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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.

Graduate Student Award for ICFA

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.

SFRA 2008 — Change of Venue

These Irish eyes aren’t smilin’ given the recent news from our SFRA compatriots that deserves mention on our IAFA blog (economically prudent and understandable, but disappointing nonetheless):

The SFRA Executive Committee has decided that, due to the uncertainties caused by recent currency fluctuations, the only financially prudent course is not to hold our 2008 annual meeting in Dublin, Ireland. We sincerely regret any problems this announcement will cause our members, wherever they reside. It was not a decision the Committee reached lightly, and it is a decision that has caused all of us bitter disappointment. But whether or not we could reach sufficient prepaid registrations by preset cancellation deadlines, which given the rapid decline of the U.S. dollar against foreign currencies seemed a major uncertainty, the amount of money SFRA would have to upfront for registration subsidies to attract a minimal attendance seemed almost to guarantee a significant deficit, one that could grow substantially under certain conditions. The SFRA Executive Committee agreed that we should not commit to this level of expenditure at this time.

We would like to thank the Dublin Conference Group for all the hard work they have put in over the past several years on this project. We stress that it is not the fault of any of them that these plans have not worked out, but rather the declining value of the U.S. dollar that is the major culprit here. And we stress that SFRA will continue to do all it can in the future to serve ALL of its membership, wherever they reside.

The SFRA Executive Committee will work to find a site in the United States for SFRA’s 2008 Conference that is affordable and will make for a quality academic gathering. We hope to announce this new venue in the next couple of weeks. In addition, SFRA will do what it can to offer graduate students willing to present a paper at that conference, particularly non-North American students who were looking forward to the Dublin locale, travel grants to lessen the cost of attending the U.S. venue.

We hope that out of this disappointment will somehow come a shared determination to make SFRA a more vital and more dynamic group of science fiction scholars.

Adam Frisch
SFRA President

Note: for those of you intent on going to Ireland this summer, there is a viable alternative that deserves a plug:

9th International Conference of the Utopian Studies Society
University of Limerick, Ireland, July 3-5, 2008.

The 9th. International conference will be hosted by the Ralahine Centre at the University of Limerick. A Call for Papers will be posted as soon as it is available.

Special themes identified by the Steering Group so far will be Architecture, Music, and Irish Utopias, but proposals on a wide range of Utopian topics will be welcome.

Venue: The Ralahine Centre, University of Limerick, Ireland
The nearest airport is Shannon.
For information, click here.

CFP: Queering the Fantastic

Update: Queering the Fantastic
Edited by Robin Anne Reid and Jes Battis

New deadline for essays on specified topics (listed below)

We have received a number of excellent proposals for this volume but would now like to solicit proposals for essays to fill gaps in the collection.

We need essays on children’s/ya fantasy, fanfiction, graphic novels, horror, and cinema, as well as theoretical pieces on the fantastic itself as a queer medium.

We are seeking scholarly essays (20 pgs max) that explore the links between the fantastic and queer studies.

Email abstracts (1000 word max plus Working Bibliography) to:

Professor Robin Anne Reid (Robin_Reid_AT_tamu-commerce.edu) AND Professor Jes Battis (jbattis_AT_gmail.com). Please include a recent CV and short bio.

Deadline for abstracts is December 15, 2007.

Contributors will be notified within a week.

This volume will address all the fantastic in all media, focusing particularly on queer uses, adaptations, and reformulations. Since its definition as “a hesitation between genres” by Tzvetan Todorov in the 1970s, the fantastic has often been compared to Freud’s ‘uncanny,’ or to the marvelous realms of the picaresque, the fairy-tale, and the medieval romance. But the fantastic is not precisely any of these things, and, with this volume, we are interested in linking it to the ambivalent and charged position of ‘queer’ as a sexuality, a mode of life, a genre of literature, and even a type of impossibility.

Robin Anne Reid is currently professor of creative writing and critical theory at Texas A&M University-Commerce. She has authored two books for Greenwood’s Critical Companions Series (on Arthur C. Clarke and Ray Bradbury), and is currently editing an encyclopedia on women in science fiction and fantasy, also for Greenwood. She has published essays on feminist science fiction, queer approaches to fan studies, and Peter Jackson’s film of Tolkien’s novel. Her poetry has been published in a variety of small magazines and online.

Jes Battis is currently a postdoctoral research fellow at the City University of New York in Manhattan, and teaches as an adjunct instructor in the Department of Film and Media Studies at CUNY-Hunter College. He has authored two scholarly books on fantasy and media: Investigating Farscape: Uncharted Territories of Sex and Science Fiction, (Palgrave, 2007) and >am>Blood Relations: Chosen Families in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel (McFarland, 2005). He also has a fantasy novel, Night Child, forthcoming from Penguin USA/Ace in spring of 2008.

ICFA-29 — A New Deadline Warrants A New CFP

The 29th International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts
Delightful Horror and the Sense of Wonder: Appreciating the Sublime in the Fantastic

[Feel free to distribute this general Call for Papers. The more it’s passed around the merrier! Also, although the original deadline of Oct. 31 has passed, the recent news of SFRA’s change of venue ((see below)) for SFRA 2008 has prompted the IAFA to revise its deadline for paper proposals for ICFA-29. The new deadline is December 15th.]

The 29th International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts will be held March 19-23, 2008, at the Orlando Airport Marriott in Orlando, Florida. The conference begins at 3 pm on Wednesday and ends at 1 am on Sunday upon the conclusion of the conference banquet. 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 December 15th.

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.

