There is so much I agree with in this intriguing radio bit about science fiction in Africa, and much of it I've been saying for years. The BBC get's South African SF author Lauren Beukes to answer the question, "Is Science Fiction Coming to Africa?" I think it was the wrong question... but the right answer.

BBC World Service - Your World, Is ( Read more... )

The Leeds conference always resonated as the real first SF con to me. That would make this the month of anniversary. Thoughts?

Many of you already know the emotional and poignant story of how Dr. Martin Luther King Jr kept Lieutenant Uhura from leaving Star Trek. It is a great story and the impact can be measured. I remember Whoopi Goldberg telling the story of how, as a young girl, after seeing Uhura on TV, ran through to the kitchen and excitedly told her mother, "Momma ( Read more... )

Life has been coming from many angles. Two major projects colliding at work and several volunteer projects filling my spare time, and another on the horizon that I'm quite excited about. The latter is a project with other Drupalers to provide a web page to a different nonprofit every month. But part of me is going, "Like dude, quit volunteering ( Read more... )

I returned to participating in the SMOFS list this week (an email discussion list for volunteers who run SF&F conventions around the world) after almost a year away, and a difficult year it was. It's too soon to tell, but going by some of the discussions I've been reading, it feels a grumpier place than I left. Like any list, or forum, or ( Read more... )

So I'm sitting here enjoying the art auction at Potlatch. jaylake, Jerry Kaufman, Andi Schecter and Tom Whitmore are doing the honors, and doing it well (if a tad slow... and that never happened at a SF con before). The auction is still going strong and has already raised more than 2k. I'm probably the first person in the US to ever sit at a charity ( Read more... )

I often quite despise fan videos based on a movie or TV show. Combine the two and I ought to be frothing at the mouth, but this little Firefly-Serenity video seems very well done to me.

Click to view

The fan who did it is on LJ too and here's their original post announcing the creation of the clip, as well as a gigantic amount of replies. Thanks to Sam for ( Read more... )

I have a question for my fannish friends. Why are we still inviting Orson Scott Card to be guest of honor at our conventions? Why have we ever done so? Given his outspoken views against homosexuality, which it seems to me are in complete contrast to the tolerance of the fannish community at large, why do we have anything to do with him at all? ( Read more... )

The other day a huge discussion exploded on my LJ when I said that the WSFS, Worldcon and Hugo Award pages were in desperate need of a makeover, and of unifying logos. It was a fascinating and diverse discussion with clear broad stokes of some of the challenges. I also pointed out that agrathea had volunteered to do web design for these. Many were ( Read more... )

A post by one of fandom's great organizers, kevin_standlee, reminded me of one of my pet peeves. Fandom is filled with great artists and technical professionals, and yet we have what I feel are some of the least appealing and most unfriendly web pages out there. Yes, I know it makes is a bit of a sod to say it, and I apologize up front to those of you who put ( Read more... )