The 79th World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon), also known as DisCon III, will be held in Washington, DC, United States, between 25th and 29th August 2021.
The special highlights of the convention will be the introduction of Guests of Honour – individuals who contributed to the field of science fiction in a significant way through their literary works, comics, art, publishing or fandom, and awarding The Hugo Awards - the world's leading award for excellence in the field of science fiction and fantasy.
As usual, the convention will feature panels, presentations, readings, autograph sessions and discussion groups, as well as participatory activities including writing, art, and other workshops, costuming and cosplaying, filk and other music, games including role-playing, tabletop, board, and card games, fanzines, children’s programming, and many other activities, such as art show, dealers room, exhibits on science, publishing, and the history and culture of fandom, and a world-class stage masquerade featuring the best fan costumers, which over the years became one of the staples and pinnacles of the show.
Washington, D.C. is the capital of the United States of America. The city, located on the Potomac River, bordering Maryland and Virginia, is the seat of the U.S. federal government as well as many important and influential international organisations. Both White House – the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States and the Capitol Building – the meeting place of the United States Congress and the seat of the legislative branch of the U.S. federal government, are located here. Washington, D.C. is one of the most visited cities in the U.S., with over 20 million visitors in 2016 alone.
Marriott Wardman Park Hotel is a convention hotel located at 2600 Woodley Road NW, in the Woodley Park neighbourhood of Washington, D.C. The hotel, which features 195,000 square feet of event space with 95,000 square feet of exhibit space, multiple on-site restaurants, an outdoor pool, and over 1,000 hotel rooms, is big enough to handle everything visitors do at a Worldcon. The hotel and all of its exhibit and event levels are fully accessible. There will be also some overflow function space at the Omni Shoreham Hotel, located just across Calvert Street, a small side street, from the Marriott Wardman Park. The Woodley Park neighbourhood, which is home to the Smithsonian National Zoological Park and a number of restaurants and other shops, is also served by the Red Line of Metro, DC’s subway system, with the Woodley Park-Zoo/Adams Morgan station being located at the corner of the Wardman Park’s property.
The city hosting the 79th Worldcon is Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States of America and home of both the White House and the Capitol Building.
The Masquerade will be held on Saturday, 28th August 2021. The Worldcon Masquerade is a traditional judged costuming competition and stage show. As the tradition dictates, the entrants will be divided into individual categories based on the costuming skill levels of the participants, and judged by a semi-professional panel of judges. In light of the current pandemic, DisCon III will be hosting a Virtual Masquerade, planned well in advance. In the event that the convention can be held in person, a traditional Masquerade will be staged as well. This is a very popular event, and the demand will be high, therefore it is recommended to come early to reserve your seats.
As the pinnacle of the convention, The Hugo Awards, the prestigious awards for excellence in the field of science fiction and fantasy, recognising the best novels, stories, graphic stories, related works, dramatic presentations (i.e. film, television), artists, fanzines, fancasts and fan works for the past year, will be awarded on Friday, 27th August 2021.
As you might expect, DisCon III programme will consist of knowledgeable and articulate people interacting with each other and, via assorted panels, with the convention community on a variety of fascinating subjects about everything that falls under the very wide umbrella of science fiction, fantasy and horror: books, comics, television, films, science, writing, costuming, music, academic track, fandom, fan writing – and there are also programme items specifically designed for children.
You can see the more detailed DisCon III Programme by following this link.
John Harris (Artist Guest of Honor) began painting aged 14, entered Luton College of Art at the age of 16 and later studied at Exeter College of Art, graduating in 1970. Over the last 40+ years he has created book covers for many of the most iconic authors in Science Fiction including Orson Scott Card, Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Frederik Pohl, Ben Bova, Wilbur Smith, Jack Vance, John Scalzi and Ann Leckie. His work is recognised internationally and his piece of the Endeavour Space Shuttle launch commissioned by NASA hangs in the Kennedy Space Center and is part of the Smithsonian Collection. He also created cover-art for the user manuals of the now legendary ZX81 and ZX Spectrum home computers. In 2015, he won the Chesley Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement. The latest book about his work, Beyond the Horizon, is currently in its second edition.
