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ICFA 44 Guest of Honor and Guest Scholar

We are very excited to announce our ICFA 44 Guest of Honor, Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki, and our ICFA 44 Guest Scholar, Dr. Isiah Lavender III!

 

ICFA 44 Guest of Honor – Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki 

 

Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki is an African speculative fiction writer and editor in Nigeria. He has won the Nommo award for Best Speculative Fiction by an African twice, both for Short Story and Novella, as well as the Otherwise and British Fantasy Awards. He is the first African to have won the Nebula Award for Best Novelette with his climate fiction story O2 Arena, for which he is also a BSFA, BFA and Nommo Award finalist, and the first African to be a Hugo Award Best Novelette finalist. He is the first African editor to be a finalist in the Hugo Award Best Editor categories and the first BIPOC editor to be a finalist in both the Hugo Award Editing and Fiction categories in the same year. He has been a finalist for the WFA, Locus, BSFA, Sturgeon, and This Is Horror Awards. His fiction and non-fiction have appeared in and are forthcoming in Tordotcom, Asimov’s, Uncanny Magazine, Apex Magazine, Strange Horizons, Galaxy’s Edge, and NBC, among other venues. He edited and published the first ever Year’s Best African Speculative Fiction anthology, a Hugo, WFA, Locus, and BFA finalist, and the Pan-African non-fiction anthology, Bridging Worlds: Global Conversations on Creating Pan-African Speculative Literature in a Pandemic. He co-edited the BFA-winning Dominion anthology and the Africa Risen anthology, which has a starred review from Publishers Weekly.  He guest-edited the collections window of Interstellar Flight Press and has slush read for Podcastle, Strange Horizons, Cosmic Roots, Eldritch Shores, and other publications. He is the founder of Jembefola Press and the Emeka Walter Dinjos Memorial Award for Disability in Speculative Fiction. He co-organized the Discon 3 African stream and 2021 Nommo Award ceremony, and is a Guest of Honour at the 2022 Can*Con. He is the first African-born Black writer and the youngest writer to be Guest of Honor at the International Conference for the Fantastic in the Arts.  You can find him on Twitter https://twitter.com/penprince_ and on his website https://odekpeki.com.

 

Please follow these links to immerse yourself in the works of Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki:

O2 Arena: https://apex-magazine.com/short-fiction/o2-arena/

 

Year’s Best African Speculative Fiction: https://jembefola.com/the-L-best-african-speculative-fiction-2021-by-oghenechovwe-donald-ekpeki/

 

Bridging Worlds: https://jembefola.com/bridging-worlds-global-conversations-on-creating-pan-african-speculative-literature-in-a-pandemic-cover-and-toc-reveal/

 

The Emeka Walter Dinjos Memorial Award For Disability In Speculative Fiction: https://file770.com/announcing-the-emeka-walter-dinjos-memorial-award-for-disability-in-speculative-fiction/

 

Discon 3 African Stream: https://file770.com/new-african-program-stream-distinguishes-disconiii-world-science-fiction-convention/

 

Publishers Weekly starred review: https://www.publishersweekly.com/9781250833006

 

Africa Risen pre-order: https://publishing.tor.com/africarisen-shereereneethomas/9781250833006/

 

“Destiny Delayed” in the May/June issue of Asimov’s – https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Kl0Iks1M8xk-zMC-FE3Xl3FsNf8Ce4f9/view?usp=drivesdk

 

Guest Scholar – Dr. Isiah Lavender III 

 

