A private scholarship to permit a person of color to attend next year’s International Conference of the Fantastic in the Arts in Orlando, FL from march 17-21. The award is a private presentation by Arthur Hlavaty, Bernadette Bosky, and Kevin Maroney.
To qualify for the scholarship, the applicant should:
- have an interest in race and fantastic literature including science-fiction and/or horror, identify
- be known as someone who is not white
- will be 21 or over in March
- want to actively participate in conference activities/discussions
- cannot get money from a university to help you attend
The decision will be made by the judges using their our own criteria, including (but far from limited to) any writing you have done that we have seen and if we already know you personally; the decision is not subject to debate.
The deadline is Thursday, November 12.
For more information…
ICFA
Golden Gryphon is holding a buy one, get one free sale at their website through the end of the year. Golden Gryphon was founded in 1997 and in 1999, founder Jim Turner won the World Fantasy Award for his work on the press.
For more information…
San Francisco Science Fiction Conventions, Inc. (SFSFC) has announced that Kirsten M. Berry is the recipient of this year’s scholarship to attend SMOFCon 27 in Austin, Texas. Berry has been attending and working on conventions of various sizes for twenty-five years.
For more information…
Comic Con founder Shel Dorf (b.1933) died on November 3. Dorf was trained at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago before working as a freelance artist in New York. As a teenager, he had helped run Triple Fan Fest in Detroit. When he moved to San Diego in 1970, he decided to run something similar and Golden State Comic Con was born. Dorf walked away from the convention in the mid-80s after running it for 15 years.
Rocket scientist Qian Xuesen (b.1911) died on October 31. Qian, also known as H.S. Tsien, was one of the founders of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. His work wouuld be the inspiration for the Dyno-soar project. During the 1950s, he was accused of being a communist sympathizer, stripped of security clearance. Attempting to return to his native China, he was detained by the US for five years. In China, he became known as the Father of Chinese Rocketry.
The Science Fiction and Fantasy Translation Awards have been established. Announced at World Fantasy Con in San Jose, two awards will be given annually for science fiction translated into English, one for long form and one for short form. The first awards are slated to be presented in 2011 for works published in 2010. Both the original author and the translator will be recognized.
For more information…
Following the presentation of the first David Gemmell Legend Award, the awards committee has added two new categories, the David Gemmell Morningstar Award and the David Gemmell Ravenheart Award, each, like the original award, named for the title of one of Gemmell’s novels. The Morningstar Award will be presented for best newcomer to fantasy fiction. The Ravenheart will honor best fantasy cover art of the year. As with the Legend Award, all winners will be determined by popular vote.
For more information…
The 2009 World Fantasy Awards were presented on November 1 at World Fantasy Convention 2009 in San Jose, California. This year’s judges included Jenny Blackford, Peter Heck, Ellen Klages, Chris Roberson, and Delia Sherman.
- Life Achievement: Ellen Asher and Jane Yolen
- Novel (tie): The Shadow Year, by Jeffrey Ford and Tender Morsels, by Margo Lanagan
- Novella: “If Angels Fight,” by Richard Bowes
- Short Story: “26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss,” by Kij Johnson
- Anthology: Paper Cities: An Anthology of Urban Fantasy, edited by Ekaterina Sedia
- Collection: The Drowned Life, by Jeffrey Ford
- Artist: Shaun Tan
- Special Award—Professional: Kelly Link & Gavin J. Grant (for Small Beer Press and Big Mouth House)
- Special Award—Non-professional: Michael J. Walsh (for Howard Waldrop collections from Old Earth Books)
For more information…
The winners of the Xatafi-Cyberdark Award for the Critics of Fantastic Literature have been announced. The award is presented annually in Spain.
Spanish fiction book (ex-aequo):
- El mapa del tiempo, by Félix J. Palma
- El hermano de las moscas, by Jon Bilbao
Spanish tale:
- “Mosquitos,” by Marc R. Soto
Foreign fiction book:
- The Yiddish’s Policemen Union, by Michael Chabon
Foreign tale:
- “The Index,” by J. G. Ballard
Publisher iniciative:
Francisco Arellano, for Biblioteca del Laberinto
For more information…
Artist Dean Ellis (b.1920) died last week in Saratoga Springs, NY. Ellis was trained at the Cleveland Art Institute, but interrupted his studies in 1941, serving in the Pacific Theatre until 1945. After finishing his BFA, he was named one of the country’s most promising artists by Life in 1950. He had a successful career when he was asked to create covers for Ray Bradbury novels in the 1960s, a job that led to him working for most of the major science fiction publishers of the period.
