I am not at all impulsive, but one day last year I gave in and purchased, without really thinking, tickets to Star Wars Celebration 2019. The event, which took place last month was what I had always expected it to be — a party with 65,000 of my fellow fans. Before attending I had been apprehensive about my diminishing levels of fandom for the GFFA, and this convention was the moment to see how I really felt. As I wandered amidst the crowds I realized that:
For all our differences we had this one thing in common. Like Chewbacca, even if we didn’t speak the same language or come from the same place there was a sense of camaraderie and excitement. A common love. -(FANGirl Blog)
One of the great things about the convention was meeting, in person, individuals who I had spent years talking to online. It was through these conversations that I recognized that even if parts of the fandom aren’t connecting, there is so much more to appreciate.
An example. While in Chicago, I had the opportunity to talk with fans in a different way when the hosts of Fangirls Going Rogue invited me to be a guest on their live Celebration episode.
The hosts of this podcast, Tricia Barr, Teresa Delgado, and Sarah Woloski (and their social media manager Sandra Choute) asked me to speak about the intersection of my love of history and Star Wars, including thier influence on one another. I had a great time talking about my broader love of storytelling, centering around the practice of world building using all the elements of narrative from music to costumes.
The panel in its entirety is below. My portion starts at minute 25.
Finally, a word about podracing, or rather the film that brought us the sport.
May 19 marked the 20th anniversary of Episode I, The Phantom Menace (TPM). While it is problematic movie for a variety of reasons —ranging from racist tropes and stereotypes, to the awkwardness of the scripts —there was also a lot of good. One of the main panels at Star Wars Celebration centered around this anniversary, and while informative in it’s own ways, it failed to encompass why TPM continues to mean a lot to fans. Last week, to mark the celebration I wrote up my own version of what an anniversary panel might look like: You can check out Alternate Celebration Reality: The Phantom Menace 20th Anniversary Panel on FANgirl blog.
...this is what comes next 