SHareCon 2022, sadly, is over….

SHareCon 2022 was a fun weekend of games, panels, vids, episodes, and lots of fannish chatter. A huge thank you to everyone who made time to attend virtually, even for only one game, panel, or episode. We were so glad you joined us. We couldn’t have a con without you.

We also want to thank our CONspirators, without which we couldn’t manage to juggle so many activities. It takes more than a village to make a successful con. It takes a group of people willing to sacrifice a lot of personal time to pull this off. Take a bow!

We owe a debt of gratitude to our games organizers. It takes a wealth of knowledge to construct clever games based on our favorite show and our favorite guys and also make them fun. SHareCon games are a long-standing tradition, and we appreciate the work involved.

We’d also like to thank our panel moderators for keeping things lively. It was hard to end each of those fascinating discussions. Special thanks also go to our spotters who were at each panel to catch important questions in chat and spot “hands up” icons on time.

The vid shows were fun and the premiere vid show was outstanding. Special thanks to all the vidders willing to have their vids shown at the con, and for our vid show organizers for putting together such fun entertainment.

Thanks have to go to the writers and artists who contributed to the con e-zine. At nearly 200 pages it was a worthy addition to our SHareCon zine library!

Special thanks have to go to our TechMeister, who’s expertise and suggestions on how to improve the virtual con experience made this con run even more smoothly than the last one. We especially appreciated improvements initiated for the vid shows, special breakout rooms for chat, and get-togethers, and all the work that went into the card game, Starsky and Hutch Against Humanity. We couldn’t do it without you!!! TechMeister assures us that, in 2023, if the con is in-person, we can have a virtual component so fans who cannot attend can still participate.

So, thanks again to everyone involved in SHareCon 2022, organizers and attendees, and be looking for firm dates for SHarecon 2023 to be held sometime in October. We look forward to seeing you then.

Voting is open for the Finalists in the Paula Wilshe and Marian Kelly Awards

Thanks to everyone who nominated creators for the Paula Wilshe Award for New Writers in SH and the Marian Kelly Hall of Fame. We had great participation this year. The awards are a chance to give our hard working creators a little love for everything they give us.

Now comes the hard part. Time to vote for the finalists.

Congratulations to the 22 nominees for the Paula Wilshe Award for New Writers in SH. It’s great that we have such a large field of new writers! Out of that outstanding list, we have 11 finalists. Picking your favorite won’t be easy. Vote for the finalists here.

The Marian Kelly Hall of Fame has three categories: Best Writer, Best Artist, and Best Vidder. Vote for the finalists in each category here.

Best Writer had 38 nominees! Out of that exciting list we have 10 finalists. Congratulations nominees and finalists.

Best Artist added two more nominees before the deadline. Check out their art by clicking their links. All 7 nominees are dynamic artists! Congratulations and good luck.

Best Vidder had 16 nominees. That amazing group has 8 finalists. Congratulations nominees and finalists.

Final voting begins now and closes on September 30th. Winners for both awards will be announced at SHareCon on Saturday, October 15th, and posted on line soon after.

Vote for the Paula Wilshe Award here: https://sharecon.net/lime/index.php/686665

Vote for the Marian Kelly Hall of Fame awards here: https://sharecon.net/lime/index.php/552841

Thanks again to everyone who participated and good luck to the finalists.

The Awards Committee,

Cyanne, Flamingo, and Keri

The Paula Wilshe Award for New Writers in SH and The Marian Kelly Hall of Fame Awards 2022

Who were Paula Wilshe and Marian Kelly and why do they have awards? Paula was a fan who loved to work with new writers. We wanted to keep her memory alive and celebrate writers like she did, so in 2003 we started the Paula Wilshe (PW). Paula loved awards! Check out her fanlore page.

Marian was a Founding Mother in SH fandom. She created award-winning zine stories, art, and letterzine contributions, and ran one of the first Writer’s Workshops at Zebracon in 1980. In 2016, we started the Marian Kelly (MK) Hall of Fame. Check out her fanlore page.

Who’s eligible: For the PW, any writer who first published any Starsky & Hutch writing in any format or genre between January 2016 and April 1, 2022. Writers can only win the award once.

For the MK Hall of Fame, any writer no longer eligible for the PW is eligible for the MK Best Writer Award (unless they have already won). For the other two categories in the MK, Best Artist and Best Vidder, any person who has not won in that category previously is eligible. 

How can I know if my fav writer is eligible for the PW? Ask them! Or ask other fans. Or ask us. And don’t forget to nominate yourself.

