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CYA Division Head

On behalf of the Executive Board of IAFA, I would like to announce that we have decided upon a replacement for Joe Sutliff Sanders, who has just stepped down as CYA Division Head at the end of his three-year term. The new Division Head for The Fantastic in Children’s and Young Adult Literature and Art will be Amie Rose Rotruck of Hollins University.

Amie is a longstanding member of IAFA, who has been presenting papers and participating on panels in the CYA Division since its inception. She has an MA in Children’s Literature from Hollins University and is currently completing an MFA at Hollins. She also has a BS in Writing for Children and the Certificate of Children’s Literature from the University of Pittsburgh. Her first book, Bronze Dragon Codex, a middle grade fantasy novel in the “Practical Guide to Dragons Adventure” series, will be out in June.

Joe will be staying on board through the end of the conference in 2009 to serve as a mentor, so we expect that the transition will go very smoothly.

The board was pleased with the response to the call for candidates for the position; four people expressed interest in the job, all of them well qualified. We thank all of the candidates and hope that all will find other ways in which to continue to contribute to the success of the conference and of the association.

Chrissie Mains
1VP, IAFA

Call for Volunteer: CYA Division Head

Having more than ably served out his three-year term as CYA Division Head, Joe Sutliff Sanders has decided not to stand for another three-year term but instead to step down in order to devote his time to other research interests. We’re very sorry to accept Joe’s resignation, and we thank him profusely for the wonderful job that he has done over the past three years. Of course, Joe’s departure means that we are in immediate need of a new CYA Division Head.

This is an open call for volunteers interested in being considered for the position.

The Division Head is the person who sends out paper calls for his/her Division, collects and accepts paper proposals, creates paper sessions, helps to create panels, and passes the work s/he’s done on to the 1st Vice President for scheduling. This Division is responsible for all aspects of fantasy, science fiction, and horror in literature and art that is marketed primarily to children and young adults. In past conferences, the CYA Division has sponsored papers on the work of J.K. Rowling, Alan Garner, Edward Eager, Lewis Carroll, Lois Lowry, C. S. Lewis, L. Frank Baum, Kenneth Grahame, Philip Pullman, Robin McKinley, David Almond, Megan Whalen Turner, Maurice Sendak, and many more authors and illlustrators.

Qualifications include current membership with IAFA (at least a couple of years of experience with the organization and conference attendance so you have some understanding of how things work at the conference), comfort with computers, easy and dependable internet access, organizational skills, the ability to work as part of a group working together on the ‘big picture,’ a willingness to work through the transition with Joe beginning immediately, the ability to attend March conferences while you hold the position and to attend the Division Heads’ meeting run by the 1st VP at the conference, plus, of course, the time required to do the work involved. The most successful division heads also make a point throughout the year of watching for new ways to advertise their divisions and for emerging scholars to approach with calls for papers. Division Heads hold office for a term of 3 years (with a probationary first year) with the possibility of renewal for a second 3-year term.

If you’re interested in taking on the work of CYA Division Head, please contact both Chrissie Mains, 1st Vice President (cemains AT shaw.ca) and Joe Sutliff Sanders, outgoing CYA Division Head (dr.joess AT gmail.com) with a brief statement about your interest in and qualifications for the job. The IAFA board of directors will consider all applications for the position.

The deadline for applications is May 12, 2008.

Photos of ICFA-29

Thanks to Bill Clemente who has posted some photos of ICFA-29 here.

ICFA-29: Wrap Up Commentary

Now that ICFA-29 is over and everyone is slowly returning to their base of operations, I thought I’d provide some commentary and/or observations on the entire experience. I begin with a query: how was it? Really! How was it? For those of you who noticed, I didn’t actually make it this year in spite of my best intentions. You see, the week before ICFA I became a father to Declan Kyle John Atticus Murphy. I couldn’t then leave my newborn son and my wife (who was supposed to join me this year) to fend for themselves while I was off in Florida; so, I had to cancel my trip (and the Board has been wonderfully supportive of this decision … my heartfelt thanks!!!). I’ve since heard from a few people that it was a wonderful conference and that it went off without a hitch, but I’d like to hear from you. So, if you wanted to send me your thoughts, commentary, stories, etc. I can then post them to the blog on your behalf. If you’re interested, please e-mail me at GrahamMurphy AT trentu.ca and I’ll start posting content (please be advised that I might edit according to length).

