Culture death by politics

My Dad is fiercely Croatian. Every time I feel sorry or angry about my parents’ decision against emigrating to Canada in 1976 – they were there and so was I, in my Mum’s belly – I remind myself that with his being as Croatian as he is, with everything that entails, I might have grown up a fascistoid little idiot under different (immigrantory)  circumstances. So, the universe was kind to me.

Despite my Dad being like he is, I grew up in a relatively a-political household. Nationality was not taught to me in a nationalistic way. (I am still one of the few people living here that cannot differentiate between Serbian and Croatia last names, even some Bosnian ones elude me.) I knew I was Croatian, like I knew I was human and also Yugoslavian. It never occurred to me being any of these could ever be a problem.

So the nationality of Branko Copic was never a thing for me. English wiki lists him as Yugoslav, and names him a Bosnian Serb – I have no idea what he would name himself were he alive. I could Google and find out. I refuse to. Branko Copic wrote an awesome children’s story, in verse, about a hedgehog who loved his home above all, modest though it was, despite whatever anyone else said. I had a now difficult to find edition of the story (and I, of course, cannot find it now, but I know it’s somewhere in my house) and I had it in a song version on a cassette tape and have played it a thousand times, when I was a kid and to my own kid as well.  I love this story, and the author for writing it.

Copic was controversial over some nationalistic shit or other, or possibly just shunned because not Croatian.  I know someone explained it to me, but I willfully forgot. And no, I will not Google it. I do not CARE. He was the creator of one of my favourite childhood stories.

Later I found out Copic jumped off a bridge in central Belgrade in 1984. So, much before he could be hounded about his nationality and possibly everything else in the not so lovely disintegration process of Yugoslavia.  (The bridge is called Branko’s bridge now, not after him originally but that knowledge will be lost, I am sure.)

Why I am writing this? The state of Yugoslavia fell apart and so took with it some good things that should have remained in my, Croatian, heritage. And everybody else’s, too.  I could go on about levels, nuances, cultural and political climates and numerous fine and less fine details to illustrate this. Fact is: such small-minded, willful destruction is shaping a very bleak and ignorant reality for my child to grow up in.

In this case, though, a picture may really be worth a thousand words.

The sign on this picture says: “The House of Branko Copic”. I have no idea if this is real or a hoax. But it is accurate – since no one can successfully claim the author for a political purpose the once hugely popular Yugoslav writer, a cornerstone of many a childhood across generations and one whose most popular story is still beloved by children of all the nations that once were part of Yugoslavia, his heritage is left to quietly to become a ruin. Be it his actual house or his work.

 

(I prefer it somehow – and this must be very Balkan of me – to death of culture by capitalism! It must be my inner Yugloslavian, communist child I have no memory of ever being. But that is a whole other post.)

Like this:

Like Loading...

Culture death by politics

Australia Day

An annual celebration January 26 marking the anniversary of the arrival of the First Fleet of British Ships at Port Jackson, New South Wales in 1788.

For me, a day when I like to remember why I like it so much:

1) There is no other English-speaking country where you can hear national (immigrant) languages spoken so much in the streets while not in special neighborhoods. Australia is the country that is truly multicultural!

2) Australians love food. If one moves there, one is not sentenced to a life  among people who do not value fine cuisine. Also, being truly multicultural means there is so many to choose from. Heaven!

3) Ocean and ocean baths. I am a swim nut, what can I say? The beaches are lovely, currents too strong for my taste but then – ocean baths. Also, sea is so warm I would probably not stop swimming not matter what the name of the season might be.

4) Peter Carey. And Hugh Jackman, of course. A couple of others as well.  There are many Aussie authors I grew to love but I did not read any of them while growing up. So, for me: Peter Carey. And his short stories.

5) All the amazing people I met during my GUFF trip. (Yes this is one is short because I cannot begin to describe it outside my trip report! :P)

 

Australia Day

šš?????ll

?š?l.?.?žš

šš?????ll

To?no u podne: Obra?un s hrvatskim fantasy piscima!

Sutra, 24. sije?nja 2015. godine, to?no u podne, u zagreba?koj knjižnici Bogdana Ogrizovi?a (Preradovi?eva 5) do?ite se obra?unati s hrvatskim piscima fantasyja! Umjesto revolvera i metaka, zadana oružja su rije?, poznavanja žanra spekulativne fikcije i torta u obliku knjige iz zagonetnog Hangara 7! Zbunjeni? I trebate biti – pravi SF adute otkriva tek na samom kraju!
Do?ite, poslušajte, sudjelujte – esefi?ari se sva?aju najbolje!  A imamo i Žiljka! Nema boljeg na?ina da provodete subotu ujutro!

