Last Day for Åcon Ferry Booking

If you’re thinking of coming to Åcon but haven’t signed up yet, do it now—today is the last day you can book the very inexpensive ferry trip there and back.

Note: it’s still possible to attend the convention even if you miss today’s booking deadline: you’ll just have to take care of the travel booking by yourself.

See you there!

Sign up for Åcon

The Sign-up form for Åcon is now online. You register for the convention and book the ferry travel on the same form. The deadline for booking is April 20, so go there and sign up now!

Brewery Visit at Åcon

Åcon 3 announced they are organizing a visit to the Stallhage brewery on Friday. So if you’re interested, head on to the info page and sign up.

Pub Meeting Tomorrow

Welcome again to the Turku sf pub meeting tomorrow! As usual, we meet in Bar Bremer at six. There was talk last time to try to relocate to the cabinet of the pub (long room near the Uudenmaankatu exit) it that is available—look for us there if we’re not at the usual spot.

Proposed topics for discussion: we’ve been thinking about visits to alternative locations for the pub meetings (just for a change), so come if you have an opinion. Also, I’d welcome talk about this year’s Nebula-nominated short stories and Atorox nominees. A new issue of Turu Mafia Zine will be published.

Finncon 2009 Blog

Finncon 2009 has started a blog in English, so head there if you want to be kept current on what’s happening.

Unfortunately the RSS feed isn’t working yet, but I’m sure that will be fixed shortly.

Edit 2009-04-02 The feeds are now in order.

Researching the Fantastic—Call for Papers

A seminar of science fiction and fantasy research will take place in connection with Finncon for the 10th time this year. The call for papers is enclosed:

RESEARCHING THE FANTASTIC—JOURNEYS AND METHODOLOGIES

The 10th Seminar of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research in Finland
Department of English, University of Helsinki
Thursday 9th and Friday 10th July, 2009

The 10th Seminar of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research in Finland will take place in Helsinki in connection with Finncon 2009. We wish to invite papers on the general theme of “journey”. Voyaging is one of the foundational motifs of science fiction and fantasy. What does a journey teach us, or what does it teach about us? Does the journey bring us face to face with otherness? This seminar invites proposals that explore, for example, the journey as a narrative and/or ideological model, inner journeys as well as external journeys, time-travels or travels represented at various times in the history of literature.

This year the seminar will also give special attention to questions of research methodology in general, as well as questions that concern research into genre literature in particular.

The proposed papers may be work towards a Pro Gradu or a PhD dissertation, or be drafts for articles or essays either in Finnish or in English. Proposals concerning issues other than our specified themes are also welcome and will be accommodated if at all possible.

The aim of the seminar is to promote Finnish multidisciplinary research on science fiction and fantasy and to enhance the international contacts of the Finnish research network.

Our international guest speaker is Professor Adam Roberts (Royal Holloway, University of London), author of Science Fiction (2000) in the Routledge New Critical Idioms series, and of Yellow Blue Tibia (2009), which is his latest novel. Also partaking in the seminar are Professor Bo Pettersson (University of Helsinki), Professor Liisa Rantalaiho (University of Tampere), Professor Frans Mäyrä (University of Tampere), Dr Irma Hirsjärvi (University of Jyväskylä), Dr Markku Soikkeli (University of Tampere) and Dr Merja Polvinen (University of Helsinki).

In addition to the two-day workshop the researchers’ meeting also includes plenty of academic programming over Saturday and Sunday during the Finncon event.

Please send a 500-word abstract in Word or RTF format to merja.polvinen@helsinki.fi by the 16th of April 2009. You will be notified of the outcome of your proposal by the 1st of May. For the seminar we wish to receive a research paper of c. 2000–3000 words.

Organizers: FINFAR – Finnish Network of Fantasy Research, University of Helsinki Department of English and Finncon 2009 (http://2009.finncon.org/).
Coordinator: Merja Polvinen.

Helsinki Book Fair

Looks like I’m going to have to drag my butt to Helsinki next October—Hal Duncan announced today he will be attending the Helsinki Book Fair, courtesy of the good folks at Like Publishing. Looking forward to a rematch between Hal and Juha T…