Isiah Lavender III is Sterling-Goodman Professor of English at the University of Georgia, where he researches and teaches courses in African American literature and science fiction. His books include Race in American Science Fiction (Indiana UP, 2011), Black and Brown Planets: The Politics of Race in Science Fiction and Dis-Orienting Planets: Racial Representations of Asia in Science Fiction (UP of Mississippi, 2014 and 2017 respectively), Afrofuturism Rising: The Literary Prehistory of a Movement (Ohio State UP, 2019), and Literary Afrofuturism in the Twenty-First Century (Ohio State UP, 2020), co-edited with Lisa Yaszek. His interview collection Conversations with Nalo Hopkinson is forthcoming from UP of Mississippi in early 2023. He is currently hard at work on The Routledge Handbook of CoFuturisms, co-edited with Bodhisattva Chattopadhyay, Grace Dillon, and Taryne Jade Taylor as well as his manuscript-in-progress Critical Race Theory and Science Fiction. If you would like to know more about Dr. Lavender, check out https://narrativeencounters.aau.at/how-reading-shapes-us-isiah-lavender/

The title of Dr. Lavender’s ICFA Guest Scholar presentation shall be “Imaginary Amendments and Executive Orders: Race in United States Science Fiction.” 

 

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Future of ICFA Results

Dear IAFA Members,

As you know, the IAFA Executive Board has been gathering information in preparation for making the decision as to the future of the International Conference for the Fantastic in the Arts. In particular, we wanted to address concerns that had been vocalized to a number of us that our continued presence in Florida–a state whose government is actively passing laws and enacting policies that are anathematic to the values that an academic organization like ours holds to–was problematic at best.

We began the process by researching locations that might be amenable to us. For more information on this process, please review the FAQ found on our website: https://iaftfita.wildapricot.org/ICFAFAQs

What we discovered is that there are limited options due to our size and shape; rather than repeat the specifics here, we refer you to the email we sent out prior to the town hall meetings on May 24, 2022.

As part of this information seeking, we held three town hall meetings with our membership, at various days and times, encouraging input and ideas. We provided a Google document whereby people could additionally comment, including anonymously if they so chose. As a result of these conversations, we provided a survey, asking people for their input.

The overwhelming response to these inquiries has been that people prefer to continue to meet at the Orlando Airport Marriott Lakeside, and would like to have IAFA take steps to make our presence have greater meaning to the Florida academic community at large in a more tangible way.

This past week, the Executive Board voted to continue our relationship with the Marriott through 2026. We also decided to create a liaison position that will spearhead a task force to develop ideas and methods by which we may be an ally in Florida to all those who oppose the state’s current political drift and systemic injustice. To give you a sampling of some of the things we discussed: grants or brain trust support for creating campus organizations, guest lectures and author readings on campuses, and assistance and participation with organization of special campus events.

We are also actively seeking ways that we can support or co-sponsor a conference on the West Coast; in fact LA’s EagleCon has already reached out to us seeking this very thing. This is in recognition not only of how much our organization would benefit from a West Coast presence but also as part of a process of expanding the overall visibility and availability of IAFA that we are beginning next month with our co-sponsoring of the conference that the University of Glasgow’s Centre for Fantasy and the Fantastic is holding.

Thank you for your continued support of IAFA. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to reach out to us.

Pawel Frelik, President, IAFA (iafa.president@fantastic-arts.org) & Jeri Zulli, Conference Director, IAFA iafa.confchair@fantastic-arts.org

On behalf of the IAFA Board

CFP: “The Global Fantastic,” IAFA Online Conference

IAFA Online Conference
October 7-9, 2022
“The Global Fantastic”

Deadline extended to July 31, 11:59 PM, EDT.

For a very long time, the fantastic and its spectrum of genres—science fiction, fantasy, horror, old and new weird, and others—has been perceived as very white and very English and French. The privileged circulation of texts by authors rooted in these two languages has been largely responsible for this condition, but the bias was also perpetuated by the international scholarship on these genres. Moreover, while the attention to Western authors and texts is definitely part of the problem, it can be argued that the very ways in which the conceptions of genres were originally formulated also contributed to the predominance of the Anglo-American (and, in some cases, Francophone) bias.

Things have changed, and, in 2022, attention has turned to the global fantastic that extends beyond a handful of former colonial centers. Several interrelated—albeit not necessarily mutually reinforcing—factors have been responsible for the new fantastic geography. First, the global spread of neoliberal capitalism, of which culture industries are an integral part, has seeded elements of Western imaginaries and transplanted models of production around the globe but also carved out opportunities for interaction with many local artists and creators. Second, the arrival and spread of digital technologies has dramatically expanded and democratized production and distribution of cultural texts, among which the broadly understood fantastic accounts for a sizable share. Most importantly, a range of political and cultural transformations going beyond storytelling has fostered a slow but steady realization that the category of the fantastic in general, and the genres of science fiction and fantasy in particular, can mean very different things in different places, and that a range of fantastic traditions has long flourished in many nations and regions around the world. This new lens reconfigures an understanding of not just the contemporary cultural landscape but allows for a discovery and recuperation of past traditions of the fantastic in the countries beyond the Anglo-French axis.

It is thus very apt that our inaugural October online conference, open to both regular ICFA attendees and those who cannot, for any reason, come to in-person events, should focus on the global fantastic to bring these traditions to the forefront.

The Guest of Honor is Tananarive Due, the winner of the American Book Award for The Living Blood (2001), the author of a dozen other speculative and mystery novels, and a film historian with expertise in Black horror. The Guest Scholar is Bodhisattva Chattopadhyay (University of Oslo), an internationally recognized scholar of global fantastic and the leader of the prestigious European Research Council grant “CoFutures: Pathways to Possible Presents.”

We invite paper proposals responding to, but not limited to, the following thematic areas and topics:

● Afrofuturism
● Africanfuturism
● Indigenous Futurisms
● non-Anglophone fantastic of the Global North
● local varieties of Western genres
● the fantastic produced in languages other than English
● slipstreams and interstitial genres
● non-Western genres of the fantastic
● postcolonial fantastic imaginaries
● non-Western media production in the fantastic: film, short film, television, video games
● theories of the fantastic beyond the Global North

Proposals not related to the conference theme are also welcome.

To submit a proposal, see https://forms.gle/souxbD9SjvN769cJ6. The submission portal will remain open until the deadline. Deadline extended to July 31, 11:59 PM, EDT.

For a list of the IAFA Divisions and Division Heads, see https://iaftfita.wildapricot.org/Division-Heads.

For more information, visit our website https://iaftfita.wildapricot.org/.

Follow us on Twitter @IAFA_TW #IAFAGlobalFantastic
“Like” us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FantasticArts/

Announcing the 2022-2024 Student Caucus Board!

Please welcome the 2022-2024 Student Caucus Board!

Representative Andrew Erickson is doctoral researcher and instructor in American Studies at Europa-Universität Flensburg and Editorial Assistant for Amerikastudien / American Studies. Recent publications focus on anti-intellectualism and counterfactual history, and on the critical posthumanism of Black American disaster fiction. His current dissertation project understands speculative fiction by Black makers through the lens of the postapocalypses of American enslavement and settler colonialism. Research interests include postcolonialism, science and speculative fiction, posthumanism, and digital humanities.

Vice-Representative Amélie Hurkens is a Ph.D. candidate in American Literature at Uppsala University, Sweden. Her research is centred around the representation of diversity in popular culture and genre fiction, including superhero comics, YA literature, and science fiction and fantasy. She combines literary studies with data inquiries into the industries, institutions and corporate culture encompassing the works she is studying. This ranges from the Walt Disney Company and its subsidiary Marvel Comics to the Hugo Awards. She has published before on world literature and its industries and institutions.

Undergraduate Representative Anna Maria Grzybowska has recently graduated with an MA degree in American Studies from the University of Warsaw, and is further pursuing a degree in Psychology. With her dedication to understanding various (not-only-)human ways of experiencing the world, her research focuses on representations of human psyche—her recent thesis exploring the confluence of psychological violence and SF film—as well as its formation in collision with complexity of nonhuman beings within the realms of speculative fiction. Her current research project investigates how animals figure within cultural speculations of the worlds to come, with a particular focus on narrative transformations (or consolidations) of the animal-industrial complex.

And yours truly will transition to serving as the immediate past representative.

