The BFS Discord Server: Our Virtual Water Cooler

To help us get the year started right, we’re highlighting some of the amazing work done by our BFS volunteers and the great opportunities our members can seize. Today, step into our office and gather around the virtual water cooler with Discord moderator Siân O’Hara.

Spend time talking to anyone in the speculative fiction community, and you’ll often hear that the best thing is that it is just that: a community. Somewhere we can gather together (virtually or in person) and find connections with others who share our interests, our enthusiasms, and seem to just “get” us.

Fantasycon is the big annual gathering of the BFS, and to tide us over throughout the year we now have wonderful online event days, workshops and in-person events. And of course, there is the information shared through our blog posts and on social media channels. However, for our BFS members, we also have another means of connection: our Discord server. 

Discord gives us a shared, private space where we can hang out, digitally speaking, and share news, thoughts, memes, and anything else that comes to mind. You can even mute notifications from it, so it’s only ever there when you go looking for it! 

If you’re unfamiliar with Discord, then there’s an excellent beginner’s guide article published by Wired. As well as Discord’s own support information (though a lot of this is focused on voice chat and video sharing, while we mainly just use text-based channels). 

The invite for the BFS Discord is sent out in our monthly newsletters, along with how to request a new invite if that one has expired. 

Why join the conversation?

So, what can you expect once you’ve logged in and joined the BFS server? Well, how’s this for starters:

• All the BFS news and announcements in one handy place
• A channel to share your own news and celebrate the latest from other members 
• Sections for sharing open calls and submission opportunities for speculative fiction of all lengths
• Discussion channels for what books, TV and films we’ve all been enjoying
• Sections for BFS and wider events to see who’s going and get excited over the programming
• Regional channels to help find your local BFS crowd, chat and arrange meet-ups
• Opportunities to be part of BFS content

And as if that wasn’t already enough, we’ve also got some exclusive perks:

• Home to the BFS Book Club – join in with the chat, and be invited to the author Q&A Zoom session
• Writing sprints – usually hosted once midweek and once at the weekend; come and get motivated to put some words on paper
• Peer support – ask your writing-related questions, find a beta reader or request other services  

And loads more SFFH-related social chat! Although fair warning, discussions do tend to go off on tangents and often end up in weird and interesting places. But as one of the volunteer mods, alongside with Oli Arditi, we do try our best to make sure things don’t get too off track. We are always there, along with the admin team, to answer any questions on how to use Discord or to make us aware of something that might contravene our code of behaviour.

Having asked Oli for anything he’d like to input to this post, he made an excellent point that I wholeheartedly agree with: the BFS Discord often feels like a rarity compared to general social media, in that discussion topics or questions that would tend to degenerate to non-helpful discourse (to put it mildly) in other places, are met with sensitivity and thoughtful responses here. This is largely due to the utter fabulousness of the BFS members, of course, and as mods we are truly appreciative of this. 

So come and join us, we’d love to have you!