Obzirom da su hrvatski ?itatelji, mahom puni pokuda jer nikako da prona?u gdje se u doma?oj književnosti skriva George R. R. Martin ili makar Robert Jordan, ?esto uživo izuzetno sramežljivi, kako s pohvalama tako s (ne)utemeljenim kritikama doma?e žanrovske produkcije, pitanja ?e na samom po?etku postavljati dva hrabra tvrdoglavca – Krešimir Maligec, uredni Zagreba?ke naklade i Davorin Horak, urednik SF ?asopisa Sirius B – koja odbijaju odustati od papirnatih ukori?enja nerealnih snatrenja o neobi?nim svjetovima me?u organizatorima nadaleko poznatih hrvatskih SF konvencija (i onima koji ?e to tek postati).

?isto kako obra?unom ne bi (za)vladala podmukla tišina, naravno. Bude li hrabrih, ma koliko endemskih, doma?ih ?itatelja u publici spremnih na bijes autora i odgovore koji nemaju blage veze s pitanjima, na njihove ?e i više nego dobrodošle upite odgovarati:

Milena Benini, kraljica suvremenog hrvatskog fantasyja koja ?e dati odgovore na sva pitanja o Mjesecu, sve?enicama, okultnim praksama i neobi?nom izdava?kom putovanju njezina romana Sve?enica mjeseca koji je prvo objavljen serijalno na webu, potom na englekom u Kanadi da bi tek sada doživio hrvatsko izdanje.

Vanja Spirin, majstor humoristi?ne znanstvene fantastike i autor omiljenih avantura besprijekornih vitezova Junker’sa i Vailianta ponovo obara uskogrudne vjetrenja?e i novom zbirkom pri?a Smrtonosna mizija i druge pri?e ruši ustaljene tabue. Naravno, zna mu se dogodit da krene brijati o bass gitari, kultnim birtijama po Zagrebu, pivu, pisanju kao procesu (?ega?!?) a voli i dati svoje mišljenje o svemu. Nastavit ?e pri?ati dok ga ne prekine…

 

...koji god bude brže od dva doma?a pisca što ?ine slavonskobrodski dvojac Ivan Lutz i Gordan Sunda?. Oni ?e vas zamarati finesama kolaboracijskog pisanja i mukom koju su prošli u stvaranju zajedni?koga romana Drum (kojeg su izvukli iz Hangara 7, odakle je i torta) jer što je Slavonac bez žalopojke? Šojka! Ili je to ipak neki drugi film?

Nad svima njima, a zgusti li i nad publikom, (za)grmit ?e Aleksandar Žiljak, najnagra?ivaniji i najprevo?eniji hrvatski SF pisac koji žarko želi da svi ostali najzad stanu pisati u skladu s trendovima izvan Lijepe naše, poput njega. Tako je njegov je najnoviji roman, Poseidonia – prvi hrvatski steampunk roman u kojem pratimo pustolovine dvije provalnice, Irene Orletz i Belinde Meredith, na samom kraju 19. stolje?a, koje na zagonetnoj la?i moraju razotkriti i slomiti krvolo?nu zavjeru.

To?no u podne: Obra?un s hrvatskim fantasy piscima!

Stilske vježbe or 47 years in a play

So, I had not been to see a play in years. No, kids’ stuff does not count! Although there are some truly awesome plays for kids as young as 8 months in Croatia, thanks to the wonderful Svetlana Patafta whose Colours of the Rainbow have become a traditional outing for my son and me. (And there are cool plays for 18-month-olds at the independently run Mala scena theatre in Zagreb). But I digress.

Yeah, somehow I lost touch with people who do go to the theatre regularly. I had no idea what was good anymore and to be honest, I really don’t feel comfortable going alone. (Weird, since going to the cinema all by my lonesome, even though considered borderline psychotic in Croatia, I have no problem with).

At my birthday party this year, sometime around 2 am, a friend bemoaned the fact that he had never seen this famous play that has been on forever, and probably would not, since he was going to Germany for work. And leaving Zagreb to visit family in Istria, too, so not chance of it.

