The schedule for Yaoi Con 2008 was posted yesterday night. Coming up this weekend, September 26-28th, it’s the biggest (I would assume by this point?) boys’ love event on this continent. Alas, the cost of flights, hotels and passports keep me from it. And yet I couldn’t help looking at the schedule and planning my ‘if I was there’. Live the experience for me, Yaoi Con attendees!

• Find the Yaoi Generation booth in the dealers room. I’m a little disappointed to see they don’t have a panel so it looks like those manning the YG station will take the brunt of the questions that I hope get asked! They’ve so far shown interest in licensing boys’ love stories from around the world, not just from Japan, so I’d love to know if they’ve gotten any confirmed licenses yet. Maybe even a release or two at the booth to show off their goods? Are they connected to a pre-existing publisher? When are we going to start seeing their books at online retailers? When is their website going to give us some more information? All the who, what, wheres, hows and whys!

• Attack the dealers room in general. No where is better to find boys’ love than a convention, thus a thousand times more so if it’s Yaoi Con. I’d like to get caught up on some releases I’ve missed, buy some prints from artists representing themselves in the fan market and finding myself some weird merchandise I wouldn’t otherwise go searching for.

• Attend the 801 Media/June panel and ask what’s up with all the public staff of 801Media being let go. Is 801Media being disbanded altogether? What does the future hold for the popular little boys’ love peddler and are currently unreleased licenses still on schedule? There’s also bound to be some new license announcements too, wouldn’t want to miss ‘em!

• Pop in on the Yaoi Press panel. What are they looking for right now exactly? Artists? Writers? Genres? Do they have some future plans for new art books and anthologies? Have they recently gotten the rights to publish any original boys’ love previously published in other languages? Will they be attending Anime North 2009 so I can shake hands with Yamila then?

• Hit up the Go!Comi and Deux panels for some new manga licenses!

• Other panels I’d definitely want to attend: A Male Perspective on Yaoi (I always hear something that surprises me at these kind of roundtables), Male Homosexuality in Japan (it’s nice to learn something from fact over fiction), Your Yaoi Business 101 (make some money off my addiction? Sign me up!), Anatomy for Artists (a skill for which I am sorely lacking), M.A. Sambre Guest Panel (what projects is she working on these days with Dark Prince and Yaoi Hentai wrapped up?) and Fandom Wank (always need to make room for a fun laugh!).

Maybe another year! In the meantime, I’ll settle for their Twitter and the budding yaoi conventions here in Canada I’ve been watching for some time now…hmm…

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About the Author: Lissa Pattillo

Lissa Pattillo is the owner and editor of Kuriousity.ca. Residing in Halifax, Nova Scotia she takes great joy in collecting all manners of manga genres, regretting that there's never enough time in the day to review or share them all. Along with reviews, Lissa is responsible for all the news postings to the website and works full time as a web and graphic designer.