SFeraKon 2015 in English

In exactly one week I will be half-crazy and half-ecstatic, running around doing a million things at once. I call this the SFeraKon Saturday Insanity. The second day of the biggest Croatian SF con is always hectic for me. Almost all the journalists turn up within the same hour, of course,  and the SFERA and SFERICE Award Ceremony script somehow manages to remain unwritten until that day, no matter how many weeks in advance the writing of it starts.  And all the fans that are not from Zagreb also arrive on Saturday and are eager to chat and have coffee and catch up. On a happier note, I get to be curt and not mistaken for rude

Running Kontakt, the 2012 Eurocon almost entirely in English we demonstrated we can do it, to ourselves most of all but to all the members too. Since then, we’ve always had some programming in English – at least one item per day and usually more – we just never bothered to push it.

Also, we somehow took it for granted everybody knew you could ask for an item to be in English, and some lecturers will be able to switch at a moment’s notice.Not everybody does, so this is your official notice! Ask, and if at all possible, it will happen.

Since I’ve gotten some queries about programming in English this year, here’s the breakdown for 2015.

Friday, May 15

• GoH Q&A with Kate Elliott, 20:30-21:30


• Kona?no Sir Terry, Vrijeme je da krenemo zajedno, Milena Benini, 22:00-23:00
  
  (Finally Sir Terry, Time to Leave)*
  
  A lecture on where and how to start reading Sir Terrry Pratchett

Saturday, May 16

• Fanzinska scena u Hrvata, Mirko Karas i Irena Hartmann, 15:30-16:00
  
  (Fanzine culture in Croatia)*


• Contemporary German Language SF literature, Martin Stricker, 15:30-16:30


• Kate Elliot, Guest of Honour Speech, 17:00-18:00


• The Terry Pratchett After LIFE, Milena Benini, Petra Buli?, Tatjana Jambrišak, Mihaela Marija Perkovi?, Marko Štengl 18:30-19:30


• Once more with feeling 1, musical, 19:20-19:40


• 50 godina planeta pustinje: Dina i zašto je volimo, Marko Fan?ovi?, Mihaela Marija Perkovi?, Vladimir Šegadin, 21:45 – 22:45
  
  (50 years of the desert planet: Dune and why we love it)*


• Kad štenci podivljaju ili tko je strgao Huga, Milena Benini, 22:45-23:45
  
  (When puppies go beserk or who broke the Hugo)*

Sunday, May 17

• Worldbuilding Literary Workshop, Kate Elliott 15:30-17:30


• Tragom bijelog zeca: Kako su Alisa i Lewis Carroll utjecali na pop kulturu, Milena Benini, Marko Fan?ovi?, Jasna Legovi?, Iva Polak, 15:30-16:30
  
  (Following the white rabbit: How Alisa and Lewis Carroll influenced pop culture)*


• The Great April 2015 Tour (Easteron, Eurocon, Pyrkon, Antwerpen convention), 17:00-18:00
  
  Trip reports! Photos! Anecdotes not to be written down!

The timetable is, of course, still subject to change.  In addition to this, almost everybody speaks English at the con.  All the other info you might need you can find here.

 

*These lectures/panels are announced as being held in Croatian, but the lecturers are proficient enough in English to be able to switch to it should there be foreigners in the audience.

SFeraKon 2015 in English

Gillian's Call for Recipes: "Foodie fandom: The all new e-cookbook"

Gillian Polack, last year’s GUFF delegate to Loncon3 and current Australasian GUFF administrator has put out a call for favourite recipes from SF friends. Having traveled to Finland and Croatia this summer after Loncon3 I have no doubt Gillian tried some of the finest delicacies from both countries. This obviously inspired the cookbook writer in her so she came up with a very cool idea on GUFF fundraising!

Here’s what she says:

I’ve discovered over the years that even fans who claim to be non-cooks often have one recipe, one mouth-wateringly wonderful dish that they make when asked to bring a plate. And fandom needs another cookbook. And I need to raise money for GUFF.

Send me your recipes! Ask your friends to send me their recipes! As many recipes as you like! Spread the word across world fandom!

