Tähtifantasia 2010 Nominees

The nominees for the Tähtifantasia award for best translated fantasy published in Finnish last year have been announced.

The nominees are:

• Joe Abercrombie: Ase itse (The Blade Itself, Kirjava)
• Jorge Luis Borges: Kuvitteellisten olentojen kirja (El libro de los seres imaginarios, Teos)
• Joe Hill: Bobby Conroy palaa kuolleista ja muita kertomuksia (20th Century Ghosts, Tammi)
• Ursula K. Le Guin: Lavinia (Lavinia, WSOY)
• Haruki Murakami: Kafka rannalla (Kafka on the Shore, Tammi)

The winner will be announced at Finncon in July. The jury for the award comprises critic Jukka Halme, critic Aleksi Kuutio, writer and editor Anne Leinonen and Risingshadow.net representative Osmo Määttä. The award is given by the Helsinki Science Fiction Society, and previous winners are Jeff VanderMeer, Ngugi Wa Thiong’o and Ellen Kushner.

Finnish NoFF 2010

The Finnish NoFF delegate was announced yesterday at Finnsmofcon: Mirka Ulanto will be the noffit this year, and will travel there (and back) to a Nordic convention some time this year.

Mirka is the chair of the Turku university sf club, and is also a member of the organizing committee of Finncon 2011. She has also published a few short stories in Finnish sf zines.

Zine Grants

The Ministry of Education has announced the grants for cultural magazines for 2010. In the list are several familiar names: Tähtivaeltaja (17 000 €), Sarjainfo (the zine of the Finnish Comics Society, 17 500 €), Kosmoskynä (800 €), Portti (15 000 €), and Spin (3 000 €).

Åcon 4 Program

Åcon 4 has published its preliminary program schedule. Looks like a lot of fun, again. So, gå tå the cån site and sign up to the most fun convention in the Nordic!

PhD Dissertation on the Fables Comic in Tampere

Karin Kukkonen will defend her doctoral thesis on Storytelling Beyond Postmodernism: Fables and the Fairy Tale on Saturday, February 20 at the Tampere University.

The dissertation, according to the abstract, analyses modes of storytelling beyond postmodernism’s subversion and self-reflexivity, aims to apply key terms of literary study to the narratives of comics and graphic novels, and draws methodologically on the emergent cognitive approaches in the humanities.

About Fables from the abstract, “Fables is deeply engaged with the traditional and the postmodern fairy tale, and its narration juxtaposes subversive and self-reflexive with gratifying and immersive storytelling, making the series thus a key case study for different possible modes of narrative in the comics medium.”

Festival of Living Literature

This Saturday in Tampere: the Festival of Living Literature at Finlayson Werstas. The Tampere fandom is present with a table, including the Finnish Tolkien Society, Smial Morel, the Finnish Science Fiction Writers Association, Portti, Vaskikirjat, Risingshadow, and Kontu. There’s also a “Monster Academy” for horror fans.

Åcon Travels

The Travel Info for Åcon4 is now up on the web site, along with the reservation form you can use to book your trip. The prices are very inexpensive as usual, starting with 10 €/return trip from Turku.