Our crew has gotten bigger, which is why we’re doing team interviews again. Starting with Antje:
- Tell us about you!
Hi, I’m Antje, 95% human, 5% caffeine and I’m from Earth (unfortunately, but with the prospect of change as soon as beaming or time travel are ready for the market). I can open to-do lists in 12 parsecs and yes, I know that parsec is actually a unit of length. Fandom found me during high school when I devoured the first Perry Rhodan. Shortly afterwards, I ended up at HanseCon in Lübeck – my first con. There I became a member of the Atlan Club Deutschland and collected club memberships like other people collect returnable bottles, the rest is history (or a wild mixed-media of space opera, con reports and joie de vivre). A new world of people opened up to me, people you can talk to about anything, who share your sense of humor and a peaceful, tolerant outlook on life, even if you only meet once or twice a year. I love fantasy and live with my wife and our eternal hero cat Corum, as well as many books, comics, movies and various game consoles in Munich’s Speckgürtel and love cons, from fannish ones with few participants to worldcons (since I also love to travel, it’s an ideal win-win situation).
- What is your role at MetropolCon – and why are you involved?
I’m brand new to the Metropolcon team and am just getting to know everything and trying to support where I can. I visited Metropolcon 2023 and it felt like a Worldcon, a setting with panels and fannish fandom, lots of like-minded people in a feel-good atmosphere and all that in Germany – I want to get involved!
- What has been your most magical con moment so far and what do you particularly look forward to at cons?
The moment when everyday life turns into con reality is particularly magical. At first it’s slow going, you see the first posters or meet someone on the way there and then suddenly you’re right in the middle of it, wearing a hall costume, being a central point of a family reunion and letting yourself go. And I’ll never forget our Masquerade participation at LonCon 3, it was just a completely different kind of magic ….
- Which artifact accompanies you through your everyday life at a con?
Some kind of magical planner (a classic program book or maybe today an app), combined with time travel from question 7. Will I manage to live an eternal con life this way?
- Which mythical creature (or android) would you most like to share a flat with?
I would like to live with Q (from Star Trek), let’s see how long …
- If you had a superpower – which one would help you at the con?
Definitely something to do with time travel, somehow at the end of any convention, defined by the moment con blues kicks in, I realize there was not enough time to do everything I wanted to do.
- Your ultimate survival tip for the MetropolCon?
Go there! And then you will realize that there will be something there that you will enjoy!
- You just won a week-long trip to a fantasy/SF world of your choice: Where will you go?
I’ve always wished I could “read myself into” a book and be a silent observer or an active participant, so I’d probably choose the “Tintenwelt” (with controlled reading in and out of course…)
- What are your wishes for the future of the speculative genres, particularly in Germany?
I wish that nerds, geeks or whatever they want to call themselves could always find a home at genre events and feel safe. For Germany, I would like to see a signature event that unites us all, regardless of whether we say the (der, masculine form)* con or the (die, feminine form)* con!
*a german specific