Since this is an international endeavour, there will be many oven temperatures and spoon sizes. Tell me what country you’re from (and tell me a bit about yourself if you want other fans to know) so that I can make sure that your oven temperatures are translated properly in the tables of measurements. Your recipe will be in the book as you have given it to me using this oven-of-origin system, and fans from the other side of the world will be able to make it using my magnificent translation tables.

Normally, when I put a cookbook together, I translate everything into a standard recipe format. I’ll only change or adapt recipes when the recipe provider asks me to or when there is a significant problem. Having said that, I’m happy to have “I think this is how we make it, but all I’ve got is a page of notes: can you make sense of it for me?” recipes.

One thing I love about SF fandom is its variety and its fascinating people, so I want to hear from as many of you as possible. I’ll correct typos and adjust ambiguities and make the internal formatting within the recipe consistent, but in most cases, that’ll be all I’ll do.

Speaking of fascinating fandom, this cookbook is not just for one branch of fandom. You may be a gamer, a literary fan, a furry fan, a cosplayer, a fanfic writer, an artist or belong to any of the thousand other parts of fandom that make our lives so wonderful. This is where we all come together and enjoy food. (And while I’m thinking of art, if anyone has art they’d like to see in the book, talk to me. Also, if someone has a burning desire to typeset the book, I’d love to hear from you.)

This ebook is not just for English-language fandom (although the book will be in English). If you know people who might be interested but have no English or not quite enough English, do not despair! I read several languages and have friends who read several more. By hook or by crook we’ll get your recipes translated. (My friends won’t know I’m asking them until I’m faced with a language I don’t have, though, so don’t scare them off.)

I prefer recipes in the format:

Title of recipe (giver of recipe, country)

Ingredients

Method

Having said that, if putting something in a correct format is going to stop you sending me the recipe, then just send me the recipe. Send me any number of recipes. Spread the word to fannish cooks all over the globe. I want this to be the biggest cookbook fandom has ever seen!

How do you get me your recipes? Simply fill in the web form here and make sure that the first words say “Fan cookbook.” If your recipe isn’t in English, then please tell me what language it’s in, just to make it easier.

Send me your recipes by 15 July 2015.

Addendum: Several people have asked me about the contact form. The contact form strips some formatting but the paragraph returns survive at my end (even though it looks as if they don’t, at the sender’s). Don’t panic! Just send me your recipes…,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Photo Credit: N00/4617939363″>Russian recipes via photopin (license)

Gillian's Call for Recipes: "Foodie fandom: The all new e-cookbook"

Pyrkon 2015: Sunday

On the last day of any con I start to be a bit worn out. Not so at Pyrkon but this might be a consequence of sharing a room with someone who is as much a morning person as I am. That was a really refreshing change in pace for me – thank you, Irena! Sunday went by a lot faster than any other day – it constantly felt as if I had just arrived and the con could not possibly be finishing so soon! There was yet more programming to go to, and the costumes were still there, numerous, exuberant, lovingly done and even more lovingly worn as well as much appreciated. I expected their number to be lessened on the day after the big cosplay contest, but obviously costuming at Pyrkon is much more than just the cosplay contest.

Photo by Valerija S.

While taking a leisurely walk through Poznan to the con – and I saw some lovely parks I want to take some time in next year! –  I received a call from their press office to let me know the interviewee who went missing the day before had some 10 minutes for me if I were interested. I hope the chairs, whom I was supposed to  be  interviewing at the same time, will forgive me picking Ted Chiang over them. It was short and sweet and I hope to have an audio version up soon.

At various times during the weekend I would end up at the press room chatting with volunteers working there. It was a lovely experience – they were warm and friendly and chatty, as well as a way to see the inner workings of the local con-runners. Of whom I have only words of praise. From what I’ve seen, the Pyrkon con-runners are well-organized, very enduring, can function exceedingly well on very little sleep, adrenalin and sheer will power. They are also able bounce back and juggle with surprising skill when they run into problems. It was a simple and natural progression to suggest they might consider bidding for a Worldcon some day. Fact is,  they could probably fit one into two of their ten pavilions. Obviously, they would need to volunteer somewhere first and since I do not see the Polish traveling en masse to Sasquan, I told them how to vote in site selection. I hope they all do.