How can I know who or what is eligible for the MK? There are three Best categories: Writer, Artist, and  Vidder. Individual MK Hall of Fame awards can only be won once. And don’t forget to nominate yourself.

Check the list of previous winners to make sure the person you want to nominate has not won previously.

What if my favorite writer isn’t eligible for the PW anymore? They’re still eligible for the Marian Kelly Award Hall of Fame Best Writer Award (unless they’ve already won it.)

I want to participate. How? Go to our survey for the PW or the MK to nominate:

a) For the PW or MK Best Writer, nominate as many writers as you want, but only nominate each writer once.

b) List author names, email address (if you know it), and where we can find their work (if you know), either with a link or your best guess (AO3, FF.net, etc.). If you’re not sure about those details, nominate them anyway.

c) For the other categories of the MK Hall of Fame, the information we need is the same: Creator name, email if you know it, and where we can find their work, if you know. 

d) Send any questions about the PW award to award@sharecon.net.

e) Send any questions about the MK Hall of Fame award to award@sharecon.net.

The person I wanted to nominate was already nominated by someone else. So I don’t need to nominate them, do I? Actually, you do. The finalists for the awards are determined by how many nominations they receive. So the more people who nominate a person helps get them closer to becoming finalists.

I sent in nominations already, but want to add more. You can add more nominations by filling out the survey again with new choices. Add your new suggestions but don’t repeat nominations you’ve already submitted.

Then what happens? In both awards, creators with the most nominations become finalists. All nominations close on August 15th at 9pm EDT .

You can vote for the finalists from August 19th through September 9th.

We’ll announce the winners at SHareCon and post it on line afterwards.

Important note: Since Keri T, Cyanne, and Flamingo are organizing this award, they are not eligible in any category.

SHareCon 2022 (Que Sera, Sera)

We reviewed our post from March 9, 2019, which talked about why we were having SHareCon two years in a row. We were trying to coordinate SHareCon with BistoCon, a gathering for the Professionals fandom that some of our members also attend. Coordinating the two cons so they weren’t in the same year seemed smart.

This was a year before Covid hit. A year before lockdowns, a year before the entire world changed right from under our feet. And here we are, two years later. Fortunately, life is completely back to normal!

The good news is we had a very successful virtual SHareCon. While we didn’t put out a zine, we had three days of fun with panels, vid parties, premieres, episodes, games, Baaaaad SH Theater, and the usual SHareCon shenanigans. It was fun. Not the same kind of fun that we have in person, but still a lot of fun. We missed the hugs, and getting to see people up close and personal, and communal meals, but we certainly didn’t miss sharing Con Crud — the traditional passing around of whatever virus is currently circulating — especially in the era of Covid. A lot of us also didn’t miss expensive plane trips, or expensive hotel stays, restaurant food, etc. It was, hands down, the most inexpensive con we’ve ever thrown.

Borrowing from dear Rosemary’s Pollyanna-style optimism, we have reserved space in our hotel for an in-person SHareCon near BWI airport in Maryland from October, 14 – 17, 2022. However, after two years or remaining Covid free, we’re just recovering from the Omicron variant. Hospitals are overflowing; the system is once again bogged down, and we’re wondering what the hell the future holds. We just don’t know.

October is a long ways away. We can only hope for the best…and plan for the worst. Will we have an in-person SHareCon this year… or another virtual one? Or a combination? All we can say is:

SHareCon’s Que Sera Sera
With apologies to Jay Livingston, Ray Evans, and especially Doris Day

When I was just a lockdown fan
I asked my concom when SHareCon will be
Will there be parties?
Will there be games?
Here’s what they said to me.

Que Sera Sera
Whatever will be will be
Covid’s future’s not ours to see
Que Sera Sera
What will be will be

When lockdown stopped and we had vaccines
I asked my concomm what lies ahead
Can we have panels?
Can we have meals out?
Here’s what my concomm said to me.

Que Sera Sera
Whatever will be will be
Covid’s future’s not ours to see?
Que Sera Sera
What will be will be

Two years later we’ve learned to zoom
Can this mean our
old SHareCon is doomed?
Can’t we be indoors?
Can’t we be maskless?
Or must we cancel the rooms?

Que Sera Sera
Whatever will be will be?
Covid’s future’s not ours to see,
Que Sera Sera
What will be will be
Que Sera Sera

Starsky and Hutch 2021 Advent Calendar

Enednovial started the Starsky and Hutch Advent Calendar in 2007, and we took over hosting it in 2011. We’ve continued the Calendar every year since then, and we’re gearing up to do it again for the 2021 season.