Their terms will start officially on August 1 and I look forward to everything they are going to do in the next two years.

Samantha Baugus, SCIAFA Representative

CFP: “The Global Fantastic,” IAFA Online Conference

IAFA Online Conference
October 7-9, 2022
“The Global Fantastic”

Deadline extended to July 31, 11:59 PM, EDT.

For a very long time, the fantastic and its spectrum of genres—science fiction, fantasy, horror, old and new weird, and others—has been perceived as very white and very English and French. The privileged circulation of texts by authors rooted in these two languages has been largely responsible for this condition, but the bias was also perpetuated by the international scholarship on these genres. Moreover, while the attention to Western authors and texts is definitely part of the problem, it can be argued that the very ways in which the conceptions of genres were originally formulated also contributed to the predominance of the Anglo-American (and, in some cases, Francophone) bias.

Things have changed, and, in 2022, attention has turned to the global fantastic that extends beyond a handful of former colonial centers. Several interrelated—albeit not necessarily mutually reinforcing—factors have been responsible for the new fantastic geography. First, the global spread of neoliberal capitalism, of which culture industries are an integral part, has seeded elements of Western imaginaries and transplanted models of production around the globe but also carved out opportunities for interaction with many local artists and creators. Second, the arrival and spread of digital technologies has dramatically expanded and democratized production and distribution of cultural texts, among which the broadly understood fantastic accounts for a sizable share. Most importantly, a range of political and cultural transformations going beyond storytelling has fostered a slow but steady realization that the category of the fantastic in general, and the genres of science fiction and fantasy in particular, can mean very different things in different places, and that a range of fantastic traditions has long flourished in many nations and regions around the world. This new lens reconfigures an understanding of not just the contemporary cultural landscape but allows for a discovery and recuperation of past traditions of the fantastic in the countries beyond the Anglo-French axis.

It is thus very apt that our inaugural October online conference, open to both regular ICFA attendees and those who cannot, for any reason, come to in-person events, should focus on the global fantastic to bring these traditions to the forefront.

The Guest of Honor is Tananarive Due, the winner of the American Book Award for The Living Blood (2001), the author of a dozen other speculative and mystery novels, and a film historian with expertise in Black horror. The Guest Scholar is Bodhisattva Chattopadhyay (University of Oslo), an internationally recognized scholar of global fantastic and the leader of the prestigious European Research Council grant “CoFutures: Pathways to Possible Presents.”

We invite paper proposals responding to, but not limited to, the following thematic areas and topics:

● Afrofuturism
● Africanfuturism
● Indigenous Futurisms
● non-Anglophone fantastic of the Global North
● local varieties of Western genres
● the fantastic produced in languages other than English
● slipstreams and interstitial genres
● non-Western genres of the fantastic
● postcolonial fantastic imaginaries
● non-Western media production in the fantastic: film, short film, television, video games
● theories of the fantastic beyond the Global North

Proposals not related to the conference theme are also welcome.

To submit a proposal, see https://forms.gle/souxbD9SjvN769cJ6. Deadline extended to July 31, 11:59 PM, EDT.

For a list of the IAFA Divisions and Division Heads, see https://iaftfita.wildapricot.org/Division-Heads.

For more information, visit our website https://iaftfita.wildapricot.org/.

Follow us on Twitter @IAFA_TW #IAFAGlobalFantastic
“Like” us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FantasticArts/

Appointment of the Editorial Collective at the Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts

After a lengthy selection and interview process, the Executive Board of the International Association of the Fantastic in the Arts is pleased to announce the Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts’ new Editorial Collective: Mailyn Abreu Toribio, who will serve as Reviews Editor-in-Chief; Cat Ashton, who will be Project Editor-in-Chief; Novella Brooks de Vita, who will be Acquisitions Editor-in-Chief; and Jude Wright, who will serve as Managing Editor-in-Chief. They will be taking over the duties of previous Editor Brian Attebery, for whose sixteen years of leadership we express our deep gratitude. We look forward with excitement to this new era for the JFA, and know that the Collective will provide innovative paths for the study of the fantastic. Please join us in welcoming our new group of editors!

