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A Loss to the Association

On Saturday, June 27, ICFA founder, Bob Collins, passed away in his home at age 80 after an incredibly swift-moving battle with cancer.

Thirty years ago, Bob, a professor at Florida Atlantic University, gambled that a mass mailing to university English departments might attract scholars who wished to give papers on fantasy literature; the response was overwhelming, and the rest, as the saying goes, is history. At the recent 30th annual Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts, we were privileged to hear an interview with Bob during which he recounted some of the early history of the conference and the organization and his amazement at its success.

At his request, Bob’s ashes were scattered on the ocean by the Neptune Society. Bob’s daughter, Judy, is planning a remembrance for Bob at their house in Boca Raton, starting at 1 pm on Thursday, July 2. Anyone who will be in the area and who wishes to join us will be welcome. At 2 pm Eastern Time, we will lift a glass together to honor Bob. If others would like to join us in absentia at that time, no doubt Bob would be pleased.

William A. Senior

New Division Head

On behalf of the Executive Board of IAFA, I would like to announce that we have decided upon a replacement for Susan George, who recently stepped down as Film and Television Division Head at the end of her term. The new Division Head will be Jeffrey Weinstock of Central Michigan University.

Jeffrey has been a member of IAFA since 1996, presenting papers on a wide variety of topics. He has edited several collections including books on South Park, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, The Blair Witch Project, and has an upcoming book on the films of M. Night Shyamalan, in addition to working in nineteenth and twentieth century American Literature. In service to IAFA, Jeffrey has served on the Graduate Student Paper Award committee, and is Reviews Editor for JFA. He brings to the position of division head a great deal of experience in conference planning and organizing.

The board was pleased with the response to the call for candidates for the position; three people expressed interest in the job, all of them well qualified. We thank all of the candidates and hope that all will find other ways in which to continue to contribute to the success of the conference and of the association.

Chrissie Mains
1VP, IAFA

JFA Issues Missing in Action

Brian Attebery, the Editor of Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, and those of us who share the JFA masthead are looking to have a complete archive of the journal; however, there are some issues that have gone MIA (chiefly due to unscrupulous office movers). Can any of the membership help in donating any of the following (see below)? If so, please contact Brian at attebria@isu.edu.

Volume Issue

1 2
1 3

2 1
2 2

3 2

5 2
5 3
5 4

Take care,
Graham J. Murphy

Brian Attebery: Pilgrim Award

The IAFA is thrilled to applaud Brian Attebery for winning the SFRA’s Pilgrim Award for lifetime contributions to SF and fantasy scholarship. Brian is a highly-respected scholar in our field thanks to such books as The Fantasy Tradition in American Literature: From Irving to Le Guin, Strategies of Fantasy, and Decoding Gender in Science Fiction. His articles appear in Extrapolation, Daughters of Earth: Twentieth Century Feminist Science Fiction, Science Fiction Studies, Nanoculture: Implications of the New Technoscience, the New York Review of Science Fiction, and the Hugo Award-winning The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction. He is also Editor of the Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts. A hearty congratulations from all of us.

Dell Award Winner

The IAFA is proud to announce the Dell winner for this year is Josh Eure of North Carolina State University for the story “We Were Real.” Congratulations to all the nominees and, of course, this year’s winner.

Shopping in Orlando

(Not a Definitive Guide, Being the Limited Experiences of one Chrissie Mains, Cosmetics Junkie)

Just in case anyone else is interested in doing some shopping during the conference and is wondering how to get around Orlando without a car, I thought I might as well post some of my own research into public transit and Orlando malls.

The public transit system in Orlando is called Lynx (links, get it?) and their website is GoLynx.com. There’s a useful transit map, as well as schedules and route maps to help you to plan your outing.

A very useful Lynx route #42 runs from Orlando International Airport to the Premium Outlets Mall, passing through Prime Outlets Mall and the Florida Mall on its way. Since the hotel is so close to the airport, it’s easy for those staying at the hotel to catch this bus and visit not only those shopping destinations but also other places on International Drive as well as connections to other bus routes going to downtown Orlando and to Walt Disney World (it also passes by Sea World, but that’s not shopping, is it?).

To catch the #42 bus, leave the hotel’s front entrance, walk around the lovely water feature (apparently called Lake Lorri, according to Wikimapia), and north on Augusta National Drive to the first major intersection; turn left onto T. G. Lee Blvd, and continue west to the major intersection with S. Semorran Blvd. You’ll want to be on the north side of the intersection, so that when you cross S. Semorran, you end up at the bus stop across the street from T.G.I. Friday’s. For a visual aid, go to the following Wikimapia link, where I have outlined the Bus Stop:

Wikimapia TGIF and #42 Bus Stop

Here’s a link to the schedule and route map for #42, in pdf format:

#42 Schedule

Use the airport timing point, since it doesn’t take that long for the bus to get from the airport to this stop. The bus runs every 30 minutes. The fare is $2.00 each way, but you can apparently purchase a weekly pass for $16. The return #42, on its way to the airport, will turn the corner right in front of T.G.I. Friday’s, so you’ll only have to walk across the intersection to be on your way back to the hotel.

