What an amazing time Flights of Foundry was! Fun panels with amazing creative minds, and the opportunity to share and discuss with a vibrant community across the world. I hope you had a grand time too if you went. But now the time has come to talk of other things**. Specifically June, and how to sign up for the splendid things I’m doing then.
In recent months, the New Normal has grown from pandemic lockdown catchphrase to a DysUtopian* ideal, embodying restless anxiety and quiet reflection, the ideals of international cooperation and the nadir of nationalistic isolation, and both a future of terrifying uncertainty and an opportunity for change, as we try to conceive of life alongside this disease.
Many times in recent months, as I’ve exchanged cards and small gifts with struggling friends, or cleared my cupboards for charity donations, I’ve been put in mind of Professor Brian Attebery‘s 2019 lecture at University of Glasgow on the future of YA and Adult Utopian fiction, part of a series sponsored by the Leverhulme Trust. Leading off from the works of Ursula K. Le Guin, Professor Attebery spoke of how the most convincing utopias in fiction may not be the ones at the level of full societal change, but those at smaller scales – even those found embodied in the brief moments of kindness shared between two individuals.
So, this strikes me as an opportune moment to draw your attention to my review of Becky Chambers’ Record Of A Spaceborn Few (Hodder & Stoughton, 2018) in the latest issue of Fantastika journal, After Fantastika.
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.
The official programme for Follycon is now up! Here’s where you can find me over 30th March – 2nd April.
SATURDAY
4:00pm – Posters Exhibiton (Half Moon Room)
Ruth EJ Booth
Follycon is holding a poster exhibition across the event, including my poster ‘Mapping the Way: Taoism and Landscape in Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea Quartet’. If you’ve got any questions about the poster, this is the first of my two half-hour sessions where I’ll be available for chat.
7:00pm – BSFA Awards Ceremony (Dining Room)
Nnedi Okorafor, Kieron Gillen, Christina Lake, Kim Standley Robinson, Claire Boothby, Dave Lally, Ruth EJ Booth (MC), Niall Harrison, Rosie Oliver
I’ll be MC for this year’s BSFA Awards ceremony – and, as it’s the 60th anniversary of the awards, this one’s bound to be a bit special. Do join us, if only to see if I managed to find summat proper to wear. In the meantime, if you want your say in this year’s vote, please note that advance online and postal voting for BSFA members is open until 26th March, while Follycon attendees (BSFA members and non-members) can vote at the convention until 12 noon on Saturday 31st March.
SUNDAY
4:00pm – Posters Exhibiton (Half Moon Room)
Ruth EJ Booth
If you’ve got any questions about my poster, ‘Mapping the Way: Taoism and Landscape in Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea Quartet’, this is the second of the two half-hour sessions where I’ll be available for chat.
MONDAY
2:00pm – Remembering Ursula K. Le Guin (Dining Room)
Edward James (M), Nnedi Okorafor, Patrice Sarath, Ruth EJ Booth, Sarah Ash, Matthew Colborn
If you’re still about, come join us for a celebration of the life and works of the late, great Ursula K. Le Guin. Looking at the line-up for this panel, it’s bound to be an interesting and insightful hour’s chat.
ALL WEEKEND
As previously mentioned, Follycon is holding a poster exhibition across the event in the Half Moon Room , and this will include my poster ‘Mapping the Way: Taoism and Landscape in Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea Quartet’. It’s based on work I completed as part of my MLitt in Fantasy, and this poster was last displayed in August at Worldcon 75 in Finland. So, if you missed it then, now’s your chance to see it!
You can click here for my main schedule in Grenadine. Outside of these times, I’ll likely be in the bar, if you’d like to say hi. Hope to see you there!