In the most everyday sense of the word, a “con” is a trick or a swindle pulled off by means of lies or dishonesty by conmen. Truly great cons are the work of con artists. Those immersed in fan culture, however, employ the word in another sense, as a clipping of “convention.” There are Comic-Cons, Gaming-Cons, and Professional Wrestling-Cons. BasedCon 2026, which convened at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Grand Rapids Airport earlier this month, is a science fiction and fantasy con that describes itself as “a gathering for people who still care about story, imagination, craftsmanship, and honest conversation … built for readers, writers, and fans who want thoughtful panels, great books, and a community that feels serious without being stiff.” The description is a compelling advertisement promise to any fan of science fiction and fantasy, a promise that would reveal itself in the experience of the con as a work of con artistry in one sense or another, well worth the price of admission. Would it be based? Based how? Based on what?
The adjective’s particular usage is of a recent provenance contrived by the California rapper Lil B in the 2000s, who later explained, “Based means being yourself. Not being scared of what people think about you. Not being afraid to do what you wanna do. Being positive.” By the 2010s, the term was embraced by right-wing folks, first online and then in the analog world in opposition to a resurgent political correctness (“wokeness”). By 2022, Republican Senator Mike Lee was tweeting from the twitter handle @BasedMikeLee.
Explicit right-coded “basedness” was the background radiation of this con. A short reading from an author the setting of which was the Republican National Convention, the great replacement theory advanced at an ironic distance, an impressive Alex Jones impression from an attendee during a Q&A session, etc. The foreground of the con, however, was based in the broadest and best sense.
During the opening session, BasedCon founder and author Robert Kroese spoke with genuine love and affection for all the panelists and attendees. Established and aspiring writers shared openly their work and works in progress that first evening, with one author holding back tears at an emotional moment of his story. Much of the writing was very strong, and I purchased two books, Michael F. Kane’s After Moses and Travis J.I. Corcoran and Lawrence Railey’s Thirty Pieces of Silver, on the strength of the brief readings alone.
Panels dove deep into genre tropes: “The Case Against the Chosen One,” “Magic Should Be Dangerous,” and “The Dark Lord Problem.” Some interrogated the genres themselves, as in the panel “When Science Fiction Isn’t Science Fiction: The Return of Science Fantasy” and the debate between medievalist and author Rachel Fulton Brown and scientist and author Hans G. Schantz over the resolution “Good storytelling requires fidelity to genre conventions.” Each was well and attentively attended with much amiable disagreement as was fitting for “a community that feels serious without being stiff.”
The highlights of the con, in addition to the opening night readings, were Saturday and Sunday morning’s opening sessions. Saturday’s opener, “Writing Advice: S-Tier to Garbage Tier,” is best distilled by panelist, systems engineer, and author Karl K. Gallagher’s observation that “for every piece of advice, there is an equal and opposite piece of advice.” Author Sarah Pierzchala, invoking the late Annie Dillard before her passing, advised writers not to hold back if they have a good idea but to put it down on the page. Robert Kroese noted, to the overwhelming consensus of the panelists, that “if you’re talking about what you are writing, you’re not writing.” If you’re not writing, get writing.
Sunday morning’s opening session, “More Books Than Readers,” tackled head on the elephant in the publishing room: There are too many books chasing too few readers. Much of this session was dominated by the nitty-gritty of publishing, promotion, and social media, but there were several takeaways that all pointed in the same direction. Money for marketing is better spent on covers and editors, which are the marketing embedded in your book and that follows it wherever it goes. Meet your readers and potential readers at cons; they can give you valuable feedback on covers and are opportunities to practice your sales pitch. Meet other authors. Find communities of people that the mass market is overlooking. Success for most authors in the modern marketplace is defined by neither fame nor fortune but by finding and connecting with an audience of dedicated readers.
The moral of BasedCon is that talent doesn’t just pool within established institutions and can thrive at the margins, and that the flooded market, a threat to the publishing industry, is an opportunity for writers, even marginal or heterodox ones, to connect with one another and their audience in new ways. When Amazon searches yield a pile of slush, an arbitrage opportunity rises. Small, dense networks where readers know authors, the world of cons, look a lot more like artistic scenes than industries. Publishing as we know it might be dying, but publishing itself is merely changing.
Anthony Trollope worked at a post office and Wallace Stevens sold insurance. Anton Chekhov confessed, “Medicine is my lawful wife, and literature is my mistress.” Why should it be strange that Karl Gallagher is a systems engineer and Michael Kane the music director of a midsized church? An author’s choice need not be between being a full-time writer and not writing at all. In practice, each writer is faced with the choice we all must make, between consumptive and creative leisure, between making something and scrolling.
W.H. Murray, the Scottish mountaineer and writer, in his The Scottish Himalayan Expedition, wrote, “Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too.”
Ever since I left BasedCon, I’ve been thinking about that: the terminal mid-lister big publishers are now casting off as dead weight, the semi-professional, the hobbyist producing work for 300 readers—each is stemming a tide of pure consumption with cultural production. There are only too many books if they exist solely to be sold and not crafted.
W.H. Murray found inspiration in one of Goethe’s couplets: “Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now.”
I found it at BasedCon. God moves in mysterious ways, His wonders to perform.
