WAM! 2008

I haven't posted about either WAM or the rest of my trip east because, frankly, I haven't had time — I got back to Portland with a teetering pile of pre-production work about to fall off my already stacked-sky-high plate, and I'm still slogging through it. But I have been reading what others out there have had to say about their conference experiences, and it's a combination of unsurprising, enlightening, and depressing.

Among the postconference musings I read today were those of Blackamazon, one of which has started something of a...situation with Seal Press. Namely, the musing — which came at the end of a long and sort-of-unrelated-to-said-musing post — was "Fuck Seal Press," and the situation was that the ladies at Seal jumped in to defend themselves, with less than satisfactory results. And when I say "less than satisfactory," I mean for everyone.

A lot of discussion about WAM! is going on. Some of it's in public blogs, like here, and here, here, here, and here. (I know, that's a lazy way of linking, but I'm tired....) Also here. (OK, I promise I'll stop that.)

A lot of the discussion is also happening over email, and so it's not public.  I've participated in some of this email discussion, but in the interest of being open about my perceptions, I'd like to mention some of the things I've written about in emails…

This was my first WAM! experience, so I have no direct points of comparison. In all honesty, I've outright avoided WAM! up until this year. Here's why...

I have been to every Women, Action, and Media conference except one (I had to miss last year's because of a scheduling conflict, and it just about broke my heart), and this one was the best ever. Put on by the Center for New Words, WAM 2008 gathered 600 feminist activists and media folk to discuss, analyze, and strategize.

In the frenzy of preparing for my first Women, Action, and the Media (WAM!) conference, I'd arranged a flight that arrived in Boston a day before the conference actually began. Not cool since my hotel room share wasn't starting until tomorrow.

I wasn't too worried because I had a layover in Minneapolis and I managed to convince myself that surely the fine folks at Northwest would let me bump my flight to tomorrow and let me spend a day with my mom.