I’m not going to give a beat by beat, but I want to start by sharing how I got involved with Scare Up The Vote. I am driving in highway traffic when I get a text from Becky Spratford. It just says: “Can you talk. It’s big. Call when you can.” I never thought of myself as an awfulizer, but a vague text like that gets me nervous. So I immediately called back Becky and when she answered I asked the obvious question “Big good, or big bad?” I’d seen Tananarive tweeting about how there should be a horror community stream for Harris/Walz, and in my mind I agreed. Horror is a great community, and can really come together for a cause, because horror people care. A few days after Becky’s text I was sitting in the parking lot of a book store, on a phone call with Tananarive Due talking about how to put on a live stream. There were some vague ideas and a lot of positive energy. I told her I would love to be involved in tech in whatever capacity, and when we hung up I got started researching. From there, I was the tech team for this stream. Tananarive had pulled together a committee to run the event, including Linda Addison, Christopher Golden, Maxwell Ian Gold, and Cynthia Pelayo. And we had two weeks to go live time. That two weeks is a blur of Zoom calls, emails, advice from respected peers, nerves, successes, and a very minor amount of failures. It was all momentum and enthusiasm, and practice practice practice. The guest list blossomed from a dozen or so awesome names to over twenty. The tech team responded in kind. I brought on someone who brought on several other someones. Tananarive brought in several amazing folks who had experience with cons and streams and who are brilliantly talented. Everyone contributed their skills, experience and knowledge to make this stream something I was terrified to say for fear of jinxing everything (until we finally ended the stream): a huge fucking success! Folks, if that stream looked nearly flawless, and felt like we really knew what we were doing, it’s because it was and we did. This team that got pulled together in the small window of time that we had executed essentially perfectly. Some of them didn’t get added to the team until the day of the stream! The guest speakers similarly crushed it. Spooky writers telling scary stories, entertaining, informing, inspiring. Folks of all variety of backgrounds and experiences, coming together because sometimes the scariest story is real life. But as Rachel Harrison said, we will be battered, bloody, crawling through the dirt wielding whatever weapon we can find - and the weapon we have now is our vote. I think another weapon we have is each other. And the more we talk about it, and come together, and make noise, the more power we will see that we truly have. The “me” of this election cycle is starting to feel a lot like “us”, which gives me hope. But back to the stream. Stream day was me sitting at a desk for 13 hours, consistently communicating with the team, guest speakers, etc. Skipping lunch, drinking way too much coffee, and generally feeling anxious. Fearing the worst. But the worst never came, and fifteen minutes before the scheduled launch, I started pre-roll. Nearly three hours later, twenty six (I think) passionate folks had spoken their mind, and aside from a muted mic in the beginning and shifting two guest spots, more than 1,300 people had watched, and our little operation raised over $21,000. Thanks are due to all of the committee and volunteers. Everyone worked hard, and it wouldn’t be the production it was without everyone’s effort. I’m especially grateful for my friend Greg Greene, who I asked to hop on a call for some advice running a stream. Not only did he join the team, his organizational and planning skills were crucial to the flow of the event. He also brought on Jason Ragosta to do a lot of the art, and Amber Reu to run the green room. There are countless beautiful moments in the stream
