WorldCon 2025 Let Natives Down - Coyote & Crow Games

The Brief

I’ve got some things to say about WorldCon in general, and how WorldCon 2025 in Seattle played out. And it ain’t gonna be pretty. What’s that you say? I didn’t even attend the convention, so what would I know about it? Well, let’s get into it because that’s definitely part of the story.

First, I want to say that my involvement in the convention goes back to late 2023, when I was approached about the possibility of an Indigenous Futurisms Exhibit. Before I get into my direct experience with WorldCon 2025, I wanted to give a quick TLDR on some of the other major problems already at play around the convention, for those of you who just want the headlines.

WorldCon chair, Kathy Bond, released a statement on their website on 4/30/25 regarding their use of “AI” in helping determine their panelists. As you can imagine, this didn’t go over well with authors.
On 8/20/25, Mike Glyer wrote a post detailing some deplorable behavior involving someone with Covid at the World Science Fiction Society MPS meeting, including an interview with the person.
On 8/21/25, Gregory Lukin wrote an in-depth post on how numerous BIPOC people’s names and titles of nominated works were mispronounced, sometimes to the sounds of laughter.
On 8/21/25, after announcing their theme for 2026, “Adventure Awaits”, for WorldCon in Los Angeles, numerous people complained about the iconography and overall ‘Manifest Destiny’ vibe that it was giving, which led to a statement from WorldCon LA chair, Joyce Lloyd.

Apparently, this is an example of the icons on the page:

(courtesy of BlueSky user @priyachand)

And of course, we need to further set the stage with a couple of past WorldCon problems, which you can read about here:

I’m sure there were other blunders over the years, but that’s as far as I wanted to get into the weeds here.

Here’s Where I Come In

So where do I, the owner of Coyote & Crow Games, enter the situation? Well, I was contacted by an organizer of the show in November of 2023 (the timeline is important here). I should say up front that many of the staff directly organizing this particular show are part of Norwescon, and I do not hold them directly accountable for my issues at all. I love Norwescon, and those are people I have a ton of respect for. However, I should note that when problems eventually came up, I was notified that the staff were stretched thin and often doing their work without pay, which is its own problem. I’ll be leaving out the names of the folks I dealt with personally. Let’s just call them Jane and John. Again, they were busting ass, and I do not blame them one iota.

During initial emails, I explained that I didn’t think Coyote & Crow Games had some sort of corner on Indigenous Futurism and that I would love to confer with my creative friends (writers & artists also working in Indigenous Futurisms) about some sort of collaborative effort. I suggested having a dedicated place for playing Indigenous-designed games. I also broached the idea of some sort of collaborative space within the vendor hall for the sake of both broader exposure and presence, but also as a cost-saving measure for some of the artists involved. I also suggested bringing those fellow Native creatives on board as panelists. These suggestions were taken positively, but there wasn’t a further follow-up until September of 2024.

I won’t name everyone I originally invited, but I brought in more than half a dozen other Indigenous Creatives into our conversation with Jane. These were folks that I thought were a good fit for WorldCon and/or were local, and specifically had something to contribute to an Indigenous Futurisms display. (In the end, Weyodi Oldbear, Derek Pounds, Dale Ray Deforest, and Sadekaronhes Esquivel were all able to attend). But it wasn’t an exhaustive list of Native artists or writers in any way. It was just folks I knew personally and thought might want to be involved.

At this point, I’m going to pause and mention some winners at this year’s Hugo Awards at WorldCon:

Rebecca Roanhorse won Best Series for the Between Earth and Sky saga
Darcie Little Badger won for Best Young Adult Book for Sheine Lende
Moniquill Blackgoose for the Astounding Award (for best new writer -To Shape A Dragon’s Breath)

Congrats to all three of these amazing authors who are just kicking ass and are worth a read.

I bring these folks up because, as these talks with WorldCon progressed into January of 2025, I was never made aware that these authors – all of them Indigenous – were nominated for Hugo Awards, nor was I made aware that they would be in attendance at the convention. And to the best of my knowledge, they were never told about our Indigenous Futurism exhibit or our booth.

While I’ve shared some emails or social media interactions with Rebecca and Darcie, it didn’t occur to me to ask them to be involved in the Indigenous Futurism project because I didn’t even think that was a possibility. They’re also big enough names that if they were to attend, I was sure they’d have their own plans, booths, etc.

As I spoke with Jane further, I was made to understand that she was acting as a messenger between numerous departments (the gaming track, panels, special exhibits, vendor hall). We had a group call at the end of January, including Jane and the Native folks who were interested in participating. It seemed like we were narrowing things down for the show, including:

A special exhibit highlighting Indigenous Futurisms – we discussed art, games, book displays, and maybe some sort of video/video game elements
A large booth that would bring Indigenous vendors together in one space
A number of panels involving either Indigenous Futurisms, or including our Indigenous folks on other relevant panels.
A dedicated space for Indigenous games in the gaming space

Again, that was January 30th. Let’s fast forward to late May, just three months before the convention. During that time, I only heard from the convention twice. First, an automated email in March asked me to sign up for panels. I suggested a few and opted in for a number of categories. I assumed my fellow Natives had received the same email. In May, I was invoiced for a booth space, which I ignored for the moment, as we had discussed the booth being either donated or subsidized.