Please See Page Two (Over) for Submission Guidelines
Look for Information and Updates at the IAFA website: www.iafa.org

Submission Guidelines

In order to be considered for the 2008 program, your proposal to (1) read a paper, (2) recruit and chair a paper session, or (3) organize and chair a panel discussion should be date-stamped no later than December 15th.; electronic correspondence is welcome. Proposals must be sent to the appropriate Division Head (addresses below). Advise the Division Head if you would like to volunteer to chair a paper session. Proposals must include a 500-word abstract and appropriate bibliography indicating the project’s scholarly or theoretical context. Presenters must be members of IAFA at the time of the conference. Be sure to indicate all audio-visual equipment needs in this initial proposal; later A/V requests cannot be guaranteed.

FANTASTIC IN CHILDREN’S & YOUNG-ADULT’S LITERATURE & ILLUSTRATION

All aspects of the fantastic in work aimed at children and young adults. Division Head: Joe Sutliff Sanders, California State University, Dept. of English, 5500 University Parkway, San Bernardino, CA, 92407-2397 (DR.JOESS@GMAIL.COM).

FANTASTIC LITERATURE IN ENGLISH
All aspects of the fantastic in British, American and Commonwealth literature. Division Head: Charles W. Nelson, Humanities Dept., Michigan Technological University, Houghton, MI 49931 (CWNELSON@MTU.EDU).

FANTASTIC IN FILM & MEDIA
All aspects of the fantastic in television, video, and film. Division Head: Susan A. George, Gender & Women’s Studies, University of California, Berkeley, 3326 Dwinelle Hall, Berkeley CA 94720-1070 (SAGEORGE13@SBCGLOBAL.NET).

COMMUNITIES & CULTURE IN THE FANTASTIC [formerly PCVA]
All aspects of the fantastic in fan cultures and communities, including fan fiction, comics/graphic novels, filking, conventions, hypertexts, viral marketing, RPG. Division Head: Barbara Lucas, VIS, 31225 Bainbridge Rd, Suite M, Solon OH 44139 (BARBEDWRITING@YAHOO.COM).

VISUAL & PERFORMING ARTS [formerly PCVA]
All aspects of the fantastic in live drama, music, dance, sculpture, body art, and photography and digital imagery. Division Head: Stefan Hall, Bowling Green State University, Dept. of Theatre and Film, 338 South Hall, Bowling Green, OH, 43403-0180 (STEFANH@BGNET.BGSU.EDU)

HORROR LITERATURE
All aspects of horror in mainstream and popular literature, including literary traditions, aesthetics, psychological constructs, and comparative influences. Division Head: Stephanie Moss, 10032 N. 52nd. Street, Tampa, FL 33517 (SMOSS@CAS.USF.EDU).

INTERNATIONAL FANTASTIC LITERATURE
All aspects of the fantastic in international and comparative literature. Division Head: Dale Knickerbocker, Dept. of Foreign Languages, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC 27858 (KNICKERBOCKERD@MAIL.ECU.EDU).

SCIENCE FICTION LITERATURE & THEORY
All aspects of science fiction literature, history, and theory. Division Head: Sherryl Vint, Dept. of English Literature, Brock University, St. Catharines, ON, L2S 3A1 (SVINT@BROCKU.CA).

March 19-23, 2008
Marriott Orlando Airport Hotel
Look for Information and Updates at the IAFA website: www.iafa.org

Science Fiction Studies Special Issue on Gender and Sexuality

CFP: Special Issue of Science Fiction Studies on Gender and Sexuality. Past special issues of SFS have focused on women writers and on queer theory, but this issue proposes to take a broader approach to gender and sexuality, focusing on a full spectrum of related topics: femininity/masculinity in sf, sf and sex/gender change, sf pornography, techno-fetishism, alien sex, multiple genders/sexualities, sexual subcultures in sf, sf and censorship, sex work(ers) in sf, slash/flash writing, and more. We welcome submissions from a range of disciplinary perspectives. The deadline for 500-word abstracts is May 1, 2008; please send them to Rob Latham at rob-latham@uiowa.edu or to Istvan Csicsery-Ronay, Jr. at icronay@depauw.edu.

Call for Proposals: Academic and Creative Events for ICFA-29

Hello, all IAFA members attending (or still thinking about attending) this year’s conference in beautiful Orlando, Florida in March 2008.

While our early deadline for submissions has passed, we do have a secondary deadline this year, November 30, 2007. Those of you who regularly attend ICFA know that we aim to provide a good mix of programming. We think that it’s in part this mix of programming that makes ICFA such a wonderful experience for all of us, whether we’re scholars or teachers, authors or poets.

We’ve already received lots of proposals for all kinds of events for this conference, but we’re still looking for more. For one thing, our new hotel (Orlando Airport Marriott) has an extra conference room for us to fill! We would love to hear from any member of IAFA about ideas for panels, fiction workshops, additional author and poetry readings, and special events.

Keep in mind that there are some limits on how many and what kinds of events participants can be part of. For instance, if you’re an attending author reading from your fiction in the creative track, you can’t also present an individual paper in an academic session, although you can still participate in a panel discussion. And if you’re an academic reading a paper, you can’t also read from your creative work in the creative track, although you can still participate in other kinds of creative events, such as workshops or themed talks about writing the fantastic.

If you’re not sure who to approach about what, you can contact any Division Head or 1VP Chrissie Mains (cemains AT shaw.ca or cmains AT ucalgary.ca) and we’ll work on putting you in touch with others with similar interests and ideas.

Anyone interested can organize both academic and creative events and propose them for inclusion in the programming (although obviously we can’t guarantee that every proposal can be accepted). The only limit to participation in ICFA is space (which is larger than in previous years) and the needs of the 1VP to be able to schedule events with a minimum of conflicts (sadly, that will never change).

Looking forward to seeing you in March
Chrissie Mains