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Call for Candidates: FE Division Head

Chuck Nelson, after many years of able and much-appreciated service as Division Head for Fantastic Literature in English, has decided to step down effective March 2008 (immediately following the conference).

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 the fantastic in British, American, and Commonwealth Literature that are not covered by divisions such as Horror and Children’s/Young Adult. In past conferences, the FE Division has sponsored papers on the work of Shakespeare, Tolkien, Gaiman, McKillip, Holdstock, Twain, Mieville, Aldiss, Lewis, MacDonald, and many other authors, as well as papers on theories of the fantastic and fantasy literature.

Qualifications include current membership with IAFA (at least a couple of years’ experience with the organization so you have some understanding of how things work at the conference), easy and dependable internet access and comfort level with computers, 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 Chuck beginning this fall, 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 to do the work involved. 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 FE Division Head, please contact both Chrissie Mains, 1st Vice President (cemains@shaw.ca) and Chuck Nelson, outgoing FE Division Head cwnelson@mtu.edu) 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 October 15, 2007.

Chrissie Mains

Robert Jordan’s Passing

The death of Robert Jordan is making international headlines, so click on over to www.locusmag.com for the many links to obituaries that lament the loss of a key figure in the field of the fantastic.

Jamie Bishop Memorial Award

The International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts Announces its

****The Jamie Bishop Memorial Award for an Essay Not in English***
(Formerly the Annual Award for the Best Non-English Language Scholarly Essay on the Fantastic)

We define the fantastic to include science fiction, folklore, and related genres in literature, drama, film, art and graphic design, and related disciplines.

Prize: $250 U.S. and one year’s free membership in the IAFA to be awarded at the International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts in March 2008. Winning essay to be published online at the IAFA website.

Deadline: October 31, 2007

We consider essays of up to 10,000 words (including notes and bibliography). Essays may be unpublished scholarship submitted by the author, or already published work nominated either by the author or another scholar (in which case the author’s permission should be obtained before submission). An abstract in English must accompany all submissions. Submissions may be made electronically (preferred) in MS Word, Word Perfect, or RTF format, or by mail.

Please direct all inquiries and submissions to:

Dale Knickerbocker
Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures East Carolina University Greenville, NC 27858 USA

knickerbockerd@ecu.edu
Fax: 252-328-6233

Hugo Awards Announcement

Locus Online has information pertaining to the recent Hugo Awards, including such winners as Vernor Vinge (our Guest of Honor for the upcoming ICFA-29), Tim Pratt, Robert Reed, and Julie Phillips. The link is here.

For information on other awards, including the Chelsey Awards and the Prometheus Awards, please click here.

Alice Borchardt (1939-2007); Joe L. Hensley (1926-2007)

SFWorld.com has information pertaining to the recent passings of both Alice Borchardt (1939-2007) and Joe L. Hensley. The link is here.

IAFA and Facebook

My involvement with Facebook is, to put it lightly, a bare minimum; however, Stacie Hanes has been so kind as to establish the IAFA on Facebook. So, for those facebookers (is that even a term? what is the term for those actively participating in Facebook?), the link is:

http://kent.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2249636821

There’s also one for the SFRA as well (a little courteous plug to our fellow association). It’s at:

http://kent.facebook.com/group.php?gid=224968681

Finally, Kathryn Cramer has set one up for NYRSF at:

http://kent.facebook.com/group.php?gid=4719447319&ref=mf.

CFP: International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts

The 29th International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts

Delightful Horror and the Sense of Wonder:
Appreciating the Sublime in the Fantastic

The 29th International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts will be held March 19-23, 2008, at the Marriott Orlando Airport Hotel in Orlando, Florida. The focus of ICFA-29 is on the relationship between the sense of wonder embodied by the sublime and the fantastic in literature, film, and other media. The sheer magnitude of the universe gives rise to the amazing, the astonishing, the astounding, the thrilling, and the wondrous. Edmund Burke argued it is “infinity [that] has a tendency to fill the mind with that sort of delightful horror which is the most genuine effect and truest test of the sublime.” It then should come as no surprise that the sublime has been a mainstay in science fiction, fantasy, horror, and other related fantastic modes. Papers are invited that explore this topic. In addition, we especially look forward to papers on the work of our guests:

Guest of Honor: Vernor Vinge, author of “The Technological Singularity” and Hugo Award winning A Fire Upon the Deep.

Guest of Honor: Greer Ilene Gilman, author of the Crawford Award-winning Moonwise.

Guest Scholar: Roger Luckhurst, author of The Trauma Paradigm (Routledge) and Science Fiction (Polity Press).

As always, we also welcome proposals for individual papers and for academic sessions and panels on any aspect of the fantastic in any media. The new deadline is October 31, 2007 but we will be happy to consider papers until the original deadline (November 30), pending availability.

We encourage work from institutionally-affiliated scholars, independent scholars, international scholars who work in languages other than English, graduate students, and undergraduate students.

The Jamie Bishop Memorial Award for an Essay Not in English is open to all members of the IAFA. The IAFA Graduate Student Award is open to all graduate students presenting papers at the year’s conference. Details are available via Robin Reid, Second Vice-President (Robin_Reid@tamu-commerce.edu). Finally, the Dell Magazines Undergraduate Science Fiction Award will also be handed out at this year’s conference.

March 19-23, 2008
Marriott Orlando Airport Hotel

Look for Information and Updates at the IAFA website: www.iafa.org

Awards Information Update

Locus Online reports Ben Bova’s Titan is the winner of the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for best SF novel published in 2006 and Robert Charles Wilson’s “The Cartesian Theathre” is the winner of the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award for best short fiction of the year. The awards were this weekend at the Campbell Conference in Kansas City, Missouri.

In addition, the Rhysling Awards for best SF/Fantasy/Horror poetry of 2006 went to Rich Ristow for “The Graven Idol’s Godheart” (short poem) and Mike Allen for “The Journey to Kailash” (long poem). The awards were announced last weekend at ReaderCon.

For more information, please click here.

Fred Saberhagen: 1930-2007

Locus Online has news regarding the death of sf and fantasy author Fred Saberhagan. For more information, please click here.

The IAFA Needs You

As we make the transition from an ICFA based in Fort Lauderdale to one based in Orlando, one of the things the IAFA has lost is local assistance/resources. The IAFA is looking for any Orlando-based members to assist in conference preparation, chiefly to move materials, help get the location prepped, report if some wildstorm has destroyed the hotel, etc. Your availability would be needed the Sunday before the conference until the Monday after the conference. So, any Orlando-based IAFA members want to take a direct involvement in getting ICFA off the ground in Orlando? If so, please make yourself known on the iafa-l so first contact can be established. Much thanks.