Now, I’m not asking for sympathy here, but at this point, I was being asked to contribute quite a bit to WorldCon – time, planning, money – and not only had I not been offered any compensation, but I was felt like I was just a line on a spreadsheet. Worse, I wasn’t being given any follow-ups or information on how the exhibit or other logistics were going to play out. If you’ve never tried to organize a convention appearance/booth/exhibit, it’s hard to describe just how much goes into these things. Attendees need to understand floor plans, power options, internet availability, inventory space, load-in and out times, drayage, and on and on. Not to mention how those intersect with events and panels.

If I’m going to put up that much time, money, and effort, than I expect an equal amount of organization from the convention.

An On It Goes

It was late May, and I didn’t know much more than I did in November of 2023. I hadn’t heard anything from anyone at WorldCon. The AI scandal had happened the month before, and I had a bad feeling. I went to the website and looked at their list of panelists (the actual panels still hadn’t been released). I was listed, but none of the others from our Native “crew” were. I wrote back to our group. They hadn’t heard anything, hadn’t been invited to be on panels, and knew nothing more than I did.

By mid-June, Jane had put me in touch with John, who was helping organize panels. He was sure he could work some more of us in. I also asked if we could do some Indigenous Futurism panels and was told there were already a couple. Right away, I was struck by this panel:

Indigenous speculative fiction is on the rise in America, from games like Coyote and Crow to work by authors like Rebecca Roanhorse. Join us as we discuss our favorite creators and how Indigenous Speculative Fiction is decolonizing fantasy, science fiction, and more.

It turned out that the panel was one I had suggested months previously, and was now on and moderating. But when I wrote that description, I had no idea Rebecca would be attending the convention. Then I found out that she wasn’t even on the panel (and I had them correct the description).

When I went back to Jane and John about the rest of our original plans, we had less-than-stellar results. While Jane had worked with exhibits to secure our group a free 10’ x 20’ booth (which I later found out wasn’t exactly in a high traffic area) on June 18th, we were also informed at that point that the con wanted us to take over the development and implementation of the Indigenous Futurisms exhibit as they were stretched thin for people and work hours.

It was at this point that I think I turned a corner on the whole convention. Again, I don’t blame Jane or John here. This is a WorldCon problem. I’m frankly sick and tired of having these large organizations wanting free labor and creativity from Native folks. From where I was standing, I had this massive convention communicating to me through someone they couldn’t even be bothered to pay a reasonable salary, and asking for the labor, time, and money of Natives so that they could brag about their Indigenous Futurism display and give themselves a cookie.

Are we supposed to be grateful that they “allowed” us the space for a booth and an exhibit, while expecting us to fill those booths with our own works, people, on our own dime? In our internal discussions, we had Natives who were trying to attend but were worried whether they had enough gas money or where they might be able to sleep since they couldn’t afford a hotel. Yet, we were being asked to step up our work and produce an exhibit. We weren’t even connected to other Native authors attending the show (who I would have been thrilled to join our little collective).

At the end of June, I received the list of panels I was on, including one on video games(?). I still suspect that my panels were at least partly a product of that AI nonsense, but I digress. Of all the panels I was on, none of my fellow Natives from our group were listed. And to my knowledge, none of them had been added to other panels.

So, going into July, panels were a mess, our exhibit had no real form or plans yet, the games track had just completely slid into oblivion, and it was unclear who was even going to be able to afford to get to the convention.

The End Result

I’d had enough. I pulled out of the convention entirely at that point. (Side note, even if I hadn’t, I ended up contracting Covid-19 that week and wouldn’t have been able to go anyway). I turned over the reins to Weyodi and Derek, letting them do what they could. With the help of the “Community Fund,” a few of our Native crew were able to get some money to offset travel expenses, but this shouldn’t have been necessary. Guests shouldn’t be invited to something and then expected to beg for scraps, just to afford the trip. Two of our crew ended up getting panels (although they apparently put an author on an art panel and an artist on a writing panel).

One of the things that I think bothered me the most, though, is that, to my knowledge, none of the Hugo Award-winning authors were invited or asked to participate in the Indigenous Futurisms exhibit or in any other way with the rest of us. This was a slight to both groups and an enormous missed opportunity. If the convention had looped us all in at the beginning, who knows what we could have done together. Imagine a space where there were book signings, merchandise, game demos, art displays, all highlighting Indigenous Futurism, punctuated by those three Hugo wins. Imagine getting the local nations involved, especially the Coast Salish, Duwamish, and Suquamish, whose land Seattle sits on. What they might have been able to share with all of those international visitors in that space. Imagine how enriching, communal, positive -and yes, profitable- that could have been.

In the end, though, I was left feeling like Natives were somewhere between tokenized and forgotten. WorldCon wanted Indigenous Futurism represented, but they didn’t want to have to pay Indigenous people for the privilege. And to cap this off with the Westward Expansion debacle for next year’s theme, I can’t help but feel like WorldCon, as an organization, is some mix of willfully ignorant, greedy, systemically racist, stunningly disorganized, and sorely out of touch with the rest of humanity.

The truth is, I’ve been souring on conventions for some time now. But this one, well, this was heartbreaking. It was so much work, so much effort and time, and it feels like it all came to so little. I’m grateful that my friends who did attend had some good interactions with fans. And I’m so, so thrilled for the Hugo winners.

Next year? I hope Natives at WorldCon 2026 absolutely wreak havoc. I want racists crying that the “Adventure Awaits” theme was hijacked by Indigenous creatives and attendees. I want confused people walking into the convention thinking they accidentally stepped into a 2099 powwow. I want WorldCon to question everything they’ve done and are doing. But I won’t be attending.

–Kenna