OryCon

Orycon is Portland, Oregon's annual science fiction/fantasy convention, held in November since 1979.

Event history

The one-day Symposium in 1978 was held at Portland State University. OryCon was held at the Lloyd Center Sheraton in 1979, at the Portland Hilton 1980-83 and 1985, at the Portland Cosmopolitan Hotel in 1984, at the Red Lion/Lloyd Center (formerly the Lloyd Center Sheraton) in 1986, at the Red Lion/Doubletree Columbia River Hotel from 1987 to 2003, at the Marriott (waterfront downtown) from 2003 to 2008, at the Red Lion/Lloyd Center beginning 2009.

Highlights

Orycon promotes science fiction and fantasy works of all kinds.

There are many panels and workshops discussing topics from how to write a great science fiction novel to current events in science, as well as numerous filk sessions and concerts. Some of the recent panel topics have included:

• Writing
  • When is enough research too much?
  • How to write about something you don't really know about
  • Using Your Imagination to Write and Draw
  • Inventing Languages: Alien Linguistics
  • Balancing Writing with Family/Real Life—Deadlines vs. diapers
• Current events
  • What impact does technology really have on history
  • Murdering stemcells and frankenfood: modern biology and the far left and right
  • The web in 2015 - a look ahead
  • The rest of the world's last year in space/Japanese Space Program. What they've done, what they are doing, what they have planned.
• Costuming
  • Making an original costume: What you need to get started
  • Fabric manipulation-How to twist, dye, stitch, fold, pleat and otherwise bully your fabric into submission
  • Period costumes beyond Victorian and medieval: Why don't we see more eras?
  • Costuming 101: Pattern bashing for beginners
• Art
  • Art Jam - Everybody Draws
  • Selling the Offspring: Your Emotional Investment in Your Art and How Much do You Charge for It?
  • The Business of Art
  • My inspiration - My art: Why I did what I did

The Susan C Petrey Scholarship Fund Auction awards scholarships to the Clarion Science Fiction Writers' Workshop (both in the East and West)

The Endeavour Award

The Endeavour Award is presented to a distinguished science fiction or fantasy book written by a Pacific Northwest author or authors and published in the previous year.

Finalists for 2012

• Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake (Tor)
• City of Ruins by Kristine Kathryn Rusch (Pyr)
• River Marked by Patricia Briggs (Ace)
• Robopocalypse by Daniel H. Wilson (Doubleday)
• When the Saints by Dave Duncan (Tor)

2011 Winner

• Dreadnought by Cherie Priest

External links

• Orycon website
• OSFCI links to past Orycons
• Endeavour Award webpage
• Oregon Science Fiction Conventions, Inc. (OSFCI)
• Game Storm website