News from Norwescon 47 March 2025

Quick Links:

• Single Pattern Contest and Masquerade Membership Prize Reminder
• Norwescon’s Bibliophiles Update
• Games, Games, and More Games!
• Help the Norwescon ‘Zine Become a Success
• Read for the Endeavor Award
• Volunteer for Norwescon 47
• Call for Assistance with Website Accessibility Review

Single Pattern Contest and Masquerade Membership Prize Reminder

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. 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!

Norwescon’s Bibliophiles Update

Norwescon’s official year-round book club, Norwescon’s Bibliophiles, is reading some of the recently announced Philip K. Dick nominees for our March and April books. These include the following:

• March 17 – online – Triangulum by Subodhana Wijeyeratne
• April TBD – in person at Norwescon – City of Dancing Gargoyles by Tara Campbell

All are welcome at Norwescon Bibliophile events. This is an opportunity to discuss science fiction and fantasy books with other enthusiasts, not only during our annual convention in April but all year round. If you were planning to read the P.K. Dick nominees anyway, consider attending one of our upcoming meetings and joining the discussion.

Games, Games, and More Games!

This year the games at Norwescon 47 are being hosted by the Puget Sound Tabletop Gaming Alliance. This group involves volunteers from Dragonflight GameCon, Alexandria RPG Library, Emerald City Lodge, and Grit City RPG League. Pathfinder Society and Starfinder Society games at Norwescon are brought to you by the Emerald City Lodge on behalf of Paizo Organized Play. Emerald City Lodge supports local conventions and play regularly in various locations around the greater Seattle metropolitan area. All are welcome, with no experience necessary! You can reach them on their Discord server. Dungeons & Dragons organized play during Norwescon is brought to you by Grit City RPG League.

• If you are interested in volunteering with the games group, we need administrative and library help. Please email us for more information.
• Games will be available all weekend at Norwescon 47! GM registration and game submissions are available now. The submission deadline is March 20, 2025. Please submit games through the game submission form.
• Player sign-ups are available now! Check out the available games and sign up on our Warhorn page. The deadline to sign up via Warhorn is April 13, 2025. Walk-in players will be accepted on the day of the game at the convention.

Attention: TTRPG and D&D Adventurers League Game Masters

If you need modules to run for the convention, we can help! R. Talsorian Games has offered to send out PDFs of their adventures for Cyberpunk as well as the new Edgerunner PDF. We may be able to help out with costs of D&D Adventurers League modules. We can also assist with modules for other systems that you would like to bring to the convention! For more information, email us.

Special Gaming Events!

Dragonflight is hosting a very special Magic: The Gathering Mystery Booster 2 for Draft, a limited-run pack of Magic with some retro cards and very rare pulls. Limited to 16 tickets for 50 dollars each. It will be hosted in Maxis’ on Friday.

Norwescon is hosting a CATAN championship qualifying event for the upcoming 2025 United States Championship. Save the date 4/20/2025.

Help the Norwescon ‘Zine Become a Success!

The Norwescon ‘Zine (the official daily news sheet for Norwescon 47) will be full of information for you each day of the convention – and some of that comes from you!

1. Did you have a memorable or funny meeting with one of our honorable guests or another con attendee? Send in a short paragraph!
2. Did you overhear something wonderfully odd and geeky (things you’re only going to hear at a sci-fi and fantasy convention that have you chuckling with fannish delight)? Send that line or short dialogue to us!
3. Did you attend a gathering or event you want to crow about? Be a “roving reporter” and send in a blurb!
4. See something cool – costumes, groups having fun, a visiting extraterrestrial wondering what all the fuss is about? A photo is always welcome, so send it in!

We welcome your submissions! Send your content, ideas, and photos to the 'Zine. The ‘Zine will be available each morning of Norwescon 47 at 10 a.m. – both online and at the information desk.

Read for the Endeavor Award

Become a Preliminary Reader for the Endeavor Award! Preliminary Readers read works from the field of science fiction and fantasy that have been submitted and rate them. The top five works will then be rated by judges for the Endeavor Award.

The Endeavor Award represents a collaboration between writers and fans of science fiction and fantasy to encourage the growth of literature in the field and recognize works of excellence. The award is sponsored by the Oregon Science Fiction Conventions and given each year at Orycon. The deadline for book submissions this year is March 17, 2025.

Volunteer for Norwescon 47

Are you or a friend coming to Norwescon and looking for something to do during or before the convention? Consider joining our volunteer staff! We have positions open for people of varying skill types and interests.

If you are media savvy, we are looking for streaming and social media assistants. If you feel especially good at making people feel welcome, we are looking for convention lounge hosts, registration team members, and programming services team members. We have these positions, and many more, up for grabs over on the Open Volunteer Positions page on the Norwescon website.

Call for Assistance with Website Accessibility Review

Hello ConCom! 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.