In the meantime, we’ve already started work on ICFA-30, our anniversary conference. So, keep checking www.iafa.org for updates and book early as this one promises to be the conference of all conferences.

Back to Orlando!

Universal Excursion Sold Out

Hello IAFAers,
A notice went out on iafa-l last week but just a reminder: the ICFA Universal excursion scheduled for Sunday has officially sold out. The bus is full and hiding one more in the bathroom at the back isn’t a viable option. Thanks to you all for coming out. We’ll look forward to seeing you at ICFA and on the bus on Sunday.

On to Orlando!

Take care,
Graham J. Murphy

An Appeal for Help

The ICFA bookroom needs help in setting up, maintaining and tearing down the bookroom. Here is the work schedule:

1. Sunday, March 16 – Moving the books from the storage facility to the hotel and arranging the unopened boxes into an approximate order for unpacking.

2. Monday and Tuesday, March 17 and 18 – Unpacking books, arranging the room, pricing all new books in PENCIL, repricing the older books.

3. Wednesday through Saturday, March 19 through 22. Two sessions each day approximately 8:15 AM to Noon and then approximately 2 PM to 6 PM. The room is open all day on Saturday. This is non-arduous work. Rearranging books, assisting shoppers and either repricing existing stock or pricing new books. If we have a separate auction room, we will also need someone to simply sit in the room.

4. Extra help is needed Thursday and Friday about 3/4 hr. before lunch and Saturday 3/4 hr. before the Banquet to place books at each place for the meal.

5. On the final Sunday, packing all remaining books under Peter Halasz’s direction (Yes, there is an art and science to this) and moving them to the storage facility.

The two intensive manpower needs are the two Sundays. Some years we have been very short of help on the last Sunday.

We provide rewards for assistance. We break the day into morning and
afternoon sessions. For three sessions of work we provide a membership to the conference that does not include any of the meals. Additional work sessions can earn meals. This includes help in setting up the conference prior to the opening sessions on Wednesday.

If possible email me at JTBerlant@AOL.com with the times you are available. We will also cheerfully welcome anyone stopping in to help. Work on the two Sundays is somewhat strenuous, moving boxes.
The rest is reasonably non-strenuous.

Thanks for your assistance.

Joe Berlant, ICFA Bookroom Manager

Jamie Bishop Memorial Award Announcement

The International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts is pleased to announce the 2008 recipient of the Jamie Bishop Memorial Award for an Essay Not in English is Professor María Beatriz Cóceres for her award-winning essay “Poéticas del multireal: extrañamiento del motivo del doble en los cuentos de Julio Cortázar y Dino Buzzati” (“Poetics of the Multireal: Estrangement of the Double Motif in the Short Fiction of Julio Cortázar and Dino Buzzati”). Information on Professor Cóceres and an overview of the essay is available under the “Awards” tab on the IAFA website (www.iafa.org). Congratulations to all the candidates and to this year’s recipient.

ICFA-29 Draft Program

From Chrissie Mains, First Vice-President:

After much sweating of palms and furrowing of brows, the program for ICFA 29, to be held in Orlando March 19-23, is available on the association’s website for your information and enjoyment. From the main page, click on the link for Conference Information, and scroll down until you see the link for this year’s program. Clicking on that link will open a page that lists the program schedule. Do remember that this program is preliminary and subject to change right up until the conference starts, so don’t use it as a basis for your travel plans!

I’d appreciate it if everyone who is participating on the program in any way could check to make sure that their names, their affiliations, and the titles of their papers are spelled properly; it’s especially important to check the formatting of titles, since some formatting information can be lost in transit in the long journey between your computer and mine. If you spot a typo, please contact me at cemains@shaw.ca and I’ll fix that right up. And it wouldn’t hurt to use the browser’s ‘find on this page’ function to look for your name, in case you’ve been scheduled on a panel or other event that you weren’t quite aware of (hey, it happens sometimes).