On behalf of the IAFA Board,

Pawel Frelik

IAFA President

The 2022 IAFA Imagining Indigenous Futurisms Award

The IAFA Imagining Indigenous Futurisms Award recognizes emerging authors who use science fiction to address issues of Indigenous sovereignty and self-determination.

To be considered for the award, submit the following:

200-word statement with background & goals in writing SF

4,000-word maximum writing sample addressing Indigenous perspectives

Deadline: December 1, 2022

Send your materials as attachments to Professor Grace L. Dillon (dillong@pdx.edu)

Use Word Document or PDF format

Name and Page numbers on story and bio

Double space the story and use 12-point font

Proof the work for typos and other errors.

The contest winner will be announced at the ICFA Awards Banquet and on the Imagining Indigenous Futurisms Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/groups/349927541693986. Not a member? Think about joining!

This year’s judge: acclaimed author Andrea Hairston

The Master of Poisons https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250260543

Other Novels:

Will Do Magic for Small Change and Redwood and Wildfire

Published by Aqueduct Press at http://www.aqueductpress.com/

Website: http://www.andreahairston.com

For more information about the IAFA Imagining Indigenous Futurisms Award, please visit https://iaftfita.wildapricot.org/Imagining-Indigenous-Futurisms-Award/.

ICFA 43 Updates & Conference App

Welcome to ICFA!

Are you not coming after all? Please let me know so I can cancel your attendance in the computer system. We don’t give refunds this late but rather will credit you; you must use the credit within 2 years. If you don’t inform us of your desire to cancel, the credit won’t appear.

To clarify, there is no need to confirm your registration with me. If you are receiving this email, you are registered. I only need to know if you are no longer planning to attend and wish to cancel. Otherwise, please save your greetings for in person tomorrow!

REGISTRATION HOURS
The registration desk will be open for you to pick up your badge during the following hours:
Wednesday: 11am-6pm
Thursday: 8am-12pm, 2:15pm-6pm
Friday: 8am-12pm, 2:15pm-5pm
Saturday: 8am-12pm

WE HAVE AN APP FOR THAT
The program will be available via the Sched app! Although we have optional hard-copy schedules in both long and short forms, the app will be continuously updated and therefore will be the most correct. You can also view the schedule online here (http://iaftfita.wildapricot.com), but the app will still be more up-to-date.

In a web browser…
• Website: https://icfa43fantasticcommunities2.sched.com/
• Password: See the email associated with your Membership and Registration for the password.
• You will now be able to see a schedule of sessions, which you can filter.
• From Schedule, you have several other options. Click around and have fun!

In the Sched app…
• Download the app to your phone.
• At the search prompt, type “icfa” and you should see the ICFA43 conference, which select.
• Password: See the email associated with your Membership and Registration for the password.
• The app view of sessions is like the pocket program. It is not as detailed as the web browser view.
• If you have created an account, you can add and remove sessions from your personal schedule through the app. We encourage you to add a headshot to your profile.

IMPORTANT NOTES
• This year’s hashtag is #ICFA43.
• View ICFA’s Accessibility Policy: http://www.fantastic-arts.org/2016/icfa-accessibility-policy/ Please note that the hotel’s airport shuttle is not handicapped accessible.
• Highly collectible merch featuring this year’s artwork will be available for purchase at the Registration desk. Meal tickets will be available for purchase until sold out ($48 for the luncheons and $65 for the banquet). Outstanding membership and registration fees must be paid before you can get your name tag. The Reg desk accepts cash, checks, and credit cards (but cannot take AmEx on site).

See you soon!
Emily Midkiff, IAFA Registrar (iafareg AT gmail.com)

New On-Site Technical Officer

It is with great pleasure that the IAFA Executive Board announces that Carol McMullen-Pettit will be assuming the position of On-Site Technical Officer (OSTO) at this year’s ICFA.