You can see the 2020 Calendar here. If you click on day 1, you can find all the other years in a list on the right hand side of the page.

Every year we fill 24 days with gifts including stories, poems, non-fiction, pictures, art, vids, podfics, puzzles, and games. We include all genre and topics. Regarding stories, poems, or non-fiction, short pieces work best. But if your writing is longer, we can break it into bite size gifts. The only limitations: no death fics, no serious downers. I mean, c’mon people, it’s the holidays!

But we can’t have an Advent Calendar without our generous elves who make the Calendar the Starsky and Hutch Christmas/Hanukkah/Winter Festival wonderland we enjoy every year. Send gifts to advent@starskyhutchcalendar.net. Any questions can go to the same address.

We’d love to have all gifts in hand by mid-November. But if you’re working on something and running late, just drop us a note, so we can get details about your gift and tentatively slot it while you take a little more time to complete it. We’re all guilty of wrapping presents at midnight, aren’t we?

Be an elf! The Advent Calendar needs you! And thanks for being a contributor to our yearly celebration.

Plans for 2021 Virtual SHareCon

When I canceled the in-person SHareCon this year, I worried it was a mistake. However, with Covid cases rising, now it feels right. But shed no tears! Virtual SHareCon will soon be here! The fun starts Friday, October 15, and runs through Sunday, October 17.We’ll have panels, games, vids, and more, all of it focused on our two favorite cops, Starsky and Hutch. Interested?

Registration is open! It’s free. Registering helps us gauge attendance and ensure everyone attending is an adult. Registration info will not be shared. Registration closes October 1st, so don’t delay!

Want to stay up-to-date on all the updates? There are so many ways! Join the SHareCon Mailing list on Google Groups, or join the Starsky/Hutch Bromance group on FaceBook or the Virtual SHareCon group also on Facebook.

And we have a new SHareCon Twitter @WannaSHar! That should be interesting. There’s a word limit, right?

Feel free to ask questions in any of these forums, but if you’d rather ask something more privately, you can email Flamingo at flamingoslim@ourlakehouse.net.

Regarding SHareCon 2021

When I reserved space to hold SHareCon in October 2021, I did so with a sense of optimism and because, practically speaking, you can’t throw a con at the last minute. I asked the fandom to respond to our attendance survey to find out if my optimism was warranted. If enough people can’t attend, we can’t pay the bills. So realistic expectations are important.

In the meantime, while vaccines were becoming more available, Covid was still the ugly reality. Covid… and fear.

Thanks to everyone who filled out the attendance survey. I appreciate your input and it was a big help to know what potential attendees thought. Only 25 people were confident they would come. Normally, we host around 50 at SHareCon.

Another 25 fen posted that “maybe” they would come, but many of them wrote me privately about their fear of traveling by plane (67 percent of people attending SHareCon arrive by plane). Others talked to me about their responsibility to ageing (and susceptible) relatives. It wasn’t just SHareCon goers in danger of Covid, it was older parents, autoimmune compromised family members, and dependents who, for various health reasons, couldn’t take vaccines.

I had just about made a decision to cancel the in-person con when the CDC announced that people who were vaccinated could interact with others, indoors or out, without masks. Since I kept saying I would only hold the con if we could interact normally throughout the weekend without masks, I read a lot of reports on the CDC decision. And then I read peoples’ comments on social media. The fear of this disease, and the way the disease has been managed through the last year and a half has led to a great deal of confusion.

Despite the optimistic announcement of the CDC, the reality is that as of right now, only 37 percent of the country has been vaccinated. You still need to be masked on transportation (including planes). And you can still catch Covid after vaccination, just in a much milder version. Some officials are concerned about what might happen with Covid in the fall when kids go back to school and cool weather sends everyone back indoors.

This reminds me that many times while attending cons in the past, we’ve come home with that unwanted gift known as “con crud.” Catching really nasty colds from someone who doesn’t know they’re already infectious or starts sneezing the day after they arrive is practically a fandom tradition. Covid puts an ominous slant on these experiences.

The bottom line is, we can’t afford to throw a con for 25 people. We need 45-50 to pay the bills. In spite of how optimistic the CDC announcement makes things seem, I think this is the wrong year to throw an in-person con. Things might look different in October. Everything might be open, and concerns about Covid surges and variations might be behind us. Or another surge could occur with corresponding changes to the guidelines. But we can’t wait on this decision.

