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February 21, 2005
Getting Comfortable at ICFA
I'd like to second Robin Reid's message, which is full of good advice, by emphasizing that most people at ICFA are very approachable. Conference veterans, both senior professors and graduate students, will be happy to talk with you about your paper or their paper, variant editions of Dracula or the latest Neil Gaiman/Dave McKean comic collaboration, the application of Baudrillard to cyberpunk, or the relevance of Spivak to slash fiction; somewhere at ICFA will be at least a half dozen people who talk your language and share your passion. Trust me--I know this to be true from personal experience. When I attended my first ICFA back in the mid-1980's, knowing no one, I soon made friendships and professional connections that are still with me to this day.
A lot of wonderful scholarship is put on display at ICFA, but that's only half the story. The conversations are at least as important. And then there's the guest of honor's talk, and the book room, and the scholar's talk, and the luncheons and banquets, and the free books, and the many, many author readings, and the silent auction, and the swimming pool, and the play, and the mentoring program, and the parties, and Donald Morse's reading of the menu at each meal (you'll understand this last better after you've experienced it).
I've been to many other conferences, but none of them is quite like ICFA. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.
Mike Levy
IAFA president
Posted by ChrissieMains at February 21, 2005 01:07 PM