It’s already the middle of January and SFRA 2009 in Atlanta, Georgia is only five months away! Remember to get in your paper and panel proposals to sfra2009@gmail.com by 1 April 2009 (no kidding!). For all of you folks needing early semester confirmation for institutional funding, submit your proposals in the next seven days by 20 January 2009.
I’m particularly excited about the terrific special author lineup that we have this year. Our Guest of Honor is Michael Bishop, and the Special Guest Authors are F. Brett Cox, Paul di Filippo, Andy Duncan, Kathleen Ann Goonan, Jack McDevitt, and Warren Rochelle.
If you haven’t seen one of the ubiquitous emails that I’ve been sending out as SFRA’s Publicity Director, then see the CFP below for more details.
SFRA 2009: Engineering the Future and Southern-Fried Science Fiction and Fantasy
June 11-14, Atlanta, GA (Wyndham Midtown Hotel)
Guest of Honor: Michael Bishop
Special Guest Authors: F. Brett Cox, Paul di Filippo, Andy Duncan, Kathleen Ann Goonan, Jack McDevitt, and Warren Rochelle.
SFRA is currently accepting individual abstracts and panel proposal for its 2009 conference. We welcome paper and panel submissions that explore any aspect of science fiction across history and media and are particularly interested in those that engage one or both of the conference themes, “Engineering the Future” and “Southern-FriedScience Fiction and Fantasy,” or the work of one or more of the conference’s guest authors.
The 2009 conference’s two themes and its selection of guest authors are inspired by the conference’s location in Atlanta and its co-sponsorship by Georgia Tech’s School of Literature, Communication, and Culture. Atlanta, a storied locale in American history, is also in many ways an international city of the future, home to 21st century information, entertainment, technological and military industries, peopled with 21st century demographics, and prone to 21st century situations.
How is the future engineered in science fiction and how has science fiction already engineered our present? The American south has long been well known for its gothic fiction, but it has increasingly figured in works of science fiction and fantasy too. So it is equally fitting to ask, how has the south been an inspiration of science fiction and fantasy and what will its global future in speculative arts and letters be?
The deadline for proposals is April 1, 2009 at midnight EST. Please submit paper and panel proposals by email to sfra2009@gmail.com. Include all text of the proposal in the body of the email (not as an attachment). Please be sure to include full contact information for all panel members and to make all AV requests within each proposal.
For more information, email sfra2009@gmail.com. And be sure to check out www.sfra2009.com for more details!
Dynamic Subspace 