I had been trying to go to that particular one for over a decade. Something would always come up and I ended up being the only person I know who had not seen it. (Not even on TV!) I was even on their mailing list! Another friend prompted me a few days later and I got the three of us tickets online, so there was no backing out.

The play is Stilske vježbe, (Exercises in Style) by Raymond Queneau but I suspect the translation to be quite divergent from the original. (I’ve not read it but I will. As soon as I find this Croatian translation to read through). It was just what I needed: the same short, non-sensical story of two men bickering in a full Zagreb tram, hilariously retold over and over again in a myriad of styles. I am in love with it, have been the entire week. (Have skipped two days of posts in an attempt to come up with something deep to say about it. Can’t, too busy living it. And laughing inside.)

L-R Producer, Tonko Maroevi? (translator), Lela Margitic, Pero Kvrgic

Stilske vježbe is the longest running play in the world, performed by the same actors Pero Kvrgi? and Lela Margiti? who may have grown old doing the same play year in, year out, but the act has definitely not gotten old. The play premiere was on January 19th, 1968 at the Zagreb ITD Teatar and has won a place in the printed edition of the Guinness Book of Records on its 41st birthday in January 2009.

I was thrilled to find out, before the play began, that I had inadvertently managed to buy us tickets (and there were only five left, three of which I bought, but they are forever sold out) for the celebratory 47th anniversary performance! I was a bit shocked that I was even able to buy tickets for such a performance, there were drinks and a cake after the play and I felt a bit out of place. Where were the celebrities, the mayor, the minister of culture, the prime minister, big acting names? Skiing, most likely.

It may not have been the 45th or the 50th anniversary, but the ageist in me felt that when the same two people do the same show for 47 years and actors tending to be at least 18 or

Photo by Patrik Zufic

so (and these were a bit older than that!) at the time of the premiere, each new anniversary should be a huge deal. Then again, if Croatians knew how to revere their own accomplishments, there would have probably been no way for me to get tickets for and see this unique performance of the play. It just might be that it was a richer experience like this, for me and for the actors; a hundred or so people, many of them quite young, none of them anything else but members of a genuinely interested audience come to have a laugh and a good time.

And rewarded for their interest not only by a great performance of an outstanding duo but also by the chance to see a short documentary about the play and its 47 years that taught me a lot about it yet managed not to contain any spoilers what so ever. (Not event he ones I committed writing this post.)

There was an art exhibition in the hall where the actors joined the audience for drinks and cake after the show, inspired by the play, made by children of a local design high-school. The way Croatian do things may be a bit askew, but sometimes, just sometimes, it is also awesome.

Photo by Patrik Zufic

And my friend, he went home to Istria just in time to catch another performance of Stilske vježbe. Of course he went!

Stilske vježbe or 47 years in a play

Fatness and slim dreams

A friend once told me “You do not walk like a fat person at all!”. I had no idea what to say to that. I had no idea you could walk like a fat person. (I figured I bumped into stuff because distracted not unaware of own girth!)

I am fat. Currently, I am very, very fat.  Yes, it bothers me. Just not exactly all the time. Only when I can’t fit into something I feel like wearing. Or when I have to pack for Worldcon so I am forced to actually think about clothes and therefore contemplate appearance.

Another friend published a photo of me from highschool the other day. Seeing it, it occurred to me why it is I do not walk around like a fat person:

THIS is what I look like in my own head.

(And yes I also get a shock when I accidentally catch a glimpse of the old and really, really fat person in this girl uses as a disguise to walk around living my life!)

Of course, it is not only that. If you expect me to say I love myself just the way I am… erm, not really. I generally just forget the way I am. It slips my mind.

I would probably be able to say it if I had any conceivable sense of style but what I think looks good on me – fat or thin, come to think of it – generally depends more on the state of my mind than on any reality.

My mood swings so yesterday’s awesomely pretty becomes tomorrow’s downright ugly. This is also, I suspect, the reasoning behind the famous ‘I have nothing to wear’ line. I always have nothing to wear!

Seriously, it takes time and effort to figure those things out and man, when your weight and clothes size go up and down while you are busy living the next big stage of your life, it is a lot of time and effort! And I just can’t be bothered. Too many lovely books to read, words to write, TV shows to watch and squee about. A kid to raise, a dog to walk, a husband to bicker with.