Lunch was reserved for a bit of fanfunderry – me and Nina Horvath, the Austrian fan who’s won TAFF this year had a chat and a lunch. Creative places as con are, we may have come up with a cool new twist of a not entirely new concept. I am very exited but don’t want to even say it out loud, let alone write about it, lest I jinx it. Just keeping my fingers crossed. I love it when stuff like that pops up at cons, ideas that are not necessarily new but old ones that could not be made reality. Often it feels like trying to push a square peg into a triangle hole and then, at a con, something shifts, magic happens and suddenly an angle comes into existence which can make it all fall perfectly into place. Best feeling in the world! Right next to closing a successful SF convention.

My Sunday talk on Croatian SF scene and literature was well attended and there were even questions from the audience. Polish fandom is huge and varied, I’ve been told they have more 100 events in a year. And I thought many SF cons in a year were a Croatian thing! I was a bit comforted when it was pointed out Poland had 38 and Croatia only 4 million people. Still. A large local fandom, however, makes Polish fandom not only self sufficient but pretty self-involved. Not many Polish fans get about outside of Poland and their knowledge of traditional fandom and its customs seems pretty limited. I focused my talk on the differences in our two fandoms, Polish and Croatian, showing off mostly how Croatians do things and pointing out all the traditions the late but great Krsto A. Mažuranic set up in Croatian fandom.

I was very sorry to have had the bad lack of getting a time slot for that talk that clashed with the English tour of Poznan. My friends went and spent an excellent couple of hours with a guide named Marek, who according to them is the best tourist guide in the universe and a worthy attraction of the Poznan-Pyrkon phenomenon all by himself!, and GoHs Jasper Fforde, Jason Morningstar and Joe Haldeman, accompanied by his lovely wife Gay.

Later that day, Croatian screenwriter, Irena Krcelic presented Space Lab, a fun Croatian SF TV show for kids that also had a fair number of people in the audience, considering the fact it was a last minute alternate item held late on the Sunday afternoon. It is always great fun watching Irena talk about her work and especially when it is all about the scientific experiments kids can learn watching the TV show about Heklanac, a green little crochet robot, and the two mischievous children who are trying to help him fix his broken rocket so he can go back to his planet.

Not bringing the car to the con on Sunday morning was a mistake, as it took us quite a while to go get it and unpack the stand. I was amazed at how quickly and efficiently the vendor’s hall was taken down. A little disappointed, too, as I was hoping to do some last-minute shopping after Irena’s talk. In the evening we went – finally – to a Polish restaurant for dinner and tired some local dishes. The food at Pyrkon was also awesome, but they did not bother much with stews, other than the žurek soup (a stew with sour cream and sausages), which was excellent but hardly representative of an entire country’s cuisine. The rest, however tasty, was mainly burgers and other fast food items. And beer. Lots and lots of beer. (I know who in Croatian fandom just started preparing for next year and there are more than a few British fans would have an awesome time here, too!)

Photo taken from Pyrkon Facebook page.

There was a lot of programming in English: not only the one entire stream they placed in the hall called “Anglojezyczna” but also on the main stage and in some other rooms. Media is prevalent at Pyrkon rather than literature but the focus, as much as I could see, was on costumes first and everything else second. The literary track, however, was anything but non-existent, as I have heard tell of other media cons where writers are ignored. Not so here. In this, Pyrkon was so very much my kind of fandom that I felt I had the best of both worlds, literature and media. And they inspired me to push for an organizer’s cosplay at SFeraKon, the first one ever. I cannot not adore any con that makes my own a better and more interesting one. Tomorrow, I will be gushing about Pyrkon at the Tuesday SFera meeting, in two weeks at SFerakon 2015 and in exactly three, at SRP. And in April 2016 I am hoping to be in Poznan again. Possibly even in costume.

Pyrkon 2015: Sunday

Astra, the LARP

I do not LARP or play games much, unless it is with my five year old son. I have no idea why – I figure I am just lazy and much prefer to sit and read a good book. But occasionally someone comes up with something I would so totally get into. The idea behind Astra that Ivana Delac and Vesna Kurilic, both accomplished Croatian genre authors with day jobs in the culture and public education field and experienced game masters, came up with would have been my first LARP had they not asked me to be one of the small behind the scenes helpers. I am not sorry as I am sure I can bully them into making more of these. Also, I think it would be wonderful world if I could send my kid to school to learn like this.

