting, scanning, and archiving all sorts of material from our past. The collection includes badges, program books, progress reports, and more, and we’d like your help in continuing to build it out!
We’ve assembled an archives tracking spreadsheet noting what we have and what we’re missing, and we’d love to fill in as many of those blanks as possible. If you have old Norwescon paraphernalia tucked away somewhere that isn’t in our archives, we’d appreciate it if you could either scan it (at 200 dpi or better) and email it to us, or contact us if you’d be willing to part with it, and we’ll give you a physical mailing address to send it to. Please contact archives@norwescon.org if you can help, or just hop into the archives and enjoy browsing through Norwescon’s past!
Call for Assistance with Website Accessibility Review
In cooperation with our member services team’s work on ensuring our physical spaces are accessible for our disabled members, our publications and website teams are working on ensuring that our online publications, including our website, email newsletters, and social media posts, are properly set up for full accessibility, including compatibility with assistive technology software and hardware.
We’d like to know: If you are an assistive technology user, would you be willing to volunteer some time to go through our website and let us know if you encounter any difficulties or incompatibilities, or if you find any areas that have escaped our notice and could use improvement?
If you do not use assistive technology but know someone who does, might they be willing to assist with this effort? And of course, even if you don’t have the time, energy, or spoons to assist, if you are an assistive technology user who ever does encounter any difficulties with our website or other publications, we welcome comments at either website@norwescon.org or accessibility@norwescon.org.