Welcome to the first newsletter of 2026 (there was no January newsletter, don’t panic.)

What’s contained in this newsletter…

1. What’s been happening

2. Do you have children? Are you thinking of attending Unconfined?

3. Come say hello!

4. Guest of Honour L R Lam

5. Hugo Nominations

6. Come help us?

7. More Merch!

8. Don’t forget about Iridescence

9. Teaser…

10. Newsletter Admin

What’s been happening

Since our last newsletter we have continued to build our team:

• JJ Brutsman has joined to help out with our timeline.

• Michelle Drayton-Harrold has joined to lead on Accessibility.

We have a lot more people helping out – for more details on the full team check out our wonderful website.

Do you have children? Are you thinking of coming to Unconfined?

We are in the early stages of working on how childcare provision is going to be at Unconfined. We’d love to make it as easy as possible for people with children to attend our convention – and in order to do this we need to know as early as possible if you are likely to attend with children.

If you’re thinking about attending with children, could you please fill in this form (5 questions, 3 mandatory) to let us gain an idea about what provision we need to make?

The form’s URL is https://forms.gle/RdcVfDfB7k3s27yC6 – please pass this on to anyone you know who might want to attend our convention and who has children. Thank you!

Come say hello!

As convention season gets into full swing in 2026, we’re planning on showing up at quite a few conventions over the next few months:

• Iridescence – the 2026 Eastercon – 3-6 April 2026 at the Hilton Metropole, Birmingham, UK. This will be where we formally take on the mantle of seated Eastercon. We’ll have a full team here, with a table taking memberships and answering questions, as well as the chairs partaking in a number of programmed events. Stop by and have a chat!

• NornCon 2026 – Friday and Saturday 9 and 10 May at the Belfast Hilton, Northern Ireland. Again we will have a fan table and full presence at the convention.

• Satellite 9 - 22-24 May 2026 at the Clayton Hotel, Glasgow. Another major convention for us – in our home city – so expect a big fan table presence and lots of activity.

As the year progresses, we will also be featuring tables and/or presence at other conventions including Metropolcon, LACon, Octocon, Fantasycon and Novacon. More details of these in future newsletters.

And if you’ve never met us before, here are our Co-Chairs at the ‘Scotland table at SMOFCon for Glasgow 2024, Glasgow 2034, Satellite 9, Pictcon and Glasgow 2027’ in December 2025:

Guest of Honour L R Lam

L R Lam and Katalina Watt will be appearing at Waterstone’s bookshop on Argyle street on Tuesday 24^th February. An exciting opportunity to see and hear them ahead of their Guest of Honour appearance next year. Full details here: https://www.waterstones.com/events/an-evening-with-katalina-watt-and-l-r-lam/glasgow-argyle-street

Hugo Nominations

LACon, the 2026 Worldcon have just opened nominations for the Hugo Awards this year, with a closing date of 28 March 2026. You may wish to consider nominating the following:

For best Novelette

P. Djèlí Clark - Cronus - Amazon Original Stories

Full details and criteria for voting eligibility can be found here: https://www.thehugoawards.org/2026/02/2026-hugo-award-nominations-open-through-march-28-2026/

Come help us?

Our team is growing – and you could be part of that as we are still actively seeking volunteers!

In particular, we’re looking for people interested in creating content for our Social Media. Can you take a good short video? Able to create a Tiktok? Know the ins and outs of setting up advertising on Insta or Tiktok? If so, we'd love to hear from you.

Conventions are run entirely by volunteers. At a convention, there are a huge number of things happening that are done by a person volunteering some of their time, but before the con, there are many things needing attention too.

More Merch!

Here's another item in our wide range of merchandise – you can never have enough beautiful tote bags, and this would make a wonderful addition.

Find this and the full range of merchandise available on our web site.

Buying things from us directly supports our convention. And the advertising when you wear or use it is good for us too, of course.

Don’t forget about Iridescence!

Unconfined is the 2027 Eastercon, but that doesn’t mean that you should forget about 2026. Iridescence, this year’s Eastercon, to be held at the Hilton Metropole Hotel in Birmingham (the Hilton at the National Exhibition Centre) between the 3rd and 6th of April 2026.

Iridescence is only seven weeks from now so don’t forget to join.

Teaser...

Our presence at this year’s Eastercon will be full of surprises – we’ll give a few more details in the March newsletter ahead of the convention.

Thanks for reading. Please forward this on to friends who might be interested in our convention. We’d love to see them there.

Thanks to…

España Sheriff, both for our wonderful logo and the Iridescence logo.

Newsletter Admin

When you join Unconfined, you choose to have sent to you all communications or essential updates only. We are proposing to send out each Progress Report (four in total before the convention) plus final details to all members. All other newsletters — around one a month — will be sent to those who have chosen to receive all communications.

If you are a member of the convention and wish to change how often you receive mail from us, please log into the registration system and update your choice.