So, we’re going to throw our energy into the virtual SHareCon; I’ve always wanted there to be more virtual content at SHareCon, so this will be a good year to ramp that up. We’ll try to reserve the hotel for October 2022, when, I hope, we can have a real blowout.

I’m hoping you’re not too disappointed, and I suspect many of you won’t be surprised. Maybe you’ll even be relieved. Feel free to weigh in here, or comment privately to me at flamingoslim at verizon dot net. This was not an easy decision to make and I’ll miss seeing everyone in person this year. But given the way the situation keeps changing from day to day, this makes the most sense. Thanks.

2019 Paula Wilshe Award for New Writers in SH and Marian Kelly Hall of Fame Award Winners

Paula Wilshe Award for New Writers in Starsky and Hutch (tie)

Marian Kelly Hall of Fame Award for Best Writer

Charlotte Frost/charlotte_frost

Marian Kelly Hall of Fame Award for Best Writing under 7,500 words (tie)

Marian Kelly Hall of Fame Award for Best Writing between 7,501 to 15,000 words

Black and Bruised by Rosemary or alternative link here

Marian Kelly Hall of Fame Award for Best Writing between 15,001 to 40,000 words

A Fine Storm by Suzan Lovett

Marian Kelly Hall of Fame Award for Best Writing between 40,001 to 80,000 words

Gentlemen, Start Your Engines by Dana Austin Marsh

Marian Kelly Hall of Fame Award for Best Writing, over 80,000 words(tie)

Marian Kelly Hall of Fame Award for Best Artist

Mortmere

Marian Kelly Hall of Fame Award for Best Art

Crystal Blue Persuasion by Suzan Lovett

Marian Kelly Hall of Fame Award for Best Vidder

Amber Raine/Starsky Loves Hutch

Marian Kelly Hall of Fame Award for Best Vid (tie)

The Paula Wilshe Award for New Writers in SH and The Marian Kelly Hall of Fame Awards- Final Voting

After checking and double checking, we now have our finalists for the 2019 Paula Wilshe and Marian Kelly awards.  We appreciate all your nominations. It’s wonderful to see such a large number and diversity of creations in Starsky & Hutch.

In some categories–The Paula Wilshe Award for New Writers, the Marian Kelly Award for Best Artist, and the MK Award for Best Vidder–the finalists were the entire slate of nominees. In other categories, we had distinct finalists: the MK Best Writer finalists are the top 10, the MK Best Art is the top 11, and the MK Best Vid is the top 13.

However, the most complicated category was the MK Award for Best Writing. There were 68 nominees, the largest field we’ve ever had; it’s an amazing rec list. As nominations kept coming in, we realized we would have no clear finalists. Additionally, we’ve heard concerns that short writing nominees are at a disadvantage when competing with long works.  So, we decided to divide the entire list of nominees according to their word counts.

We now have 5 categories for Best Writing: works up to 7,500 words; 7,501 to 15,000 words; 15,001 to 40,000 words; 40,001 to 80,000 words; and works over 80,000 words. So instead of trying to figure out which of 68 works you want to cast one vote for, you now get to vote in each category. Five separate votes for Best Writing. This is a new experiment for us. We hope it works!

Congratulations to all the nominees and finalists.

A few more things about the voting process. You can vote in as few or as many categories as you like. When you’ve voted in every category you’re interested in, you must click on SUBMIT at the end of the survey to register your vote. Once you click on SUBMIT you are done; you cannot change your vote or vote again. If two days later you decide you should’ve voted for a different creator or creation, it’s too late.

The SHareCon website has links to all the finalists and their works. You can read and contemplate, view and review, watch and ponder, then vote and submit. As always, please shout out with any questions and the awards committee will be happy to help.

Click here to vote for the 2019 Paula Wilshe and Marian Kelly awards. Voting is open from July 27th through 9pm EDT August 25th.

Thank you!

2019 Paula Wilshe Award for New Writers in Starsky & Hutch Finalists

The Paula Wilshe Award for New Writers in Starsky & Hutch any writer who first published any Starsky & Hutch writing in any format or genre between January 2013 and August 1, 2019. Writers can only win the award once.

The finalists are listed below with links to their works.

Crazykater

DPPatricks

Exbex

Garrideb

Love the Blond Guy

Marianrose

MaryEllen Long/mel2932

Matsir

Mvernet

Nancy Foote/Startisparticus2017

Spencer5460

Taass64

Vassalady

Click here to vote for the
2019 Paula Wilshe Award