Nancy Kress (Author Guest of Honor) is the author of 35 books, including 28 novels, 4 collections of short stories, and 3 books on writing. Her work has won six Nebulas (for ‘Beggars in Spain’, ‘The Flowers of Aulit Prison’, ‘Out of All Them Bright Stars’, ‘Fountain of Age’, ‘After the Fall, Before the Fall, and During the Fall’ and ‘Yesterday’s Kin’), two Hugos (for ‘Beggars in Spain’ and ‘The Erdmann Nexus’) and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award (for ‘Probability Space’). Her most recent work is a trilogy from Tor: ‘Tomorrow’s Kin’, ‘If Tomorrow Comes’ and ‘Terran Tomorrow’. The series features pandemic, genetic engineering, aliens who are not what they seem and a desperate race to avoid global war. Nancy is also the author of over a hundred short stories. Her work is recognised internationally and has been translated into 16 languages.
Toni Weisskopf (Editor Guest of Honor) Upon her graduation in 1987, she was employed by Baen Books, leading publisher of science fiction and fantasy, as an editorial assistant. She then worked various jobs there until becoming executive editor, a job she had until the death of the founder Jim Baen in 2006, when she became the Baen Books’s publisher. She has edited a number of Baen Books anthologies under the name T.K.F. Weisskopf. With Josepha Sherman she compiled and annotated the definitive volume of subversive children’s folklore, ‘Greasy Grimy Gopher Guts’, published by August House. She is a graduate of Oberlin College with a degree in anthropology. She is also interested in space science and is an active participant in the Tennessee Valley Interstellar Workshop. In 1994, she won the Phoenix Award for excellence in science fiction.
Ben Yalow (Fan Guest of Honor) the very first convention he attended as a fan was Lunacon in 1971, followed later that year by his first Worldcon, Noreascon. Ben first started staffing conventions at the first Star Trek convention in January 1972, followed by the Worldcon in 1973, Torcon 2. He has attended roughly eight hundred cons to date and staffed over three hundred of them. Discon 3 will be the 50th anniversary of his first Worldcon, and he hasn’t missed any in between. Ben’s contributions to con-organising are numerous, and still ongoing. He has been a Worldcon Division Head, co-Division Head, or Assistant Division Head for sixteen different Worldcons on three continents, on the Chairman’s staff for a half-dozen others, and Comptroller for two more. He has chaired Lunacon (1978), Boskone (1994) and co-chaired one SMOFcon (1984).
Sheree Renée Thomas is an award-winning short fiction writer, poet and editor with fellowships and residencies from the Millay Colony of Arts, Bread Loaf Environmental, VCCA, Cave Canem Foundation and Smith College. She is the author of ‘Nine Bar Blues: Stories from an Ancient Future’. Her multi-genre collection of stories ‘Sleeping Under the Tree of Life’ was longlisted for the 2016 James A. Tiptree Jr. Award and honoured with a Publishers Weekly starred review. Her widely anthologised works and essays have appeared in places such as the New York Times and The Big Book of Modern Fantasy. She edited the World Fantasy award-winning speculative fiction volumes, ‘Dark Matter’, that first introduced W.E.B. Du Bois’s work as science fiction genre and was the first black author to be honoured with the World Fantasy Award since its inception in 1975.
Malka Older is a writer, aid worker and sociologist. Her science-fiction political thriller ‘Infomocracy’ was named one of the best books of 2016 by Kirkus, Book Riot and the Washington Post and shortlisted for the 2019 Neukom Institute Literary Arts Award. With the sequels ‘Null States’ (2017) and ‘State Tectonics’ (2018), she completed the ‘Centenal Cycle trilogy’, a finalist for the Hugo Best Series Award of 2018. She is also the creator of the serial ‘Ninth Step Station’, currently running on Serial Box, and her short story collection ‘And Other Disasters’ was published in November 2019. Named Senior Fellow for Technology and Risk at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs for 2015, she has more than a decade of rich field experience in humanitarian aid. Her doctoral work explores the dynamics of governments’ post-disaster improvisation.