Astra was a twelve days long, pervasive live action roleplaying game which took place in Zagreb, Croatia, October 15 – 26, 2014. It was designed and run by two game masters – Ivana Dela? and Vesna Kurili?, both accomplished Croatian genre authors with day jobs in the culture and public education field. Both have been active on the European LARPing scene since 2011 and have so far participated in designing and running three local LARPs in adition to Astra. These were: an intense chamber psychodrama LARP The Cabin, a prison LARP ?uza and a single-day sequel of Astra, held in the city of Rijeka under the name Astra: Apokrifija.

Astra was a pervasive game with elements of espionage and research on literature, with a playable plot relying heavily on the supernatural. It had a strong ARG  (alternate reality game) aspect, which is uncommon in Croatian LARPs. Most of the story had been kept secret until the game started (and continued so well into the game), the characters were pre-written by the organizers and the full number of participants – 28 active players, 2 GMs and a larger number of outsiders as supporting cast and crew – have been revealed only after the end of game. The main storyline revolved around the lives and works of three famous Croatian authors of the 20th century – novelist and journalist, Marija Juric Zagorka, Croatian Nobel award nominee and famed children’s author Ivana Brlic Mažuranic and acclaimed poet, Antun Branko Šimic.

What was it all about?

All of the characters in Astra were ordinary people applying for an internship at the Astra Agency, a discreet service which offers information – for the right price. The Agency had been monitoring information in the public domain and had selected a few potential candidates who seemed right for the job. The testing the candidates was what remained and that was done in the form of daily tasks. Some were some based on codes and cyphers, while other required creative activity (writing, drawing, sculpting…) Others yet revolved around the exploration of Zagreb, both online and in the real, physical world. There were also a couple of flashmob-based group assignments, i.e. public readings from works of the three authors.

Astra lasted for 12 days straight and 24 of the initial 28 players participated, in some way, until the very end. Loads of creative and informative material was produced: stories, poems, artwork, music, videos, research reports, statues, lanterns… All of it, as well as lovely ingame photos, are featured on the LARP’s website.

For every successfully completed task, players received a piece of information, often hidden in another puzzle, and the main goal was for them to put it all together in order to discover the story of the LARP. That story included the ancient, magical crown of Croatian kings that could bring a horrible death to those who desire eternal life, and immortality to those who fully accept that everyone must die. That crown subsequently, much to the joy of every fan of Marija Juri? Zagorka, made Zagorka herself immortal (and gave her enough time to continue her work and, eventually, create Astra).

Furthermore, a couple of characters were secretly working for Zagorka’s arch-nemesis, which brought on some interesting ingame situations and resulted in one character’s murder, which in return raised the tension and distrust among players. The highlight of the game was a treasure hunt in which players found the crown and discovered that Zagorka actually was  immortal, and the Director of  the Astra Agency. The game ended by Zagorka (played by the popular Croatian genre author Milena Benini) awarding the candidates with a job at Astra after which she left, with the crown, supposedly to end her over-long existence.

Why so special?

Although this game was not the first Croatian LARP based on the works of Croatian genre authors (that would be “Seekers of the Dawn”, created by Ana Rajner and Božo Špoljaric in 2012 and based on the Snakes of Nikonimor fantasy trilogy by Sanja Lovrencic), it was the first longer and pervasive one.

Astra included quite a few elements that were previously unseen in Croatian LARPs, such as numerous ingame video materials, “hard copy” casefiles (given to every player at the beginning of the game) filled with mysterious documents and old photographs, ingame blogs and websites created months before the game and regularly updated, etc. This game was also,to the best of our knowledge, the first Croatian LARP to include mainstream outside partners: Marija Juric Zagorka Memorial Centre, Školska knjiga Publishing House and the Booksa Book Club.

The feedback provided by the players shows that their opinion of the three authors improved significantly during the game, and that they learned a lot about the life and work of these writers who marked the Croatian literature of the 20th century. This leads to conclusion that pervasive LARP, as a transmedia form, is an amazing, efficient and fun tool for promoting literature and educating people about it.

