Fantasy & SF in Academia

1. Fantasy & SF in Academia What to do with those papers you bled over.

2. 101 (okay, four) Ways to Do Academic SF & Fantasy • Conferences • Journals • Books • Professional organizations

3. Conferences are intimate. You meet the people who will be reading, reacting to, and perhaps publishing your work. Conferences are fun to attend. There will be food, interesting people, entertainment, and intellectual stimulation. The personal conference environment may give you a chance to refine a concept through feedback. Conferences are time-constrained. Your argument is limited to what you can present in approximately 20 minutes—usually not more than 10 pages. Conferences are exhausting and you may, at some point during all of them, wish you were dead. The immediacy of the question and answer routine isn’t for everyone. Conferences

4. Journals reach the people who can’t make it to the conferences, giving your paper wider exposure. Journals are usually harder to get into, so getting a paper published in one is more prestigious. The publication edit of your paper can use all of the great material that had to be cut from the conference edit. Journal readers usually can’t ask questions, so if you goofed, it sticks. Journals are harder to get into. The process may be frustrating. Journals look for longer articles, so if you only wrote 10 or 12, you’ll probably have to expand it. Journals

5. Getting into a book will, in some small and strictly limited circles, make you look like a god. Depending on the popularity of the subject, books may have wider exposure than journals. The limited nature of academic presses cuts both ways: editors often have to look for contributors. Getting into a book combines everything difficult about other academic publishing opportunities, and adds the necessity of being in the right place at the right time—someone has to be doing a book that can accommodate your paper. Books

6. Entry-level exposure. You can participate at whatever level you choose Membership is easy—just write a check. Can be the first step in publishing and other career advancement. Costs money, Usually $20-$60. Membership alone won’t do much for you. Memberships are opportunities, not guarantees. Professional Organizations

7. The Way Stuff Hangs Together; or, Organizations and Connections • IAFA – The International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts • ICFA – yearly conference held in Ft. Lauderdale in March. • The Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts • SFRA – The Science Fiction Research Association • Yearly conference held in June, in a different city every year. • The SFRA Review, Femspec. • SFF – The Science Fiction Foundation • Various events, this year “A Commonwealth of Science Fiction” in Liverpool, England. • Foundation, scholarly books. • SLF– Speculative Literature Foundation • New organization, no internal publications or conferences yet.

8. Journals, Etc. • SFRA Review • Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts • Foundation • Extrapolation • Science Fiction Studies • e-Sharp • New York Review of Science Fiction • Science Fiction: A Review of Speculative Literature • Slayage • Locus

9. Errata • Many of the traditionally fan-oriented cons now have an academic track. WorldCon is one notable example. • Use Usenet. There are people out there who can give you insightful feedback when people who understand your particular kink are in short supply locally. Caveat: do a little research first to learn how Usenet works. • There are conventions of specific interest to various disciplines, in case SF is a genre non grata at your institution. For instance, WisCon is one possible way to hit SF from a Women’s Studies angle. • IAFA has an internal graduate student organization.