In addition to this, even when I do make myself care, there are obstacles:

• I am so single minded that I generally forget to check in the mirror whether what feels good also looks good. (And that is how I forget I am fat. And why I keep the hair short.)


• Full length mirrors keep breaking in my house. Honestly. And, not by me. By random other people doing ordinary stuff and pum! there it goes. Who am to argue with bad luck? No, thank you.


• My best friend for the better part of my first 20 years on this planet would have probably been hospitalized for anorexia were we teenagers today. I did not think she was too thin. She ate like 6 times a day. Spending a summer with her felt like we were doing nothing but looking for or preparing the next meal. I like to cook but that became old real fast. It cut into my beach time!


• When thin, guys swarm you trying to get into your pants. Truly annoying. When fat, they just want to be friends. I know our culture claims that is far from awesome -cue every teenage or romantic movie ever – but from my firsthand experience? No, it is awesome. Being talked to for who you are rather than being defensive every single waking second… Yeah, awesome. It’s like fat woman=human being, thin women=sexual object. Don’t believe me? Let me put it another way: I can flirt like a man and get clean away with it.
  
  (And boy did I not learn that one the hard way!)

One final thing, the comments below the picture reminded me – people seem to think I had gorgeous legs. To be honest, they seem stick insect thin to me in this pic but I know they are pure muscle there, 6 miles of bike rides a day saw to that. I think I still have gorgeous legs today, 65 kilos later. That is because these kilos I have accumulated have decided to live mostly on my upper body. My belly. So while my friends dreamed of having legs like mine I still dream sometimes of having a flat stomach, a discernible waist and very small breasts. (Whoever mentions that the flat stomach is doable, they are buying me lunch because two and half years worth of situps daily to get one – did I mention singleminded? – says no, it’s a potbelly and I am tall and big and no, on me there is simply nothing adorable about it.)

I like who I am. Fat included. (Most days. Some days I hate it. but some days I hate everything. Fat included.)

 

Like this:

Like Loading...

Fatness and slim dreams

New Fafnir

I know Fafnir is a Norse dragon, but to my Croatian ears it always sounds like the beginning of a childish joke. (No, I don’t know which one! If I did, it wouldn’t tickle my mind so much!)

It is also the name of the Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research, a free and excellent thing that available online.

Go read it! It’s Wednesday and that is the best serious excuse to procrastinate there ever was! Besides reading fiction, of course. Science fiction, naturally.

(Remember to join Fafnir’s Facebook group!)

 

Like this:

Like Loading...

New Fafnir

Nominations for the 2015 ESFS Awards are open!

The nominations for the ESFS Awards are now open. SF fandoms and publishers from all European countries are eligible but for specific rules and regulations please check here.

The closing date for submissions is the March 23, 2015 and until then submissions can be sent through the webform or you can email them in directly at contact_esfs AT esfs DOT info.

The list of past winners is impressive and I can hardly wait to see who will get nominated for the European Hall of Fame award.  Also, I love it that I can brag about Croatia winning a number of times.

Like this:

Like Loading...

Nominations for the 2015 ESFS Awards are open!

Lauren Beukes at Istrakon 2014

Lauren Beukes at Istrakon 2014

Awecon

Åcon is a small annual SF convention held in May or June every year in Finland. It takes place on a finnish island –  Mariehamn, Åland^] where a Swedish minority lives but the programming in neither in Sweding nor in Finnish, it is entirely in English.

The con was founded in 2007 and its aim is to bring Swedish and Finnish science fiction fandoms together. I also read somewhere that some die-hard fans thougth the very awesome Finncon, attended by 4000 people every year, had grown to big so they decided to organize a con on an island that was diffcult to get to thus discouragin everyone who is not a diehard fan.

I heard about the con from Cheryl Morgan and have been dying to go. Maybe next year. Here’s how it went this year.

 

 

Awecon

Istrakon 2014 report

Istrakon is the second largest SF convention in Croatia. It is held in the very heart of Istria, usually in March and this year it was the very last weekend of March. Like every Croatian convention, its program is a mix of lectures, workshops, gaming demonstrations and sessions. Their Guest of Honour this year was Lauren Beukes, the South African winner of the Arthur C. Clarke Award who was promoting the Croatian translation of her novel The Shining Girls.

As I work for Lauren’s Croatian publisher, I was her host. Due to her tight Croatian schedule, we unfortunately had to miss the first evening of the convention (Lauren had a public Q&A in Zagreb that evening) which meant missing out on one of the most famous items at the Istrian con – the Korado Korlevic lecture.