Astra was nominated for the ESFS Award in 2015 and lost to Ireland. But I believe this is only the beginning.

 

Astra, the LARP

Pyrkon 2015: Saturday

Photo by Valerija S.

The second day of Pyrkon started off with a bit of weird deja-vu: it was a new day, as sunny and warm as Friday. And once we walked to the venue, the lines were also there again, just like on Friday. Another huge mass of fans were waiting to register! At first glance this was just too hard to believe, it felt as if we time hopped into a weird repetition of the first day of the con! This just had to be a not very well organized line to get in! Maybe the Poles simply do not know how to run the badge system efficiently. They do. It’s just so difficult to believe that so many more people showed up. But they did.

Throughout Saturday large numbers of people milled around the con, pursuing their various interests and desires.  That one of the big Poznan International Fair pavilions was reserved for vendors, making it essentially one enormous Dealer’s Room was not weird or new, even if it was quite a bit bigger than the Loncon3 one. But that RPGs had an entire pavilion of that size dedicated to them alone, with some spillover into the vendor’s one was surprising. And another one for computer gaming. And another one for LARP. And two more for various other programming items. And a big, main one for more programming. Getting the drift yet?

In all of this, there is one thing that I find to be the most impressive as well as precious beyond words (and I hope Pyrkon never looses it): the “feeling of fandom”, for lack of a better term. I hate crowds. They make me nervous and irritated and annoyed. I become rude and overwhelmed by a desire to go commune with trees, preferably somewhere without any people. Even at Loncon3, where I knew so many people, I felt the need to go find a bit of solitude. At Pyrkon the day before yesterday, it was like having science-fictional double vision of the best kind: despite the truly huge number of fans at the con, the feeling of closeness and coziness one gets at a convention of 300 remained. As I’ve tweeted already, I blame the enthusiasm and the atmosphere. And possibly magic.

Though it may just be the adrenalin of the organizers – these people have been, up until this year, running the +20000 members convention that is Pyrkon entirely on volunteer power. Any other day I would have had to say that the most impressive part of my day was hearing stories about Krsto A. Mažuranic, the grandfather of Croatian SF fandom from Joe and Gay Haldeman. But after hearing that particular piece of information, in addition to them having 70 GoHs, 12 foreign and the rest domestic, all I could do is be in awe.

(And am suddenly more forgiving of the fact that there is not a single stand of books in English for sale. So no opportunity to get autographs by Fforde, Chiang and Haldeman for me since accidentally forgot my copies at home.)

I planned to go to panels but the one on YA fiction pissed me off and then I got sidetracked by talking to people and hatching new plans, discussing fandom, browsing the stands, being stood up for an interview by the most award winning writer in SF and gawking at even more fabulous costumes. Find some better photos here.

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Pyrkon 2015: Saturday

Croatia wins two ESFS Awards!

Vanja and Ivan Kranjcevic accepted the Croatian awards at Eurocon 2015

And one of them is for me as best promoter! Having won an award for doing something I love – promoting science fiction – would have been great news and reason to celebrate any day. But winning one at a Russian Eurocon makes me twice as happy! I have an old report card from school which says “Mihaela’s Russian is excellent, but her English could use some work”. (Not even remotely true nowadays!)

In a twist of fate, I ended up going to Pyrkon this year rather than the St. Petersburg Eurocon. One of the reasons was that I felt that Polish fans needed to find out about fan funds and the Helsinki in 2017 bid. So I have the best possible excuse for not being there to say thank you in person: I was busy promoting science fiction in Poland! Thank you, Eurocon 2015!

The very talented writer who just had his first novel published in Croatia, David Kelecic, won the ESFS Encouragement Award. You can read one of his stories in the Loncon3/Shamrokon issue of Parsek (#125).

The 2015 ESFS Awards winners are:

HALL OF FAME

• Best author: China Miéville (UK)


• Best artist: Phillipe Bouchet Manchu (France)


• Best magazine: Fantastica Almanac (Bulgaria)


• Best publisher: Gollancz (UK)


• Best translator: Ekaterina Dobrohotova-Majkova (Rusija)

ENCOURAGEMENT AWARDS:

• Micheal Wozoning (Austria)


• Kaloyan Zahariev (Bulgaria)


• Martin D. Antonin (Czech Republic)


• Liz Bourke (Ireland)


• Luis Corredoura (Portugal)


• Georgiana Vladulescu (Romania)


• Victor Kolyuzhniak (Russsia)


• Jana Paluchová (Slovakia)

SPIRIT OF DEDICATION AWARDS:

• Best artist: Serhiy Krykun (Ukrajina)


• Best fanzine: Pritiazhenie(Attraction) (Russia)


• Best website: Europa SF (Romania)


• Best performance: Song of the Sea (Irska)


• Best children’s author: Anton Lomaev (Russia) & Ruth F Long (Ireland) (tie)

EUROPEAN GRAND MASTER:

• Eugene Lukin

Croatia wins two ESFS Awards!

Pyrkon: Friday 2015

You say Pyrkon, and numbers immediately start being thrown around. It’s the Polish convention that had 15 000 members last year. No, 25 000! Or was it 30 000? You can check and recheck different sources, but it does not matter. The numbers sound so incredible, it really makes no difference. You can’t help doubting. It’s one of those things where you simply have to see for yourself. I saw. And I have never been so happy to be part of programming! This time, it saved me from spending a few hours in a line.

The first thing you notice about Pyrkon – other than the huge amount of fans that gather here – is the masks. This con may be a lot of things, but first and foremost, it is a festival of fannish masks and costumes. We came into the festival with the car, to unload all our stuff and set up the SFeraKon stand in the Fan Village. Getting out of the car, we walked straight into – Maleficent. Hand made, intricate and very, very impressive.  Photos away!

I must admit, I did wonder why so many of Pyrkon photos – I have been following the con online since 2013, while I was planning to visit  – focused on the costumes. Now I understand. It’s not that there are so many, there are more than quite a few. It’s not that they are exquisitely made and stunning, they are that, too. It’s the overall atmosphere of the con, the catching enthusiasm of the fans wearing them that makes you become part of this great feeling. Since you cannot magic a full costume into being right then and there, you want to take photos.

As an SF fan and con-runner, I exist in a world where, by virtue of these interests, I am strange. Remaining strange well into my thirties while still into the “immature”, I think it’s safe to say I’m not too susceptible to peer pressure. Yet, by the end of the first day in Poznan, I was regretting bitterly I had no costume to play with and even considering cosplaying at SFeraKon! So, yes, the enthusiasm of fans at Pyrkon is catching!

The program book lists our stand as SFeraKon. But, in reality, we are promoting so much more than a Croatian convention. Pyrkon has a raffle system in place and we put together gift packages that contained goodies like the special English issue of Parsek, the famous Zagreb licitar heart and gifts from various cons and bid, such as tattoos from the Helsinki in 2017, a T-shirt from the Dublin in 2019 bid, the Terry Pratchett calendar donated by Dysprosium, art by Nela Dunato and fridge magnets from the NZin2020 bid.

Ted Chiang, Joe Haldeman, Konrad Walewski

Panels are panels everywhere one goes and the one on short fiction I went to, featuring Pyrkon GoHs Joe Haldeman and Ted Chiang, turned out to be more about writing than about short fiction in general. Somehow, I keep wanting to hear famous writers’ opinions on themes, motives and tropes in the genre. I end up hearing about the writing process. I had to wonder why since there was the Architects and Gardeners panel in the evening, with the same panelists plus Jasper Fforde, and that one was explicitly about the writing process. I went to it only to see what Jasper Fforde was like and was pleased to find out I liked him as much as I liked Thursday Next.

The first ever Fan Funds Talk at a Polish convention went well, considering that it was a last-minute replacement for another, more popular programming item. Nina Horvath, the current TAFF delegate joined me to talk about her experience of having just won the race. She described how the trip planning was going and how much she was learning about fan culture even at this early stage. I may have found a Polish GUFF candidate, which, if this works out, would make me very happy.

We ended the evening with a dinner and a chat with some of the organizers who told us that 17 000 people entered the huge Poznan International Fair that is Pyrkon’s venue but that they expect many more tomorrow. Having spent the day among the throngs of fans, I am inclined to stop doubting their numbers.

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Pyrkon: Friday 2015