Kuvastaja Award to Pasi Jääskeläinen

Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen has received the Kuvastaja award for his novel Harjukaupungin salakäytävät. The award is given annually by the Finnish Tolkien Society for the best Finnish fantasy book published in the previous year.

The award was announced during the Helsinki book fair last weekend. There isn’t any more information about this on the Tolkien Society web page, but Pasi has commented the award on his blog. Kuvastaja is a juried award (I haven’t seen a press release, so I don’t know who were on the jury this year), often given to books that are of high literary quality and—despite being administered by the Tolkien Society—represent the non-traditional side of the fantastic (thus again in this year soliciting some comments from book bloggers that the book can’t be fantasy because they liked it and they don’t read fantasy). This is the second time Jääskeläinen has won it (his debut novel also won the award).

Congratulations!

Krohn in ODD?

The first ODD? anthology by Ann & Jeff VanderMeer has been published and contains the short story “The Night of the Normal Distribution Curve” by Leena Krohn.

ODD? is available as an e-book in the Wizard’s Tower Bookstore (also Weightless books and other indie distributors). Up to tomorrow (Friday), you can also subscribe to the first three volumes of ODD as either e-book or print editions (or both) at a discounted prize directly from Cheeky Frawg.

Petri Hiltunen in Turku tomorrow

Petri Hiltunen is speaking in the Turku city library tomorrow from 5 PM to 7 PM as part of the comics meetings series for young people. The event is organized by the library and the Turku comics club.

Pub Meeting on Thursday in Koulu

The Turku sf pub meeting is this Thursday. We meant to move back to the regular place (Teerenpeli) but they are celebrating their birthday on Thursday, which probably means the place will be packed (and everybody would have to get an invite), so the pub meeting will be held in Koulu. Starting the usual time, at six. Welcome!

Grant to Toni Jerrman

Congratulations to Toni Jerrman for receiving a 1-year critic grant from the Arts Council of Finland!

Star Wars Uncut in Turku

On Saturday, October 8, the Turku 2011 foundation will host a Star Wars Uncut mini festival in Logomo.

Star Wars Uncut is a project where the movie was cut into 15-second segments that were then recreated by fans of the film and edited together. The father of the idea, Casey Pugh, won the Participative Media category of the Turku 2011 Foundation’s competition last year.

Before the screening, there will be a discussion featuring Professor and creativity researcher Alf Rehn and Star Wreck scriptwriter Jarmo Puskala. The day’s program will also include other winning entries from the Live 2011 Grand Prix media art competition and a concert featuring 8-bit video game–inspired band Desert Planet, and local X-Rust with Transistor Rhythm, Burdock, and Pepeto.

Doors open at 2 PM, there is no entrance fee but attendance is capped at the first 1 000 visitors.

Virtual Flea Market for Fandom

Turun fandomkirppis is a virtual flea market where you can sell or donate your old stuff and let other people know if you’re buying something.

The market uses Facebook, but you can browse the content without logging in. The title says “Fandom flea market for Turku”, but it can of course be used from outside the area as well.