About me: Come join us for Diversicon 16
"Oh, sweet mystery..." DIVERSICON
Where: Minneapolis, Minnesota
When: August 1 - 3, 2008
Who?
Guests of Honor: Alfred Hitchcock and Anne Frasier
Go to the Diversicon website and click on latest update to download PDF file and registration form.
But wait! That's not all!
Diversicon 16 Flash Fiction Contest
Short stories up to 250 words on the convention theme of "Oh, Sweet Mystery . . ." Submit no later than midnight Central Time July 14 to diversicon16flash@gmail.com. No entry fee, but open only to attending members of the convention. Entries will be judged by the convention Guest of Honor, professional author Anne Frasier. Entries will be judged on the creative interpretation of the theme, the quality of the writing, and emotional/intellectual impact. Top prize is a cool certificate, the honor of winning, a round of applause, the opportunity to read your work to the assembled convention, and maybe something else if we think of it. For more information, visit: DIVERSICON
Special Guest: Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu, PhD
Author, journalist, and professor Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu uses both her Nigerian and American backgrounds in her fiction: the novels Zahrah the Windseeker (Houghton Mifflin, 2005) and The Shadow Speaker (Hyperion, October 2007), the play Full Moon, as well as stories in the anthologies The Witching Hour, Mojo Conjure Stories (Nalo Hopkinson, ed.), Writers of the Future Volume 18, and So Long Been Dreaming: Postcolonial Science Fiction (Nalo Hopkinson & Uppinder Mehan, eds.) and the professional online magazine Strange Horizons. Her essay on author Virginia Hamilton appeared in Dark Matter II: Reading the Bones (Sheree R. Thomas, ed.).
She holds a PhD in English (emphasis on creative writing) from the University of Illinois--Chicago; an MA in English, also from UI Chicago (thesis: The Legend of Arro-yo); and an MA in journalism from Michigan State University--East Lansing (thesis: Virtual Women: Female Characters in Video Games). She is also a graduate of the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Workshop.
Posthumous Guests of Honor:
Scheherazade, Alfred Hitchcock, and Jack Williamson
Scheherazade (ca. 800): Legendary Persian narrator of The Book of One Thousand and One Nights, a compilation of Persian, Arabic, Indian, and other folktales, including "Aladdin and the Lamp," "The Seven Voyages of Sinbad," and "The Thief of Baghdad." A highly educated woman, Scheherazade distracted her misogynist husband from killing her by telling captivating stories. The various translations of these tales have influenced artists, composers, and screenwriters around the world.
Sir Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1980): Director of many films over five decades in Great Britain and the United States, including the haunting Rebecca (1940), Shadow of a Doubt (1943), Rear Window (1954), Vertigo (1958), North by Northwest (1959), Psycho (1960), and the SFnal The Birds (1963; guaranteed to make you nervous around flocks of crows!), Hitchcock worked repeatedly with interlocking themes of sex and death. He also featured female characters who were both glamorous and strong actors with their own agendas, and he dealt obliquely with homosexuality despite the Hollywood Production Code.
Jack Williamson, PhD (1908-2006): Author of Darker Than You Think (1948), The Humanoids (1949), a collection of short stories titled The Best of Jack Williamson (1977), and the autobiography Wonder�s Child: My Life in Science Fiction (1984, rev. 2005), Williamson traveled west by covered wagon in 1915, then went on to write imaginative science fiction over many decades. He first saw his work published in an SF magazine in 1928, he cowrote the first story of revolution on the Moon with Dr. Miles Breuer ("The Birth of a New Republic," Amazing Stories, Winter 1931), coined the word terraforming in his 1942 novel Seetee Ship, and saw his last novel (The Stonehenge Gate) published in 2005. Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) honored him with its second-ever Grand Master award in 1976 (the first recipient was Robert Heinlein). He won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards (for his novella The Ultimate Earth) in 2001, becoming by far the oldest author to have won these awards. He earned a PhD in English from the University of Colorado--Boulder (his dissertation focused on the works of H. G. Wells) and taught science fiction writing at Eastern New Mexico University from 1960 through the 21st century.
Anne Frasier's novels have spanned the genres of mystery, suspense, science fiction, paranormal, thriller, and horror. Garden of Darkness continues a dark tale started in Pale Immortal of a spooky Wisconsin town. In Before I Wake, a secret government medical experiment goes wrong. Play Dead plays out amid the voodoo scene in Savannah, Georgia. Sleep Tight, a traditional police procedural, is set in Minneapolis. Publishers Weekly says Frasier “has perfected the art of making a reader’s skin crawl.” The Minneapolis Star Tribune calls her a “master.”
"Easily the best work I've read in 2006. This is just simply a masterpiece. I can't wait for the sequel so I can walk Tuonela's streets again." Maximum Horrors
"The characters are rich, complex. The story is masterfully spun. The deeper issues at play in the book resonate. I’m betting this book will be on my top ten reads of 2006." Spinetingler Magazine
THE PUBLIC DISPLAY OF A MUMMIFIED VAMPIRE AND THE DISCOVERY OF A MASS GRAVE COMBINE TO AWAKEN DARK ELEMENTS IN THE TOWN OF TUONELA, WISCONSIN. (coming December 2007)
PALE IMMORTAL: A BODY IS FOUND DRAINED OF BLOOD AND RESIDENTS OF TUONELA, WISCONSIN, FEAR THE RETURN OF THE PALE IMMORTAL, A VAMPIRE WHO HAS BEEN DEAD A HUNDRED YEARS. (2006)
HUSH: A WOMAN HELPS TRACK DOWN THE CHICAGO SERIAL KILLER WHO MURDERED HER INFANT SIXTEEN YEARS EARLIER. (2002)
SLEEP TIGHT: ESTRANGED SISTERS REUNITE TO CATCH A MINNEAPOLIS KILLER. (2003)
PLAY DEAD: SOMEONE IS DRUGGING SAVANNAH RESIDENTS WITH A SUBSTANCE THAT MIMICS DEATH. (2004)
BEFORE I WAKE: AN EX-CRIMINAL PROFILER UNDERGOES A DANGEROUS EXPERIMENT TO RESTORE HER BLEACHED MEMORY IN ORDER TO CATCH THE MAN WHO MURDERED HER FAMILY. (2005)
HEY! Thanks for all the support! I've lost a total of 19 pounds since I started and wanted to let you know that the new pics are up! Go check them out and let me know what you think! Again, thanks.
