SMOFcon Scholarship to Eemeli

San Francisco Science Fiction Conventions, Inc. grants sholarships to “assist budding convention organizers to attend SMOFcon” (SMOFcon is an annual conrunners’ convention in the US). This year one of the two recipients of the $500 scholarship is our own Eemeli Aro. Congratulations, Eemeli!

Comics Finlandia

Sarjakuva Finlandia (“Comics Finlandia”) is a new prize awarded to a Finnish comics creator for a comics album, modeled after the Finlandia prize for literature. The award is given annually at the Tampere Kuplii event in Tampere, and the award sum is 5 000 euros.

Works published through a commercial publisher and self-published albums are both eligible for the award. The Tampere Kuplii society sets a selection board that nominates up to ten candidates for the award annually, and also names an outside person to choose the winner (this works the same as the Finlandia prize). Both Finnish and Swedish-language works are eligible, and the selection board can also accept works in other languages as nominees. The award is always given for a specific work.

The first Sarjakuva Finlandia award will be given on April 20, 2008.

Star Wars by Turku Philharmonic

Got an e-mail from the Chief Executive of the Turku Philharmonic Orchestra, and she tells me they will be giving a special live performance of “the best of the Star Wars soundtracks” next month (Tuesday November 11). Atso Almila conducts.

The tickets are 5 euros, and the audience is encouraged to dress up in Star Wars costumes. The concert starts at 7 pm.

You can get tickets from Lippupalvelu or directly from the concert hall ticket sales (Aninkaistenkatu 9, (02) 262 0800 Mon–Fri 11–17). (We’ve already got ours!)

Pub Meetings & Book Fair

Tomorrow is First Thursday again, so the Turku pub meeting is in Bar Bremer at six. Reminiscing about Eurocon (the new issue of my fanzine contains a con report, in case you’re interested), planning things to see at the Book Fair this weekend, etc. Welcome!

And speaking about the Turku International Book Fair: it’s this weekend, starting on Friday. Books, books, and more books! Some program items at the fair that look interesting include:

• a drabble competition by TSFS on Friday
  
• interesting authors and comics artists on stage on Friday include Aino Havukainen & Sami Toivonen (11:00), and Sari Peltoniemi (13:00)
  
• more authors on stage on Saturday talking about their books, including Miina Supinen (12:00), Milla “Kiroileva siili” Paloniemi (13:40), J. Pekka Mäkelä (14:40)
• panel discussions on Saturday on small press (chaired by Jukkahoo, 13:10) and fanzines (chaired by Anne Leinonen, 17:10)
• seminar on myths and folk tales in YA books (Saturday, 14:00)
• presentation by the Turbator small press with Harri Erkki and Markku Soikkeli (Saturday, 14:20)

On Saturday evening there’ll be an open pub meeting for people interested in sf & comics in Koulu Brewery Restaurant starting at 7. Welcome everybody!

(And if two pub meetings aren’t enough for one weekend, I’d be willing to bet you can meet come comics & sf folks in Cosmic Comic Café on Friday evening.)

Eurocon Photos

Some pictures I took at Eurocon last weekend:

The opening ceremony with the ESFS and Danish flags. There were stormtroopers on the premises, but I guess they mistook us for supporters of the Empire.

There were a couple of hall costumes at the con. I didn’t see these guys after the opening ceremony—maybe the stormtroopers got them?

Official ESFS meeting business. The good old officers were re-elected for another three-year term at the business meeting.

The Finnish party on Friday evening. Maija, Juha, and Anne tutoring the foreigners in the delights of salmiakki, vodka, and salmiakki vodka.

GoH Zoran Živković talked wise words at his speech. Seemed like a nice fellow.

The Finns outside the con building, enjoying great Czech beers kindly provided by Peter Pavelko (the second from the right—he blended in with the Finns marvelously).

Olav and Knud talking about important staff business with Carolina, who I think spent most of her convention gophering valiantly. At least that’s what she was doing every time I saw her.

The sf quiz. Note the score on the board (Jukka’s is the one on the right).

Those darn nice Italians that took Eurocon 2009 home to Fiuggi.

The ESFS awards looked… interesting this year.

There are more Eurocon pictures on my Flickr set. Others have also taken pictures.

Finncon Fever

Finncon fever might be in the rise. The Finnish party at Eurocon got very positive feedback and I think many more international fen are now aware of Finncon than before. According to one Eurocon report the best thing at the con was the Finncon 2009 ad that said George R.R. Martin is one of the Guests of Honor. We might have a reason to expect many more international fen at the 2009 con than usual. (And I’m hoping Finncon 2008 will see a surge of international members as well.)

Eurocon, Day Three

The Eurocon is over (for us, anyway; I’m sure the Dead Dog Party is going at full speed right now) and we’re sitting on the plane home. Today was somewhat slower than the previous days programwise: towards the end of the con it always gets harder to concentrate on the program items, but I also felt today didn’t have as many interesting things to see as yesterday.

One item was perfect for the last day of the con, though: Cheryl Morgan held an sf quiz with questions ranging from very easy to if-you-know-this-one-you-seriously-need-to-get-a-life hard. There were three contestants, Georges Bormand form France, Klaus Æ. Mogensen from Denmark, and Jukka “Yokohama” Halme from Finland. Jukka pretty much ruled for the whole competition (and wrapped at least a couple of young Dutch fen around his amazing brain) with his knowledge and mastering of trivia.

The program in whole was a bit of a mixed bag. Many complemented the excellent science programming, and a large portion of the program items (most of them in fact) were in English. There were several “introductory” items of the genre, writing, reviewing, and so on. On the other hand there were very few literary discussions or topics that did more than scratch the surface. And it didn’t help that the program book didn’t list the participants of most items.

The turnout at the con was better than I expected (if not quite as good as the organizers had hoped for)—there were more than 700 members at the convention, and according to the first estimates today if might have been closer to 800. There were many international members from all over Europe, and at a con this size it was very easy to meet and spend time with them. This is what I think made the convention for most of us.

The arrangements suffered from quite a few rookie mistakes—for example the information chain wasn’t working very well, coordinating the gophers and showing them the ropes was lacking, especially at the beginning, and many things just weren’t there or being thought of in time. But everybody worked really hard and all problems got solved. All in all things run reasonably smoothly. Wilf James, who acted as Gopher Mum, told me he was especially impressed by Pasi “super gopher” Välkkynen who was always where he was needed and took initiative to make things run well.

* * *

That’s is for this time—we’ve arrived in Finland and it’s time to head home. A big hand for the organizers; we had a great time! See you at a con somewhere!

Next: some photos