Korado is a famous Croatian astronomer, a prolific discoverer of asteroids (1197 as of January 2007, ranging from 7364 Otonku?era to (137971) 2000 CQ₃₉) as well as comets 183P/Korlevi?-Juri? and 203P/Korlevi?.

In Croatian fandom he has a cult following and a well deserved one: his lectures are awesome. When Juliet E. McKenna was Istrakon GoH she cut her writing workshop to be able to attend one. There was no general outrage at the last minute programming change – the entire workshop moved to go listen to Korado. He lectures at Croatian cons whenever he can, but never misses an Istrakon. This year he lectured on the collapse of complex systems.

Saturday at Istrakon was great: the weather was sunny, the mood great and the program varied. Lauren’s Q & A session was fun and interesting, and unlike at other venues, con attendees were not too shy to pose a whole bunch of questions. When time ran out, the questions did not, so a number of fans took her to a nearby coffee shop for a drink. And some more conversation.

In the meantime, I, with the gracious help of Mirko Karas, the SFera president and my very own local GUFF auctioneer, held the GUFF auction. Items donated for this auction included a copy of The Shining Girls, some very interesting page holders, some Japanese space food and, of course, some books.

The Saturday night party was loud and crowded, as they usually are at Istrakon, which is famous in Croatian fandom as being the most fun convention, once upon a time serious rival to the Zagreb based SFeraKon. (Today both these are upstaged in the party department by the even younger Liburnicon.) The party went on until the wee morning hours, as programming rarely begins before noon. (This is a bit of a local custom). Alas, we had to rush to Zagreb for a TV interview, but we did manage to take part in the traditional non-official Sunday morning coffee in the sun, right outside the con.

 

 

 

Istrakon 2014 report

Sealioning

I learned a new word the other day on Twitter – sealioning. I love it when that happens. It very rarely does, especially in Croatian. That used to make me a bit sad.

I just wanted to record one simple, little fact here that also makes me a bit sad:

Sealioning doesn’t stand a chance in Croatia. It never happens in Croatia. We have just not leveled up that high yet.

photo credit: kumachii via photopin cc

Sealioning

Feminism in Apsurdistan presidential elections

Had somebody told me that I would scorn a female candidate for president of my country, I would not have been surprised. The current female candidate, as well the one that was prime minister, belong to the same political party, the one whose penultimate prime minister is currently sitting in jail for his corrupt ways (while the same party’s 20 year President of the Croatian Chamber of Economy and one time minister of economy is awaiting trial for corruption). There is really no need to mention thieving and snake pits, is there?

But that I would ever rejoice at the fact that the majority of people in this lovely boomerang shaped country of mine, women especially, think feminism practically equals Satanism, idiocy or  _insert appropriate derogatory term here_, that I would most emphatically not have believed.

In my Facebook feed today, an article kept appearing. In which an actual (female) university professor claiming to be a feminist concludes her letter of support for the current female candidate in the upcoming Croatian presidential election by saying that voting for the woman as opposed to voting for the only other, male candidate is, in fact,  feminist. Not only that, she proceed to express surprise that younger feminists would “betray the solidarity among women by voting for a man.”

The state and level of Croatian academia is illustrated better than I ever could in the fact that this person goes on to invite all “who believe in gender equality” to actually vote for the candidate belonging to the party* that is at this very moment in the middle of a very loud to abolish abortion in Croatia. For the party that has repeatedly voted against civil partnership for gay people in Croatia and would probably repeal the existing law that is in effect despite them if only they could. (Facts really are not that big a deal in Croatian academic circles apparently. News to me, but then again I studied English, Italian and Journalism.)

Really, I never would have thought it possible I would be so relieved and so happy that such a very small percentage of people in living and voting Croatia want to be or perceive themselves to be feminist.  Then again, I do live in Apsurdistan, so who knows? (And no, if you look us up on a map, we are not in South Africa. We just rent our corruption levels there!)

—

*The same one that has signed a treaty with the Vatican enabling generations of non-Catholic children in public, state-owned schools to be bullied for not attending Catholic religion classes (there are no others) conducted by teachers whose education (at local Catholic only universities who refuse to hire anyone not baptized) and salaries with benefits are paid by Croatian tax payer’s money and not by the Catholic church or the Vatican.) But feminism has nothing to do with motherhood, now does it? Or freedom for that matter.