Do keep in mind that any requests for scheduling and A/V had to be included in the original proposal; such requests affect the grouping of papers into sessions and the scheduling of those sessions into the rooms we have available, and it’s extremely difficult to make changes at this stage. If you see a problem, then contact both your division head and me immediately, and we’ll do our best to resolve it.

However, there is a limited time in which to make any corrections to the program that will appear in print, so don’t put this on your to-do list for later. And I’ll say again: if you think you won’t be able to make the conference after all, now is the time to tell us.

We’ve got a wonderfully diverse program this year, and we think you’ll love the new hotel (the pool bar is really quite nice, and the room for our evening programming is beautiful). And remember, although the program officially ends with the Saturday night banquet, this year we do have a Sunday trip to Universal Studios theme park (more info on the website).

See you in March,
Chrissie

2008 Collins Award Announcement

Robert A. Collins Service Award

The Board of the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts is pleased to announce the 2008 recipients of two Robert A. Collins Awards.

To Katy Hatfield for her service as Membership and Registration Coordinator for numerous ICFAs. As the “face” of the IAFA and the first person members often met at ICFA, Katy was instrumental in representing the Board, maintaining the registration lists, and using her quick problem-solving skills to settle unexpected conference problems and fielding members’ questions and concerns.

To Len Hatfield, for his service to the IAFA and ICFA as President, Vice-President, Science Fiction Literature and Theory Division Head, Audio-Visual Support, and Head Tech Gnome. Len’s expertise has been instrumental in updating and servicing technology at ICFA, establishing and maintaining the IAFA website and listserv, and recruiting new members to the Board.

Each award is for 2008 but the recipients will be recognized at the 2009 banquet at ICFA-30. Congratulations to the two of them for their individual honours.

The Robert A. Collins Service Award, named after the conference’s founder (who was also its first recipient in 1985) is an occasional award presented to an officer, board member, or division head for outstanding service to the organization.

IAFA Graduate Student Award Reminder

IAFA GRADUATE STUDENT AWARD

The 29th International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts

The International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts is pleased to continue its annual award and stipend to the graduate student submitting the most outstanding paper at the Association’s 2008 Conference, to be held at the Orlando Marriott Airport Hotel, Orlando, FL, March 19-23, 2008. The award, and a cheque for $250, will be presented to the winner at the Awards Banquet on Saturday evening.

CRITERIA & INSTRUCTIONS

1. The student will have had a paper accepted for presentation at the Conference. The paper submitted for the competition should be essentially the same as that presented at the conference. The maximum length for entries is 3500 words (about 2 pages over the recommended reading length of 8-9 pages), excluding bibliography/works cited page. Students should be aware that funds are limited and that only one award will be given. The paper selected will be published in the Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, and therefore must not have been previously published or submitted for publication elsewhere. Please note that acceptance of a paper for the Conference does not guarantee an award.

2. It is the responsibility of the student to send a copy of the paper by 1 February 2008 to the IAFA Student-Support Committee’s Chair, as well as a copy of the letter of acceptance and verification of student status.

Submissions should be in MSWord or rich text format (rtf) files, sent as e-mail attachments to Robin Anne Reid, Student Support Committee Chair, at:

Robin_Reid@tamu-commerce.edu

rrede13@yahoo.com

Students may be in master’s or doctoral programs, at any stage of their program (taking courses, taking exams, writing theses or dissertations), as long as they are currently enrolled. Verification of student status could be a letter of confirmation from a director or advisor, a copy of student ID, etc.

Support documents may be sent as attached files to the same address or sent by mail to:

Department of Literature and Languages
Texas A&M University-Commerce
Commerce, TX 75429

3. The committee is looking for good writing: clear, coherent, and interesting. Essays should be solidly grounded in scholarly tradition, showing awareness of previous studies and of historical contexts. Essays may use any suitable method of analysis, including historical and sociological approaches as well as those which originate in literary theory. Judges tend to value the ability to examine materials from a theoretical perspective without simply plugging in a particular critical method. Essays should give a clear idea of the critical/theoretical framework within which the discussion will be situated, as well as identify primary and secondary texts for the discussion.