Skip navigation

Monthly Archives: February 2010

ESTA Application

If you are coming to ICFA from Europe, don’t forget the ESTA form. The link can be found here.

On to Orlando.

Take care,
Graham J. Murphy

Election Results

Thank you to those candidates who participated in the most recent IAFA elections. As reported on the listserv by Mike Levy, Immediate Past President, the votes cast were the following:

For President

Jim Casey 34
P. Andrew Miller 1
Susan George 1
Elvis 1

For First Vice President

Sherryl Vint 19
Judy Collins McCormick 18

For Public Information Coordinator

Crystal Black 25
Aidan-Paul Canavan 9
Valorie Ebert 3

Congratulations to those members who will be the new faces to the IAFA Board when ICFA-31 concludes.

Graham J. Murphy

Crawford Award

Jedediah Berry has been named the winner of this year’s William L. Crawford Award for his first novel The Manual of Detection.

The award, presented annually at the International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts, is designated for a new fantasy writer whose first book appeared the previous year. This year’s conference will be March 17-21 in Orlando, FL.

The nominators for this year’s award also shortlisted Deborah Biancotti’s story collection A Book of Endings, Kari Sperring’s novel Living with Ghosts, and Ali Shaw’s novel The Girl With Glass Feet, and wanted to commend two other authors whose works were ineligible this year but were highly regarded: Robert V.S. Redick, whose The Red Wolf Conspiracy appeared in 2008 and whose The Ruling Sea appears in 2010, and Michal Ajvaz, whose The Other City originally appeared in Czech in 1993 but was first translated into English, by Gerald Turner, in 2009.

Those participating, in varying degrees, in this year’s nomination and selection process included Kelly Link, Niall Harrison, Cheryl Morgan, Graham Sleight, Paul Witcover, John Clute, Jonathan Strahan, Liza Trombi, Farah Mendlesohn, and Amelia Beamer.

Getting Groceries by Bus or Driving

Some of you might want to pick up some groceries or other necessities close to the hotel. We’ve got three Publix stores located in shopping centres (near a WalMart, Walgreens, or liquor store) in easy driving distance from the hotel; two are easily reached by bus routes traveling up S. Semoran Blvd, the major route just to the west of the hotel complex.

To get onto S. Semoran Blvd:

Drive (or walk, if you’re taking the bus) around the water feature in front of the hotel, then north on Augusta National Dr to the first major intersection with T. G. Lee Blvd. Then turn left onto T.G. Lee Blvd and drive for a very short distance to the major intersection of T.G. Lee and S. Semoran Blvd. Turn right onto S. Semoran and drive north.

Option 1: 6485 South Chickasaw Trail, Orlando

Drive through the intersection with Hazeltine National Drive, through the intersection with Butler National Drive, past a number of strip malls on the right hand side.

At the intersection of S. Semoran and Lee Vista Blvd, turn right onto Lee Vista Blvd.

Drive east along Lee Vista Blvd for a while, through major intersections with S. Goldenrod Road and Narcoossee Road.

At the intersection of Lee Vista Blvd and S. Chickasaw Trail, turn left onto S. Chickasaw Trail.

The Publix should be on the right hand side of the road, near a Wachovia bank. Turn right to enter the parking lot, and you should be able to see the store.
Option 2: 4501 Hoffner Avenue, Belle Isle, FL

Drive north, past the intersection with Lee Vista Blvd to the major intersection of S. Semoran and Hoffner Avenue.

Turn left onto Hoffner Avenue and drive west, past Kempston, Kailua, Mauna Loa, and Kingfish Streets.

You should see the shopping area on your right before you get to the major intersection with S. conway.

The Publix should be on the right side of Hoffner Ave. It looks like there’s an entrance to the parking lot off Hoffner, but you could also turn right at the intersection with S. Conway and enter the parking lot from there also.

There seems to be a liquor store nearby, and a Walgreen’s, so this could be a good place for a shopping trip if you need to pick up more than just groceries.
Taking the bus to Option 2:

The #51 bus travels on S. Semoran and then down Hoffner, turning again at S. Conway; in other words, exactly the same way you’d drive to get to the Publix, which is at the corner of Hoffner and S. Conway. There’s a stop just north of the intersection of S. Semoran and T.G. Lee Blvd; use the airport timing point on the way there, and timing point 4 (corner of Hoffner and S. Conway) to return. Here’s a link to the schedule; it runs every 30 minutes Monday-Saturday and every hour on Sunday.

Option 3: 4048 South Semoran Boulevard, Orlando

Drive past the intersection with Hoffner, then past Gatlin, then past Pershing.

On the left side of the road, there’s Fern Park Shopping Center, with a Publix and a Walmart.

It looks like you’ll have to drive past the shopping center to the major intersection with Lake Margaret Drive, make a left-hand turn onto Lake Margaret Drive, then another left into the parking lot entrance; S. Semoran is a divided highway.
Taking the bus to Option #3:

The #41 bus goes straight up S. Semoran past the Fern Park Shopping Center. You can catch the #41 at a stop just a short walk north of the S. Semoran/T.G. Lee Blvd intersection. Here’s a link to the schedule for the #41. Use the airport timing point on the way there, and timing point 9 (Curry Ford) on the way back.

For both buses, get off at the stop at the T.G.I. Friday’s on T.G.Lee Blvd; you’ll just cross S. Semoran at the intersection and be on your way back to the hotel.

Given that it is an airport hotel near a major roadway and industrial/business park, there aren’t a lot of options for those who need something close enough to walk, as these three grocery stores are the closest to the hotel. There’s a convenience store on T.G. Lee Blvd, on the way to the usual restaurants (before the intersection with S. Semoran), next to a Chinese restaurant that’s fairly new. As I recall from last year, it’s a decent-sized store with good stock, but I don’t think it has fresh produce or anything like that. There’s a Walgreen’s a 15-20 minute walk up S. Semoran, but I can’t recall anything closer than that.

Here’s a link to a Wikimapia:

If you hover your cursor over the outlined places on the map, you’ll see our hotel labelled near the midpoint at the bottom. The Publix on Lee Vista Blvd is labelled towards the right about halfway up; the Publix on Hoffner is labelled towards the left about halfway up (near Lake Conway); the Publix on S. Semoran is labelled at the very top of the page, around the middle.