Feminism in Apsurdistan presidential elections

Discovering old habits

When in school, my ability to focus into something made me the best pupil/student anybody ever had. I could never understand how people failed quizzed and exams if they were present in the classroom when that lesson was taught. I could clearly remember the teacher’s words. Except the physics guy and the old math bat, but that’s another story entirely.

Today, this has become my inability to successfully multitask my life. And work. Everything, really. Does not stop me from trying though. (And it makes meditation easy.) It does however make me forget to enjoy music or reading for long stretches. Then I gorge. Occasionally even discover new stuff that I adore.

In 2014 it was local music – a band that sounds like a memory of time I’ve never had. Love the voice, too.

The Marshmallow Notebooks

2015 is off to an early start: I spent most of the weekend glued to the witty Girls with Slingshots.

Discovering old habits

Firefly and the wrong side of history

One cannot be Croatian and not be aware of being a bad guy in history. Croatia, before becoming independent in a bloody war at the end of the 20th century had unsuccessfully tried to become so a few years shy of the middle of the that century.  And chose the bad guys as its partners in the process. That is not easy to live down. Nor should it be.

But, having to face people – and not just old idiotic uneducated assholes with or without a personal grudge against communists/partisans who should know better by now but also ignorant kids who have been alive shorter than the country has been independent but are unfortunately now old enough to vote – who are apologetic about that in the worst possible way in the here and now does tend to give one a slightly different take on life, values, and fanaticism. Also, on the protagonists of Firefly.

You have to love them. (The curse so much, Whedon must be a secret love child from the Balkans or something!)  The way they live – by their wits, in squalor, with most things falling apart around them, fighting ignorance and bigotry more by common sense and luck than education and nurtured skill, dodging danger, sickness, local petty idiots with all the power and absurd laws that pop up from out of nowhere when you can use them least and petty criminals – is brave, unpredictable, exciting, adventurous and oh so much fun! Simply fantastic.

Off the screen, it is not a fantasy nor fiction. At least in my little neck of the woods. Reality is what we call it. Alan Ford was one of the most popular comics in ex-Yugoslavia for good reason and is no less loved in contemporary Croatia. (Or Serbia, Bosnia and Hercegovina etc.) Satire becomes reality most beautifully in the Balkans.

Watching Firefly is always a total thrill,  not just for the awesome writing and for the sarcasm, and the laughs, but  for the other meaning of thrilling, the one that forms the word thriller – fear that I might actually see the bad side of my culture flourish someday, somewhere. The thought that it might do so in some distant corner of the universe is actually chilling. It is so very scary, since our bad guys were quite a shade darker than the Southern rebels Joss Whedon used to as inspiration for Firefly.

And this is the video that inspired that particular fear this evening. (As well as a certain mass)

Continental Europe goes for TAFF!

I am forever full of guilt for not writing and speaking of GUFF and fan funds more (natural state for – nothing is ever enough, as proved by my girth!). From time to time, though, my heart gets huge and I get giddy because I see that I did make a difference.

In this case, it was to inspire a non-anglophone, young and female SF fan to run for a anglophone dominated fan fund. Austrian fan and genre writer Nina Horvath is one of TWO non-anglophone candidates for this years’ TAFF race! I could not be more pleased!

And what better way to start the new year than with the opening of a fan funds race? So, if my endorsement is enough to make you give up s $3 (USD) or £2 (GBP) or €3 (Euro) , you can do it right now, here. The Transatlantic Fan Fund has been ferrying people between the US and Europe for more than half a century: it is fandom’s longest-running travel fund.

In case you have not met Nina at Loncon or at Shamrokon last summer or any of the previous Eurocons she has been attending since her first one in Zagreb in 2012, here are a couple of links that should get you better acquainted!

• An interview with the Austrian writer Nina Horvath on European SF issues


• Nina’s Shamrokon report


• Parcon/Fenixcon 2013 in Brno (Czech Republic)


• Parcon 2012


• Kontakt in Croatia (Eurocon 2012)

Also, Nina was one of the very generous European SF authors who had given me a signed copy of her story translated into English to take to Australia during my GUFF trip.  She will make an excellent TAFF delegate and an awesome representative of European fandom at Sasquan, this years’ Worldcon that is to be held in Spokane, Washington, USA (19th August to 23rd August, 2015) Please vote for her and help her get there!

Continental Europe goes for TAFF!