ICFA in Orlando, 2017

I meant to post this about this a few days ago, but academic work swamped me. Last Tuesday, I returned from a wonderful 6-day trip to the International Conference for the Fantastic in the Arts (ICFA). Two days were spent in travel, 3 in intense conferencing, and a final day was spent in Disney World -- our way of celebrating my dissertation defense. The conference itself was amazing. Highlights:

  • tons of free sf and fantasy books
  • a host of back issues from JFA
  • saw someone, completely unexpectedly, someone I had gone to my first undergrad college with -- way back in 1998.
  • heard a lot of fantastic papers. My favorites were both on one panel: G.P. Canavan proposed a new typology of fantasy texts, and Matthew Oliver wrote on 1st-person epic fantasy, which deserved kudos for mentioning Glen Cook
  • the panel I moderated on Robert E. Howard was a rousing success with a fantastic discussion afterward. Howard's got some major fans out there. My anecdote about reading Howard for the first time just as I was told I would be moderating the session was a big hit.
  • My own paper reading went quite well, although sadly only two people besides my wife heard it.
All in all, this was easily the most fun conference I've ever attended. Now, I just have to resubmit all my reimbursement paperwork to CGS (groan).

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