The OSTO is crucial to the functioning of the conference: they are responsible for all technology use ​for and at ICFA. This includes purchasing ​audio visual equipment, setting up and tearing down projectors/screens in the break out rooms, ​liaising with the Book Room coordinator for A/V storage, and liaising with hotel personnel for events that require equipment we don’t own.

We would like to thank Sean Nixon for his twelve years of outstanding service in this position (his IAFA volunteerism in general dates back to the early 2000s). Sean oversaw our investment in new equipment and, as any attendee in recent years can attest, very little went wrong on his watch. When it did, he was always there instantly to solve the problem, as if by magic. He will be taking over the Treasurer position from Bill Clemente as of this ICFA. Thank you Sean!

For those of you who do not have the pleasure of knowing Carol McMullen-Pettit, she has been attending and volunteering for ICFA since she was a tenth-grade high school student in Boca Raton. Carol attended the University of Florida while the conference was in Texas but resumed her attendance at the conference with its return to Fort Lauderdale (and her transfer to FAU). Carol finished her BA in Anthropology, and then her subsequent certification in Secondary Social Sciences in Education, all while married and producing the first two of her three children. She has held a variety of teaching positions, culminating in more than ten years of working as a Social Studies and Reading teacher for At-Risk Youth, and for nearly the last twelve years, with The Princeton Review as a test preparation instructor, tutor, and presenter. She lives in Hollywood, FL with her husband, two dogs, two cats, and a hedgehog.

Welcome aboard, Carol!

One week to ICFA 43! Announcements and Invitations Inside

It’s almost time for ICFA! Please see the call for volunteers, two invitations, and your own handy-dandy packing list below.

If your plans have changed and you are unable to attend, please let me know so I can ensure your attendance is canceled in the computer system. We don’t give refunds this late but rather will credit you; you must use the credit within 2 years. If you don’t inform us of your desire to cancel, the credit won’t appear.

VOLUNTEERS NEEDED

ICFA runs on volunteers, and we could always use more. For each hour you volunteer, you’ll earn $10 toward your registration fee (to be refunded following the conference). Sign up here: https://forms.gle/PiSJPWTKXYdfc1WC7

If you’ve already signed up, THANK YOU! The schedule will be distributed soon.

YOU’RE INVITED TO THE BIPOC LUNCHEON

All are invited to the BIPOC Caucus’s Counter Space at the Cove for the Guest of Honor Nisi Shawl’s reflections on “Depicting Your Truth” Saturday at noon.

If you’d like to lunch after Nisi’s presentation (we’re not unmasking during her remarks), we have a limited number of brown bags available for a reduced price of $5, subsidized by generous donations to the BIPOC Caucus for this event. If you are able, please consider paying the conference’s full price for the brown bag ($10.00), so that our subsidies can continue to benefit all who might like to attend and feast the body as well as the mind. This offer to preorder closes today, March 7th. If you do not preorder, then regular brown bags will be available as usual on a first-come, first-serve basis. To reserve your reduced price brown bag(s) for our Saturday event, please log into your IAFA account and then click this link: https://iaftfita.wildapricot.org/Store

YOU’RE INVITED TO THE SF THEORY ROUNDTABLE

Everyone attending the conference is invited to this year’s SF Theory Roundtable reading. This year, the readings are the excerpts from Isiah Lavender III’s Afrofuturism Rising: The Literary Philosophy of a Movement and the discussion will moderated by Gerry Canavan. The link to the page with the PDF and password should be in the email account associated with your membership and registration.

ICFA PACKING LIST

Your stylish IAFA badge holder. (If you don’t yet have one, they are available for purchase on site for $5.) Pro tip: put it in your luggage and leave it there at all times.
Your computer dongle if you are using AV.
Your call for papers, graduate program description, or other handout you wish to target to this specialized audience. A table is set aside for these handouts. Pro tip: People have stopped taking handouts in favor of photographing them on their phones. Design accordingly!

See you next week!

Emily Midkiff

IAFA Registrar