Skip navigation

Monthly Archives: January 2008

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.

Preliminary Nebula Ballot

The 2007 Preliminary Nebula Ballot Public Edition has been announced. It can be seen here.

2008 Crawford Fantasy Award Shortlist and Award

The winner of the 2008 Crawford Fantasy Award is Christopher Barzak, for his first novel One for Sorrow (Bantam). The award, sponsored by the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts, recognizes an outstanding first book of fantasy published during the preceding year, and will be presented March 22 at the association’s annual conference in Orlando, Florida.

In a departure from past years, the Association has simultaneously released the winner along with the shortlist for the award. Other titles on this year’s shortlist are Laird Barron, The Imago Sequence (Night Shade); Ron Currie, Jr., God is Dead (Viking); Ellen Klages, Portable Childhoods (Tachyon); and Ysabeau Wilce, Flora Segunda (Harcourt). Ekaterina Sedia’s The Secret History of Moscow, praised by a number of the award nominators, was ineligible for the shortlist because of an earlier fantasy novel published by Sedia in 2005.

Instead of a formal committee structure, the Crawford Award is determined by a panel of nominators, who review and discuss each other’s nominations. This year’s panel included John Clute, Kelly Link, Farah Mendlesohn, Cheryl Morgan, and Graham Sleight. The award is administered by Gary K. Wolfe of the IAFA Board.

The Crawford Award was established in 1985 through a grant from Andre Norton in memory of early fantasy small-press publisher William L. Crawford, who had died the preceding year. Past winners have included Charles de Lint, Susan Palwick, Greer Gilman, Jonathan Lethem, Candas Jane Dorsey, Alexander Irvine, Steph Swainston, and Joe Hill. Last year’s winner was M. Rickert.

ICFA Display/Auction

As we continue getting ready for ICFA-29, this is a friendly reminder that if anyone has any academic donations for the ICFA display/auction then please contact David Hartwell at dgh@panix.com. Also, if you have a book in print please seriously consider getting your press to send a copy for the display/auction. On to Orlando!

ICFA-29 Trip to Universal Studios

A friendly reminder: Sunday (March 23) after ICFA-29 there will be an opportunity to visit Universal’s Theme Park for an IAFA Group Rate of $67US. This is for a one-day, one-park group discount ticket (adult or child) for Universal Studios Orlando that includes bus transportation to/from the site. The bus will leave the hotel at 9:15 am, deliver people to Universal Studios, and then pick them up at 5:45 pm to return to the hotel. There is a minimum requirement of 30 people and there are 40 spaces in total, so first come first serve. If we are unable to meet our minimum requirement by February 1st we will be forced to cancel this social outing. Conference registrants, their partners, and families are all eligible for this tour. The park ticket does not have to be used on the day of the group trip (Sunday) if another day is more convenient, but Sunday is the only day IAFA has arranged for transportation.