IAFA Conference in Orlando

I spent from late Monday night--well, early Tuesday morning--at the Annual International Conference on the Fantastic and the Arts held at the Orlando Airport Marriott.

This year's conference attracted over 425 scholars and authors to enjoy long-standing and new friendships, intellectual challenges, and all the other wonderful things this particular conference offers.

I divided up the photographs into three sections, owing to the considerable number of shots posted, including the one on the left of me and friend Suzi Charnas (who visited Peru State a few years ago).


Section One contains photographs from Tuesday night's  getting-underway party and concludes with one of the conference's guests of honor, the thoughtful and humorous Connie Willis, pictured on the right; note the correct St. Patrick's Day attire.

Section Two begins with a meeting of the editorial staff of the IAFA publication, Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts.  

The train of images concludes with Andrea Hairston and Pan Morigan's riveting dramatic reading/rendering of scenes from Andrea's latest novel, Redwood and Wildfire--with banjo music and voice.

I just sent Andrea and Pan a disk with video from their exciting performance and, with their permission, will eventually share links with you.  I hope next fall to bring Andrea and Pan to Peru State to share with students their manifold talents.

Before Andrea and Pan performed, Andy Duncan and another guest of honor, Terry Bisson, delighted the audience with a hilarious reading of Terry's story "Meat."  Do give this dialogue that first appeared in Omni in 1991 a read.

For his guest of honor address, Terry kept the audience laughing--even if people did not want to--with TVA Baby, a Southern-Gothic narrative that will hurt your stomach...in a most good way. 


A couple years ago, Terry and Judy Bisson joined me at Rowe Sanctuary to view the Sandhill Cranes.

Episode Three begins with the Locus Magazine photograph by the pool that fronts this particular entry; I hope that a number of my photographs will again find their way into this excellent publication.  (Peter Straub, Gary Wolfe, and Kit Reed appear on the left.

And this third episode concludes with the conference Awards Banquet, always a festive affair.  


Andrea Hairston received her Distinguished Scholarship award for her work on fantastic literature over her career. 


I am excited to read the novel of this year's Crawford Award winner, Karen Lord, for her debut book, Redemption in Indigo.  Karen hails from Barbados, and I look forward to using this book in Nonwestern Literature.


I look forward to next year's conference that features China Mieville and Jeffrey Cohen.

Tom Doherty and his Wife.  Tom is the owner of Tor Books

 

Dell Award Winner and Nominees

Ellen Klages Who Visited Peru State College in the Fall of 2010

Nalo Hopkinson and her partner David.  Nalo also visited Peru State College

 Gary Wolfe, Bill Senior, and David Morse

Taryne Taylor, Bridgid Shannon, Pan Morigan, Farah Mendelsohn, Andrea Hairston, Sydney Duncan