Tag: Gifcon

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Academic Academic Events Conventions CYMERA Festival Events Workshop worldcon

*UPDATED* CYMERA, GIFCon, Symposium on Fantasy and the Fantastic, TFCAA

CYMERA logo

With Eastercon over, and term nearly done, you’d be forgiven for thinking I’d be taking a break from now until Dublin Worldcon this August. On the contrary: with CYMERA Festival, GIFCon 2019 and more on the way, it’s shaping up to be a busy summer. Whether you’re into fiction, fantastic academia, or fandom, here’s where you can find me over May and June – and where you can hear me before all that.

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Academic

Fantastika Review and GIFCon Keynotes

I’m back, somewhat windburnt from the Island Dynamics: Darkness conference in Svalbard, as those on my Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram will have seen in many, many photos over the last few days. So here are a couple of quick academic updates:

Just before I left, Fantastika published Volume 3, Issue 1 of their journal, which includes my first ever conference report from 2018’s GIFCon event. I’m very grateful to Head Editor Chuckie Palmer-Patel for giving me this opportunity to contribute, and to Francis Gene-Rowe for his steady editorial hand. I’d also like to take this opportunity to wish Dr Palmer-Patel all the best with her upcoming maternity leave.

This issue also features fantastic contributions from my fellow GIFCon committee members Marita Arvaniti and Katarina O’Dette – and you can download it for free! Find it online at https://fantastikajournal.com/publications/.

Additionally, here’s some very exciting news from GIFCon:

Brian Attebery, Leverhulme Visiting Professor at the University of Glasgow, and GIFCon 2019 keynote speaker.

GIFCon has now announced three keynote speakers: world-leading Fantasy scholar Prof. Brian Attebery, who is the author of Strategies of Fantasy, Stories About Stories, and originator of the ‘Fuzzy Set’ theory of genre; celebrated graphic novel theorist Dr. Mel Gibson, known for her work with diversity representation in comics; and multi-award-winning, bestselling YA author and poet Catherine Fisher. As you may have gathered, this will be a wonderful opportunity for Fantasy scholars outside the US to hear one of genre’s most influential academics, as well as some fascinating insights from Dr Gibson and Catherine Fisher. As it happens, the call for papers on ‘Mapping the Mythosphere’ has also been extended to 28th January, so you still have time to get your abstracts in if you’d like the chance to appear alongside them.

GIFCon 2019 takes place over 23rd – 24th May. For more details of this year’s event, and how to submit your abstract to GIFCon, see www.gifcon.org.

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Academic

Island Dynamics: Darkness conference

This coming weekend, I’ll be starting my two day journey to Svalbard, a small town inside the Arctic Circle, for this year’s Island Dynamics: Darkness conference. At this wonderfully interdisciplinary event, I’ll be presenting “That Place Was Trying to Show Me Something”: Womanspace, Balance, and the Dark Side of the Force in Star Wars: The Last Jedi, my rehabilitation of the Dark Side by comparison with sites of self-discovery in C.S. Lewis’s Till We Have Faces and Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea saga.

This is a very special trip for me: not only is this my first solo conference event outside of Scotland, but I’ve longed to see the Arctic Circle for many years, and even the possibility of seeing the Aurora Borealis and the light display on the Global Seed Bank has me excited beyond words.

If you’re going along, I’ll see you over 15th – 16th January. If not, you can find out more about what you’re missing at https://darknessconference2019.wordpress.com/.

Before I go, just a reminder that GIFCon’s 2019 Call for Papers: ‘Mapping the Mythosphere’ closes on 14th January. We have some truly special guests lined up for you this year, who I can’t reveal just yet (sorry!), but trust me when I say that this will be an opportunity of a lifetime for European scholars of the Fantastic. In the meantime, if you’re a bit stuck for ideas for your abstract, this week, we’ll be running #PaperPrompts on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to kickstart your thoughts.

For more information about the current call for papers, including guidance on how to craft an abstract, head to www.gifcon.org.

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Academic Academic Events Events

GIFCon 2019: Call for Papers and Event Dates

Glasgow International Fantasy Conversations (GIFCon), the creative and academic event for scholars and creators of Fantastic works, has just announced dates for next year’s event and a new call for papers. GIFCon 2019 will take place over 23rd – 24th May 2019 and is looking for abstract submissions on the theme of ‘Mapping the Mythosphere’.