The Florida Mall is about 20 minutes from the stop. The bus will stop for about 5 minutes in a bus area right by the parking lot, so don’t worry about where to get on or off. The Florida Mall is a huge mall, with six department stores and a whole lot of other stores (including a Sephora!), with Target right across the parking lot. There are also a number of restaurants there, both food court and nice sit-down places. Here’s a link to the mall’s website:

Florida Mall

And here’s a Wikimapia view:

Wikimapia of Florida Mall

You can see the Target in the top right corner, and I’ve labelled the bus stop area to the left of the JC Penney’s.

If you just want a relatively stress-free shopping afternoon, Florida Mall is probably your best bet, as it’s not a long bus ride and there are no connections necessary.

If you stay on this bus for another 30 minutes, you’ll end up at Prime Outlets (I haven’t done that yet, but it’s on the books for this year). And if you take it to the end of the line, another 30 minutes or so, you’re at Chelsea Premium Outlets. I did do this last year, and while it’s nice enough, I’m not sure it’s worth ending up on a bus in rush hour traffic. But if you want to try it out, here are their websites:

Prime Outlets Orlando

Premium Outlets Orlando

I also plan to transfer to route #50 at Sea World, in order to get to the Cirque du Soleil show La Nouba at Downtown Disney World. This route also ends up at the Transportation and Ticketing Center for Walt Disney World, and it looks like it travels much of the route on I4 and thus doesn’t stop often; at any rate, the timetable claims it can travel between the downtown Orlando station and Downtown Disney World in about 45 minutes. If you really want to do Disney World, there are probably easier and faster ways to get there, of course.

IAFA Election Results

The IAFA Board is pleased to announce the results of our most recent
elections:

2nd Vice-President: Sydney Duncan (unanimous)
Treasurer: William Clemente (re-elected; unanimous)

Our thanks to all those of you who participated in the election process
as candidates and/or voters. We wish all the best to our new/returning
members of the Board and look forward to seeing everyone at ICFA-30.

Graham J. Murphy

Call for Volunteer: FM Division Head

After five years of much-appreciated service as FM Division Head, Susan George is stepping aside to allow someone else the opportunity. The IAFA board, on behalf of the entire IAFA community, thanks Susan for the hard work that she has done in this position. Beginning after the conference in March 2009, we will need a new division head for Film & Television.

This is an open call for volunteers interested in being considered for the position. 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 fantasy, science fiction, and horror in film and television. In past conferences, the FM Division has sponsored papers on television series such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The X-Files, Star Trek, and Battlestar Galactica, and films from every decade, from Hammer horror and Ed Wood science fiction to Gattaca, Grindhouse, and The Day After Tomorrow.

General qualifications include current membership with IAFA (at least a couple of years of experience with the organization and conference attendance so you have some understanding of how things work at the conference), comfort with computers, easy and dependable internet access, 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 Susan beginning immediately, 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 required to do the work involved. The most successful division heads also make a point throughout the year of watching for new ways to advertise their divisions and for emerging scholars to approach with calls for papers.

Specific qualifications for the FM Division Head include a comprehensive knowledge of the field, both of primary texts (films and television series focused on science fiction, fantasy, and horror) and of secondary texts (scholarship on these films and series as well as film and television more generally).

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 have questions about the position, you can either email Susan or speak with her at the conference in March. To apply for the position, please email both Chrissie Mains, 1st Vice President (cemains AT shaw.ca) and Susan George, outgoing FM Division Head (sageorge13 AT sbcglobal.net) 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 May 1, 2009.

IAFA Graduate Student Award

Information on the IAFA Graduate Student Award has now been posted at www.iafa.org. Click on “Awards” on the banner, then the link “More Information About the Graduate Student Award,” and finally a Rich Text Format version of the criteria (see #5) is available for download. Good luck to all applicants.

2009 Crawford Award Winner

Daryl Gregory Wins Crawford

The winner of the 2009 Crawford Award, for an outstanding new fantasy writer whose first book was published in 2008, is Daryl Gregory, for Pandemonium (Del Rey). The other authors on this year’s shortlist were Doug Dorst, Alive in Necropolis (Riverhead); David Schwartz, Superpowers (Three Rivers); Felix Gilman, Thunderer (Bantam Spectra); and J.M. McDermott, Last Dragon (Wizards of the Coast). Although technically published in late December 2007, the Gilman novel was deemed eligible for consideration because it appeared too late for consideration in 2008.

Sponsored by the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts and administered by Gary K. Wolfe, the Crawford Award is now in its 25th year. Past winners include Charles de Lint (1985), Greer Gilman (1992), Susan Palwick (1993), Jonathan Lethem (1995), Candas Jane Dorsey (1997), Kij Johnson (2001), Alexander Irvine (2003), Joe Hill (2006), M. Rickert (2007), and Christopher Barzak (2008). This year’s panel of nominators included Graham Sleight, Paul Witcover, Farah Mendlesohn, Niall Harrison, Cheryl Morgan, and Kelly Link. The award will be presented at the International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts, March 18-22, in Orlando, Florida. Details of the conference are at www.iafa.org.