ICFA 2023

Last week the annual International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts was held in Orlando (as usual). This was the second in-person conference since the two-year pandemic hiatus (which include a virtual con in 2021). Weather stayed perfectly sunny from Wednesday through Sunday, aside from some rain, maybe, in the middle of the night on Friday. However, Sunday morning was oddly chilly for Orlando in March, first time I've ever seen daytime temperatures in the 50s.

Conference theme was Afrofuturism. The Guest of Honor was Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki, a Nigerian author, editor, and publisher of speculative fiction, who couldn't be physically present. His luncheon GOH speech was prerecorded. One point he emphasized was that elements of indigenous belief systems are often treated as "fantasy" when transferred into Western fiction, although they are an integral part of the cultural background in their societies of origin. After the talk was played, he appeared "live" for a Zoom Q and A. The scholar guest of honor, Isiah Lavender III, is author of AFROFUTURISM RISING: THE LITERARY PREHISTORY OF A MOVEMENT and numerous other works. As someone else remarked at one point, I think I came away from the conference knowing less about Afrofuturism than when I arrived. Starting from a general idea of what the term means, I encountered so many different perspectives on analyzing it that summarizing it in one succinct definition seemed hopeless. Sort of like trying to define science fiction! A completely new word I encountered was "noirum," analogous to the SF "novum," the innovation in science or technology that forms the premise of a science-fiction story. A noirum is (if I understood correctly) the sociological equivalent, "noir" of course suggesting "black."

Food at the two luncheons and the banquet was abundant and delicious, as usual. Not that every menu item equally delighted me, but there were always several dishes to enjoy. As for dessert, the kitchen staff seemed to have caught on that a chocolate selection must always be included. :)

Some highlights of the program for me: "50 Shades of Nay," a panel about consent in speculative fiction. I expected a discussion of sexual consent, but the topic was much broader. In all areas, how freely can a person give consent to a certain course of action if alternatives are narrowly constrained? If one agrees to something, what trade-offs might one have to accept? Likewise, the panel on gender and sexuality in speculative fiction covered a very wide spectrum of topics. There was also a lively panel on the craft of writing. I especially enjoyed a trio of paper readings about "hybridity," mainly mermaids. A session on Afrofuturism in comics was led by a moderator who appeared to be a human encyclopedia on every aspect of the history of comics, and some other people in the room weren't far behind. The moderator looked almost as old as I am; almost everybody else looked significantly younger. One member of the audience who seemed deeply well-informed nevertheless referred to the 1980s as "the old days" of the comic industry. LOL.

At one of the "Words and Worlds" reading sessions, in which several creators share their work in time slots of ten minutes each, I read part of a scene from my contemporary fantasy story "Bunny Hunt," forthcoming on April 10. People seemed to like it. The other presentations consisted of a poetry cycle, "Old Mother Hubble," about the dying Hubble space telescope, with beautiful photos; a short video of a witty poetic tribute to "Saint Onion," with medieval-style illustrations; and a darkly funny tale of a medieval kitchen boy sent to the woods to search for the hunters who are supposed to be supplying a boar for the feast of Saint Stephen.

At the meeting of the Lord Ruthven Assembly, our vampire and revenant studies group, we viewed THE LAST MAN ON EARTH, starring Vincent Price. This earliest and most low-budget adaptation of Richard Matheson's I AM LEGEND is, oddly, the only movie that comes close to faithfully following the novel. Also, we had popcorn.

The flight home on Sunday had a delay in takeoff, but it arrived at the Baltimore airport safely and not too late.

You can read about the organization and the conference here:

International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts

Most of this week, I'll be at the ICFA in Orlando, the second year we've had a live gathering since the pandemic started.

I'll report on the con next week.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

2022 International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts

This year's ICFA, our first live conference since 2019, had lower attendance than usual (down from the 500s to around 300), but the difference didn't appear obvious at a glance in most of the gatherings. The opening panel on Wednesday afternoon did look more sparsely attended than in previous years. On the other hand, there were, surprisingly, a lot of people attending the con for the first time. It was encouraging to see so many newcomers, especially considering the current situation.

The theme was "Fantastic Communities." The phrase could refer either to communities of creators, fans, and critics involved with the fantastic in all its media and genres or to the imaginary communities writers and filmmakers create in their works. Panels and papers enthusiastically embraced both approaches. The author guest of honor, Nisi Shawl (who uses "they" pronouns), delivered an engaging speech at the Thursday luncheon, "The Bird in the Bush: Semipermeable Selfhood," structured around the phases of their own life with focus on their various identities and the communities they identify with. Why is a bird in the hand worth more than two in the bush? Aren't two birds better than one, especially with a bush thrown in? Or does an object have value only if possessed and controlled? And how do we define the boundaries of the self? For instance, implanted artificial lenses become part of the subject's body. Are glasses a part of the self, too? Shawl entertained us by singing a risque folk song called "The Bird in the Bush." They concluded their talk by leading the audience in the song "What the World Needs Now Is Love, Sweet Love."

Scholar Guest of Honor Farah Mendlesohn, author of the groundbreaking RHETORICS OF FANTASY as well as many other important works of criticism including a book on the career and works of Robert Heinlein, spoke at the Friday luncheon about "Science Fiction Communities in the Rainbow Age." She surveyed the changes in the demographics of the speculative fiction field over recent decades in areas such as awards, contents of anthologies, etc., supplying lots of substantive data that I found fascinating. Diversity of representation in gender and ethnicity has evolved, of course, but it's still nowhere near equitable.