This is my third event for GIFCon, and this time I’m stepping back for workload reasons* to focus on the GIFCon Facebook page, assisting the new Social Media Manager, Marita Arvaniti. I’m really looking forward to reading all your brilliant submissions to our Call for Papers for 2019. And if this is the first time you’ve submitted to an academic event, why not check out our Abstract Submissions Guide?

For more on GIFCon 2019, check out our official website at www.gifcon.org.

Continue reading “GIFCon 2019: Call for Papers and Event Dates”
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Academic Academic Events Conventions Events Readings Workshop

Glasgow Science Festival, Satellite 6, GIFCon Highlights – and Exciting News…

GIFCon is nearly over and done with for another year, so time for a wee update on upcoming things:

Firstly, Oliver Langmead and I will be giving a version of our workshop, ‘Discover New Worlds Through Creative Writing’ on 13th June at the Glasgow Science Festival. If you missed our Edinburgh International Science Festival and GIFCon events, this will be your last chance to catch our workshops for a wee while. So, get yourself registered for free tickets at the link below, and we’ll see you there! We kick off at 5:30pm on 13th June at 5 University Gardens, University of Glasgow.

https://www.gla.ac.uk/events/sciencefestival/glasgowsciencefestival2018/adult/headline_325536_en.html

Before that, I’ll be appearing at the Satellite 6 convention in Glasgow at the end of May. Until the programme is officially announced (and I’ll post more then), here’s where you can register for this year’s event.

https://six.satellitex.org.uk/

As for 2019, I’ve been invited onto the Programming Committee for next year’s Eastercon, Ytterbium. With the delightful Frances Hardinge, John Scalzi, Sydney Padua, and DC as guests of honour, I’m really looking forward to working with Farah Mendlesohn and the team on next year’s event!

Finally, some fiction news. Towards the end of last year, I put in an application to do a creative doctorate, and I’m happy to say the department accepted me. So, this coming Autumn, I’ll be starting on the DFA in Creative Writing programme at the University of Glasgow. I’ll be working with Zoe Strachan, Dr Rob Maslen, and Dr Matt Barr on a long-form project about patriarchal theory, video-gaming, and Hamlet. I’ll be hoping to keep my hand in Fantastic academia and aiming to get a couple of papers published during the course. For now, I’m really looking forward to getting stuck into a larger fiction project and tackling some ideas that have been on my mind since my time as a raider a decade ago.

In the meantime, this Summer will be devoted to finishing my dissertation for the MLitt in Fantasy in Glasgow, moving house, and maybe finishing the odd short story. Best get back to that, then…!

…

Well, okay, before I go, here’s a few of my highlights from GIFCon, as captured on camera and reported by twitter (with huge thanks to Gabe Cohen, Taylor Driggers, Marita Arvaniti, Emma McMullan, and the wonderful Tex Thompson):

https://twitter.com/FemaleGabe/status/989781325128306688

https://twitter.com/FemaleGabe/status/989782794258845696

https://twitter.com/TaylorWDriggers/status/989803353029926912

https://twitter.com/TaylorWDriggers/status/989803974646816768

https://twitter.com/TaylorWDriggers/status/989804351148392448

https://twitter.com/TaylorWDriggers/status/989804839071870976

https://twitter.com/TaylorWDriggers/status/989805370641211392

https://twitter.com/FemaleGabe/status/989805760040366080

https://twitter.com/TaylorWDriggers/status/989806121308377088

https://twitter.com/TaylorWDriggers/status/989806471226580993

https://twitter.com/TaylorWDriggers/status/989806829193572354

https://twitter.com/FemaleGabe/status/989806978116603904

https://twitter.com/TaylorWDriggers/status/989807432183484416

https://twitter.com/TaylorWDriggers/status/989807894307713024

https://twitter.com/FemaleGabe/status/989807910749384704

https://twitter.com/FemaleGabe/status/989809702652477440

https://twitter.com/TaylorWDriggers/status/989810166693588993

https://twitter.com/TaylorWDriggers/status/989819828469993472