Can*Con
Can*Con 2025 was held October 17-19 in person at the Brookstreet Hotel in Ottawa, Canada. Guests of honour were Kate Heartfield, Stephen Kotowych, and Premee Mohamed. A separate virtual Can*Con was held on April 12 with roughly one hundred attendees.
There were 500 in-person registered attendees. Programming featured 140 panelists and 96 items on writing, literature, and more, such as ‘‘The Continuation of Epic Fantasy” with S.M. Carrière, Suyi Davies Okungbowa, Y.M. Pang, and Anuja Varghese; “He’s Babygirl: Reclaiming the Queercoded Villain” with Ada Hoffman, A.E. Lister, Aysha U. Farah, and Avi Silver; and “Killing the Imposter: Dealing with Self-Doubt” with Julie E. Czerneda, Terese Mason Pierre, Melissa Ren, and Madona Skaff; plus pitch sessions with editors. Additional options included book launches, craft-focused master classes, signings, reading parties, the BIPOC hangout, the Canadian Small Press Book Publishers Party, the Glow dance party, and more.
The dealers’ room had 69 vendors including Bakka Phoenix Books, Hit Point Press, The Shale Project, Wolsak & Wynn, and Augur Society, with goods like books, jewelry, and accessories.
The next in-person Can*Con will take place October 16-18, 2026, with Guests of Honour Jen Albert, tonia laird, and Chuck Wendig at the Brookstreet Hotel Ottawa. Virtual Can*Con is April 18, 2025 with guests of honour to be announced. For more information, visit theCan*Con site.
See below for a selection of photos from the convention.
–Arley Sorg
This article and more like it in theDecember 2025 issue ofLocus.
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