I participated in two events, a panel on vampire communities in fiction and a "Words and Worlds" session in which several writers read short excerpts from our works. There was lots of time for discussion in the latter. I read from my dark paranormal romance AGAINST THE DARK DEVOURER, which I think went well, and I thoroughly enjoyed listening to the other panelists, two poets and a prose fiction author.

Afrofuturist fiction, BIPOC representation, and gender issues held a prominent place in this year's programming. I especially enjoyed a paper session on animation; shows discussed included one anime series, TERROR IN RESONANCE, with a focus on mental illness, and four Western cartoons, OWL HOUSE, STEVEN UNIVERSE, SHE-RA, and ADVENTURE TIME, analyzing nonbinary characters in those works. I attended several lively, informative discussion panels about the business of marketing fiction. At the Saturday banquet, the president of our vampire and revenant division, the Lord Ruthven Assembly, announced this year's awards: Fiction, THE NIGHT LIBRARY OF STERNENDACH: A VAMPIRE OPERA IN VERSE, by Jessica Levai. Nonfiction (tie), THE TRANSMEDIA VAMPIRE, by Simon Bacon, and THE VAMPIRE IN POPULAR CULTURE: LOVE AT FIRST BITE, by Violet Fenn. Other media, MIDNIGHT MASS (Netflix).

Food at the two lunches and the banquet was excellent, as usual, although the hotel (under new management) miscalculated and ran out of some items on Thursday. Meals in the hotel restaurant were good but astonishingly high-priced. Except that my return flight took off half an hour late, the plane trips went pretty smoothly. When I got home, daffodils had suddenly started blooming.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

ICFA 2022

Happy St. Patrick's Day.

The International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts is happening this week -- the first live con we've had since 2019! You can read about the organization here, with a link to the program schedule (scroll down a bit) in case you're curious about what goes on at this combination academic and author/fan gathering:

International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts

I'll report next week on how it goes.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Virtual International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts

Last week, from Thursday through Sunday, the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts held its annual conference (normally in Orlando) virtually. Last year they skipped it completely. It was nice to get back "together," if only online. Unlike virtual ChessieCon in November 2020, with only live sessions (because, as usual, almost all were extemporaneous discussion panels) except for a slide show on costumes, the IAFA conference prerecorded or uploaded all the paper presentations. Only discussion panels, author readings, and events such as meetings weren't recorded.

You can check out the organization here:

IAFA

Disadvantages of the virtual con: Missing the hotel stay, the Florida weather, and the lavish meals. Not being able to watch all the "live" panels one might want to, because they weren't recorded for later viewing. No opportunity to see people face-to-face and talk at length. Also, one couldn't devote undivided attention to con events for the entire four days. Being physically at home, I could hardly pretend I wasn't there and ignore the pets, laundry, grocery shopping, etc.

Advantages: Much cheaper than the traditional conference. No need to leave home; I don't like traveling. The great pleasure of having flexibility on when to view most of the presentations. The complete program, with live links to prerecorded / uploaded papers and talks, was posted well before the actual weekend of the event and will remain on the website until the end of March. I think I got exposed to at least as many papers as I do when attending in person, maybe more. I also managed to fit in the few live sessions I felt a strong need to watch, e.g., the Lord Ruthven Assembly vampire panel, the LRA annual meeting, and the IAFA business meeting and awards presentation on Sunday evening. The best feature was being able to hear or read papers whenever convenient, without being forced to choose between them if they happened to be scheduled in the same nominal time slot—what a luxury!

I listened to Jean Lorrah reading from a forthcoming Sime-Gen novel, which of course I wanted to get right away. We have to wait, though, since it's not finished, much less published yet. The Lord Ruthven Assembly (our vampire, revenant, and Gothic division) had a lively panel on vampires called "The Dead Travel Fast," with a lot of discussion spinning off from the differences between the traditional folklore undead, usually bound to the vicinity of their mortal homes and families, and the wandering vampires of much fiction from Lord Ruthven (1819) on. Even though my computer doesn't have a microphone and camera, Zoom allowed me to watch sessions passively with computer audio, and the text chat sidebar enables written comments. I liked that method; it was nice and simple. A presentation on superheroes saving the world, referencing the widespread "Thanos Was Right" meme, brought up the concept of "fan labor"—how fan reception and response add value to commercially produced films and literature. Like many papers and discussions, this talk tied into the conference theme of the "Anthropocene," which inspired many presenters to discuss human impact on the environment as reflected in fantasy and science fiction. In other areas of interest to me, there were several papers each on Stephen King, Harry Potter, and Terry Pratchett. A talk focusing on Tolkien featured a slide show of maps. An advantage of viewing such material online is being able to see details better than one can from a seat in a meeting room. One of my favorite papers dealt with Delia Sherman's FREEDOM MAZE, exploring issues of identity and the "decentering" effect of the time-traveling teenage protagonist's landing in 1860 where she's mistaken for a slave, instead of a white Southern girl from a "good" family as she's been taught to think of herself in 1960. That presentation inspired me to reread the book, as a good piece of literary criticism ideally does.

The weekend concluded with the business meeting and awards on Sunday evening. IAFA's officers are considering the feasibility of offering some kind of virtual track every year, which would be useful to many members who can't travel to Florida for whatever reason. The plan faces potential problems and complications, however, not least the risk of seeming to establish a two-tier system of participation and the possible impairment of the deal with the hotel, in which perks such as meeting spaces depend on selling a certain minimum number of hotel rooms and meals. At any rate, this year's con seemed to rate as a brilliant success; it definitely was for me.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt