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September 05, 2004
2004 Conference Report
By Gideon Haberkorn
Well, first of all, I thank the IAFA for accepting my paper and giving me an excuse to attend the ICFA for the second time.
Excuse? Well, of course I also enjoyed the opportunity to present a paper and have it spark interesting discussions. And I loved listening to all those interesting papers by other people. (Note: If you could do something to reduce the number of interesting papers... Otherwise I have to feel bad most of the time because I'm usually missing at least one other session I should attend simultaneously!)
But mostly I love coming to this conference for three reasons: Sunshine and warm days at the pool (even more of a reason to reduce the number of interesting, must see papers); strawberries for breakfast; and of course the people! This conference feels a lot like a family gathering, and both times I attended everyone made me feel part of that family. This is a wonderful thing, especially if you've come to the US from 'Old Europe', way across the ocean.
After the ICFA, I visited a friend in Atlanta, saw CNN, Stone Mountain, various parts of the city, two universities, two movies, and generally far too much for two days... and nearly bought a two foot long plastic toad. The only thing that prevented me from doing so was the fact that all those books were already taking up all the space in my carry on luggage. And this brings me, in a roundabout way, to my strongest criticism of this year’s conference: Could someone please stop David Hartwell from putting so many great books at reasonable prices into the bookroom? I always leave the conference dragging a suitcase that appears to contain at least one medium sized library. That man has to be stopped. I really needed that plastic toad.
The award for the most memorable moment goes, as fellow grad student Nikoline Thomson so rightly pointed out, to the last evening, when a group of us students were sitting by the pool. Brian Aldiss was wandering the circumference of the pool with a bottle, a happily inebriated satellite, and stopped by us and initiated a group chorus of "That's Amore."
To sum up:
What, then, was good about this conference? The atmosphere. The people. The papers - at least the ones I heard. I think there’s a wonderful balance between papers dealing with the main subject of the conference and other papers. But of course it was especially nice to have a more truly international conference this year.
It was interesting to find that Andy Seeger and I had brought very similar papers, dealing with similar subjects, but using different authors and arguing different points. Perhaps there might be a panel on contemporary German fantasy in this...
What was bad? The weather! No warm days by the pool. And even, on some days, no strawberries for breakfast. I'm very disappointed!
Anyhow, I think Andrea Bell can be very proud of 'her' conference. It was a very fitting 25th for the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts - a truly international conference.
Posted by ChrissieMains at September 5, 2004 10:24 PM