CrossingsCon runs a semi-frequent book club that aims to get the community together and share our mutual love of stories in the time between conventions. The book club takes place on Gather, the same platform we used for the 2021 virtual convention, and you can join the room for the book club here.

See the calendar below for dates of upcoming book club meetings.

Table of Contents

Support the Book Club

If you enjoy the book club and want to help make it possible, consider donating to our Ko-fi or Patreon! The club is a lot of work to put together, so any support you’re willing to give is hugely appreciated.

“Gather space is full” error

When you attempt to join the Gather room for the book club you may get an error message saying the room is full. We have to book a specific amount of capacity with Gather, and this error message pops up if we get more attendees than we expected. When this happens we’ll increase the capacity of the space, so if you get this error please just hang tight and refresh the page after a minute or two, you should be let through eventually.

Gather space rules

The full list of rules CrossingsCon uses for events can be found on the main rules page and every attendee of the con and book club is expected to be familiar with them. However, we’d like to highlight some rules that are unique to the book club’s venue due to it’s virtual nature:

  • The gather space is considered all-ages as a default
  • The following topics and activities must be contained to a Gather private space containing only other attendees that are comfortable with engaging with the activity or topic. Private spaces are special areas where only the people in the private space can hear and see each other, and not any passers-by.
    • On-screen consumption of controlled substances such as alcohol or tobacco, regardless of the legal age of consumption in the person’s country of residence.
    • Discussion of 18+ topics such as sex, kink, alcohol or cannabis use, etc. Note that this does not include discussions of sexuality or one’s experience with gender, which are actively welcomed in all-ages spaces

Using the Gather space

Gather is a virtual hangout space where you can move a little avatar of yourself around a room. You can use the W, A, S and D keys to move your avatar around, with each key mapping to Up, Left, Down and Right respectively. You’ll use the X key to interact with some objects in the room.

Gather will automatically connect voice and video calls with other people you pass by in the space, mimicing the experience of walking around a physical space together. You may also notice some areas where the ground is shaded darker: these are private spaces where everyone in the same space is connected regardless of distance.

If you get lost in the gather space, here’s a map of the entire thing! The central hangout area is where the majority of discussion will take place, with smaller breakout spaces in the cafe at the top of the map and in the little cubbies on the side.

A map of the gather space used for the book club

Past books

So far the book club has read:

  • The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner
  • The Queen of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner
  • This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
  • The King of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner
  • The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers
  • A Conspiracy of Kings by Megan Whalen Turner
  • Omnitopia Dawn by Diane Duane
  • Thick as Thieves by Megan Whalen Turner
  • The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin