Teens & Kids Fantasy & Scifi Convention

YA Literature Forums, by Dragon*Con YA Lit Track

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 02:35:15 GMT

(Moderators, please let me know if this post is acceptable; if not, I will speedily remove it. Thank you.)

Dear YA Lit enthusiasts,

We at the Dragon*Con Young Adult Literature track would like to announce our next evolution--we've developed forums! Our forums will be the primary location for the most up-to-date con/YA Lit news, a place to ask questions about the track, panels, and guests--including ya_fsf_con's own Tamora Pierce--and to talk to each other and share your literary fandom excitement. We would love to see the forums develop into a year-round venture where we can talk about the latest YA developments as well as discuss the convention.

The forums can be found at: http://yalit.informe.com/forum/

Just go to the forum site above, click Register, and set up your account. If you have any trouble with this, please let me know.

SPECIAL NOTE: This year we will be making YA Lit Track T-shirts available before the con; please feel free to indicate your interest in the T-shirt forum if you'd like to participate. Additionally, we're looking for a few good witches and wizards who'd like to assist with making our Yule Ball spectacular this year--please let us know if you're interested in the Volunteers forum.

Once again, that's http://yalit.informe.com/forum/ for access to all things D*C YA Lit. It's folks like yourselves who are the reason for all we do, so we look forward to taking this next step together and sharing our fandom further.

Hoping to see you there soon,

Karen Smith
(Theodora on forums)
D*C YA Lit Staffer

FYI: Given my lovely sense of timing, the site is down until about 3am EDT, but please don't let that deter you.

I'm not dead yet!

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 05:32:21 GMT

Hello, everyone! I know it's been a while, and I hope there's still some existing enthusiasm about this despite the long hiatus. I'm going to try and get things organized and up and running over the next couple of months, including organizing various groups to start researching and making contacts, etc.

I'll admit, I haven't had brainspace for much thought about this since I made the hiatus post--finals + a trip to Turkey + Senior project has sort of eaten my brain.

So watch this space in the next few weeks, and good luck to all of us!

Julie

OT: Terry Pratchett article

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 16:51:01 GMT

here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1028222/I-create-gods-time--I-think-exist.html

with extra insights on epiphanies.

Enjoy!

Going on Hiatus for a Month of Two

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 04:22:21 GMT

Hello all! At the moment, keeping a balance between con planning and college life is proving impossible, and with finals fast approaching (and a two-week trip to Istanbul immediately after that), I'm afraid I'm going to have to put things on hiatus here for a while. I'll be back, if not in mid-may, then early June, with intermittent posts between now and then. On the plus side, I plan to get a lot more done over the summer months!

I'm working on putting a community together where people from here can talk about whatever--publishing, writing, cons, pets, science, whatever! I'll let you know as soon as I've thrown it together.

Thanks so much for your patience, and I'll see you all soon.

Julie

(Please, feel free to email me ( jaeholderman (at) google (dot) com )with questions between now and my Glorious Return. It may take me a little while to get back to you, but I'll do my best to be prompt.)

Opportunity for Newly Published Writers!

Mon, 24 Mar 2008 14:58:03 GMT

The very kind moderators have given me the opportunity to place this announcement here. If you are a new(ish) author, please think about joining us at Portus for our YA Author Reading Series, a chance to gain new fans and share your work.

Writers of Young Adult fiction are cordially invited to submit short excerpts of their work to read at Portus as part of the Portus YA Author Reading Series. The readings will take place Friday morning, July 11th, and Saturday morning, July 12th, 2008 at the Hilton Anatole in Dallas, Texas.

Portus is a Harry Potter symposium sponsored by the HP Education Fanon, Inc. (HPEF) While Portus is primarily a gathering for Harry Potter scholars and fans, its activities span the range of academic and fan interests. Our attendees are avid readers of Young Adult fiction and enjoy hearing readings from new writers, as well as established writers in the field.

We invite all YA writers wanting share their work with us to submit an excerpt of their writing. The excerpt should be able to be read in 20 minutes. Upon acceptance to the Portus YA Author Reading Series, the author is eligible for a special rate of $180 for the convention. Efforts will be made to gather the author’s publication(s) for sale in the Vendor Room, and an autograph session would be held Friday and Saturday afternoon for attending authors to meet fans.

Works considered for the Portus YA Author Reading Series must be excerpts of the author’s original fiction. Preference will be given to published authors and writers of YA fiction or YA—friendly material.

We hope you will consider joining us at Portus. To be considered for the Portus YA Author Reading Series, send an an email indicating your interest to Dr. Catherine Schaff-Stump at yareadings@portus2008.org with your submitted work as an email attachment. Please include the following information in the body of the email.

Name of author(s):
Email address(es):
Phone number(s):
Summary of the work (500 words or less):
Author biography (150 words or less):

Thank you for your time and consideration. Please send submissions no later than May 15th. We look forward to reading your work and hope to have you join us for Portus.

If you have any questions, feel free to email me, or ask here.

Catherine

This may be one to watch...

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 16:44:02 GMT

To either schedule around, because there will be a TON of people attending (including ME if I can swing it), and to perhaps contact and see if they have any pointers.

www.leakycon.com

I'm still onboard, if anyone needs me to do something.

I -CON 28 April 3-5, 2009

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 14:00:49 GMT

The Authors Track

is pleased to announce

confirmed guests for ICON 28

Holly Black

(The Spiderwick Chronicles)

Jane Yolen

Theresa Nielsen Hayden

Patrick Nielsen Hayden

I-CON 28 April 3-5, 2009

Sat, 15 Mar 2008 13:23:32 GMT

Hi

Well our first confirmed guest is Holly Black, recipient of the Andre Norton Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature. if you have any suggestions for others send them to authors@iconsf.org

Blaine

A con within a con?

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 01:03:55 GMT

So another community I'm part of, fangs_fur_fey, is hosting a sort of con within a con at Conestoga, including a track of dedicated urban fantasy programming, and that got me to thinking ... would this be a way to get a YA con started? Start by finding another, larger con with the right sensibilities, and have a dedicated track of YA programming (aimed at both teens and adult readers of YA), and then look at maybe growing the thing from there?

Just a thought I figured I'd toss out there--seems that might be a little less overwhelming, at least to start!

What does it takes to get published...

Sun, 09 Mar 2008 21:43:50 GMT

Hello, I'm not an author of a hit book, yet. Actually I'm writing my first book now. My friend is too. We were both wondering what does it take to get a book published. We both have realatives that are authors but most of their stories haven't been published either. We have only just started our stories and we were wondering if there is any advice that can be given. It is really tough for us to get motivated to write our stories. My friend and I are really, really young authors. The only writing experience we really have is inside our school classrooms. I found this community through my favorite author's website, Tamora Pierce. I wish we could help out with this convention thing, but I think were too young. We both love fanasty stories and that is what our stories are about. It would really help if we could get some advice. Even some tips for good books we can read that may help us create ideas for a good writing style. Thank-you for your time and any help your willing to offer.

Volunteer

Tue, 04 Mar 2008 01:46:45 GMT

What do I need to do to volunteer to help out with this con? I live in the Syracuse area, so it would be convenient for me. I have tried sending emails twice to kitmf@livejournal.com but they keep getting blocked, probably by a spam filter. Is there another email address I can try?

Margret

Tue, 19 Feb 2008 19:56:37 GMT

mattcody (whom I had the pleasure of teaching this summer at Clarion)'s blog sent me over here, and I'm all for it! With my work published as adult, but widely read by teens (especially The Privilege of the Sword) I feel like I've got a foot in both camps -- but if you'll have me, I'm yours. Plus, ya know, Some (well, Many) of my Best Friends are in YA....

Great Idea - Lemme Help!

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 01:02:53 GMT

Such a great idea! I'm a YA author and my first novel, Powerless, will be published by Knopf in 2009. I'm a New Yorker, and I worked in non-profit Fundraising here for a year on the individual giving side, and so I have some experience there. I'm also a graduate of the Clarion Workshop and let's see . . . I have the cutest new baby in the world? I'd love to get involved in this so please email me at matthewjcody@gmail.com if I can help!

All the best,

Matthew Cody

I-CON Here

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 21:09:35 GMT

Hi all this is Blaine from ICON Science Fiction, Inc. , Long Island NY. I am currently managing the authors track for I-CON 27 (http://www.iconsf.org/). I-CON itself is a large multi-media convention, supporting media, authors, gaming, anime, comics and many other interests. For next year I-CON 28, we are working on having a focus on YA authors. So we would be glad to help out in anyway possible..

Let us know!! and come to the Con..

Blaine

Con Update

Sun, 03 Feb 2008 19:01:54 GMT

Hello, everyone! My apologies for being so uncommunicative for the last couple of weeks. I've been dealing with the start of a new semester, and Tammy's been working on a book deadline, so we've both been a bit tied up.

I'm going to start off with a summary of our plans and decisions so far. Thank you all for the suggestions of places and possible hotels--we're filing them all away for future reference. As it is, we're planning on having the first con somewhere in the Syracuse area, both because it's easier to get to than other potential New York sites and also less expensive. In addition, it's near to both Tammy and myself, and will make organization and communication simpler for that reason.

As for size, that's still under discussion, but we're thinking somewhere in the 700-1200 range. Tim (Tammy's husband) is looking into local area hotels.

And please, everyone, remember that this is going to take time. The first con won't be held for at least a year, more likely two. We can't start programming, selling memberships, or finalizing guest lists until we have a more definite decision in terms of hotel. And again, once we know location, we can begin to work with greater focus on specific budget requirements, security plans, advertisement, etcetera. At this point, all roads must stem from a hotel decision--or at least a general price range for preferred locations.

Kit is gleaning volunteers from the people who've spoken up here and emailed me, and I'm going to be corresponding with her over the next week or so to organize groups for specific planning and research areas. We'll be contacting you, so please be patient.

And, to answer some questions people have posed, we are going to need grants in order to fund an academic track, and we are still looking for people willing to help with grant proposal writing. In addition, we'd like to organize a way to scholarship in kids from further out (not tons, but a couple at least), for which we'll also need grant funding if it's going happen.

Thank you, everyone, for being both so eager and so helpful in providing information and volunteer time. I look forward to getting to know you as this project develops.

Julie

A Reminder: Please read the community guidelines before posting. If you would like to volunteer, contact kitmf at kitmf@livejournal.com. If you've already volunteered somewhere in the LJ comments or emailed me, DON'T do this, as she already has you on our list. Thank you!

Another suggestion for location

Sun, 27 Jan 2008 23:42:57 GMT

If this has already been decided, please feel free to delete this post.

I'd like to nominate the Virginia Beach area (VA Beach, Norfolk, Chesapeake) as a possibility. I just spent the weekend there with some lovely librarians, teens, and booksellers who are very jazzed about having a YA book festival. When I mentioned that there are many YA FSF authors trying to sort out a convention about just such a thing, they were even more jazzed! The B&N there would love to do a group signing and there are many big, beautiful libraries that would be happy to host events. It's a great area--very diverse, with lots of large cities clustered together as well as lots of history (colonial Williamsburg! Jamestown!) accessible *right there* for those who do that sort of thing. I would be happy to liase with these folks if this location garners further interest.

Thanks,
Tiffany Trent

Think about working with anime cons

Mon, 21 Jan 2008 23:18:18 GMT

Hi,

I'm the Vice Convention Chair of Ohayocon, which is a yearly anime convention in Columbus, Ohio. I saw this mentioned on Boing Boing and thought this was a really good idea.

I've been to both anime conventions and literary science fiction conventions, and it seems that today, the kids are overwhelmingly going to the anime conventions. Our convention attendee's average age is probably somewhere around 15-16.

I know there sometimes is tension between the two types of conventions (I've heard people in both types disparage the other), but I don't think there has to be. There's a lot of things that both conventions have in common, and I think it would be in everyone's interest for anime and science fiction conventions to try to do more together.

One suggestion would be to find your local anime convention, and offer to host some young adult science fiction programming - talking about authors, various series, etc. The deep dark secret about most anime conventions is that they're often starving for good programming. If someone were to present an idea for programming that sounded interesting, and would be moderated by someone who is very familiar with the subject matter, I think it'd have a very good chance of being added to the schedule. You could also contact the convention with the names of local authors, etc. and see if they might consider inviting them as guests. You're less likely to get anime conventions to bring in sci-fi guests from other places since they'll be focused on getting guests from the anime industry, but a local guest might be doable. (Just make sure you contact the CONVENTION and not the potential guest if you don't speak for the convention.)

If anyone from Ohio would be interested in trying some science fiction programming at the next Ohayocon, please let me know and I could see if I could get it added. Unfortunately we just had this year's convention a couple of weeks ago, so the next one wouldn't be until 2009.

Mon, 21 Jan 2008 05:54:16 GMT

Scott Westerfeld and Justine Larbalestier, Author Guests of Honor were just guests of honour at High Voltage ConFusion.

Here is the website for more information on what happened: http://stilyagi.org/cons/2008/

Hey neat

Sun, 20 Jan 2008 21:47:55 GMT

Wow - what a great idea! I'd love to see this happen - read tons of Andre Norton when I was a kid, and am still re-reading it though I'm over 50.

But I'd like to complicate your life.

This isn't "A" convention. This is a family of conventions, held at different times, in several major cities. If you hold a single convention it will have a very limited impact. The problem is at least North American in area - probably worldwide. What should be put together is a skeleton, on which local artists/writers/attendees can add their own variations.

And if there is one held in Toronto, I'll probably volunteer. I've worked Ad Astra, Toronto Trek, FilKONtario, and Torcon 3 in the past.

Wayne

Con Demographics

Sun, 20 Jan 2008 19:01:57 GMT

I've thought of getting the location ball rolling by scouting hotels in my area (gotta start somewhere), but I don't know what I'm looking for in terms of # of hotel rooms, number and kinds of meeting spaces, etc. I'm posting in order to start this ball rolling. Do we have knowledgeable guesses on how many people would be a reasonable attendance goal, and how that translates into picking a hotel to fit that attendance?

Sun, 20 Jan 2008 05:10:15 GMT

Hello.

A lot of conventions have been put on. There's a mountain range of Oral Tradition among the veterans ("SMoFs", though the word is used in other ways too).

The last thing you need is to spend money and energy on a problem which is solved, or relearning skills (like hotel negotiation) which we have masters of.

Last I knew, though it's been a while, there was a SMoFs listserv, with a lot of good people on it. Please start networking with the people who already know how to do what you want to do.

I'm not trying to tell you how to do your con, but there are mechanical considerations which are the same for everyone. How do you budget for your hoped-for number of people when you don't know if 20% or 80% will join at the door, after you've already spent most of what you have to spend? You probably want to set up a 501-c(3) to be the official sponsor to limit liability.

(Frankly, I'm not sure how self-conscious to be. I may be old enough to be grandfather of one of your target demographic, but I've been to a lot of cons, too, and have seen remarkable things. (A personal favorite is the Worldcon where someone said, "It's raining in the Art Show."

(Seriously, I want you to have the best shot of getting this done that you can. And Reinventing the Wheel can be way too expensive.)

Possible Cross-Convention Support

Wed, 16 Jan 2008 05:53:55 GMT

Is anyone on here in touch with the people at HP Education Fanon, Inc. (http://www.hpef.net/forums/showthread.php?t=1)? It seems like they have gone through a lot of the same issues as we are, including trying to find a location for a convention that is one of its kind and drawing people from all over the country. Since we're talking about a similar target audience, they might have some experience people who are interested in helping out, or at least answering a list of questions like "How do you decide where to hold each convention?" "How much did you first year cost?" and most importantly for us right now "Where did you get the start up capital for the first convention?"

I know a lot of us on here have some experience with running and starting conventions, but I certainly have no idea how to start one on a nation-wide scale. It was one thing when I started a local anime convention, because some things are were just default - location, target audience, marketing strategies. Trying to figure out how to plan a convention that people across the country are interested in is a different matter for me at least.

Just my thoughts.

Cassie
http://www.yafantasy.com

The Wonderful World of Grants

Mon, 14 Jan 2008 09:11:28 GMT

Hello, everyone!

First off, I have to ask you all to bear with me if this doesn’t entirely make sense—I’m sick, it’s late, and overall my head isn’t working at 100% :B

Alrighty, ladies and gentlemen! We’re all of the opinion that we want to see this con happen sometime in the near future. As with any great undertaking, the one thing we’re going to need more than anything else to make this work is that silly little thing called money. And unless somebody quite rich decides to take pity on the poor writers and fans, there’s only one real way that we’re going to get the money for this—and that’s through grants.

Now, from looking at the profiles of some other similar conventions, it looks like a lot of these conventions have one overarching organization that pretty much runs things, along with a few smaller sponsors. Of course this varies from con to con, but it’s never a bad thing to have multiple sponsors. If we want this con to be long-running, however, it might be worth it to consider establishing a permanent, overarching organization that will oversee the con itself, as well as any other little offshoots we might try (this of course is thinking way in the future, but it’s something to chew on). Having an organization to handle the set-up and oversight of the con itself will likely make our jobs a lot easier—and it will also make it easier to get both not-for-profit status, and a grant to make this con happen.

The grant-writing process is a long and relatively complex one—and it is also best done, I have discovered, when done collectively. There are also several steps involved. The first one is not to look for funders, since how can we look for funders when we don’t even know what our goals are?

The first thing we need to figure out is—who are we? What are we doing? What are we going to contribute? How will we, and therefore the convention, help ourselves and help others? All those pesky little existential questions that keep us up at night, lol.

The step after that is to determine our own strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. This is called a SWOT analysis and is used by pretty much everyone in the business world (and this includes not-for-profit). What are our strengths—who do we have who is willing to work for us? How will this convention help people? What experience do we have? Weaknesses—what internal problems do we have to contend with? What can we improve upon. Opportunities--what opportunities are out there that we can exploit? What do we intend to use in order to make this work? What can we use? Threats—what external problems do we have to contend with? (Heh, this last one should be easy—dates, money, location, other conventions).

It’s only after we know who we are, what we want to do, and how we intend to do it that we can start to look for funders. There are many types of funders and grants that we can find and use, but at this point I’m thinking that foundational funders are going to be our best bet (of course this can change in the course of our development—you see why finding funders always comes last?) When I say “foundational funders” I mean funds from good-works foundations (like the Red Cross, though I doubt we’ll get money from them, haha) who are willing to donate money to a cause they like. Guidestar is a good place for basic information about not-for-profits, and has information about the forms needed to apply for not-for-profit status as well as how to find good funders. On the other end of the spectrum, there’s The Catalog of Federal and Domestic Assistance, always a good place to hunt down federal grants. But as I said, we’re probably going to want to look at foundational grants, at least at this point in time. And while finding a funding partner is going to be the last thing we do when drafting a grant proposal, it would be good for some of you to check out these sites or find out what you can on the web, just to familiarize yourselves with the process.

As I said before, the grant-writing is best done collectively. Therefore, at this point I’d like to ask for anyone willing to help in drafting a grant proposal. Experience is definitely appreciated, but anyone willing to do research, make phone calls, talk to people or generally go hunting will be enormously helpful. A word on my own experience, which in all honesty isn’t that much to bark about—I’m a Junior in college and just got out of a semester-long course on grant-writing, in which I and three other students drafted a 43-page grant proposal for an alternative high school in Ithaca, New York. We’re still waiting for word on whether the grant was approved or not. I’m also a writer by nature (though more creative than technical), and I have pretty extensive knowledge about the process itself and how to go about it. From what I’ve seen on this community already, there seem to be a few people with substantially more experience than I, and I would like to hear their opinions on this matter.

So! Anyone willing to go through the grueling process of proposal-writing, or anyone who can devote a little time or information, leave a comment and we can talk things out. I have a lot of confidence in this, everyone—I’m sure we can make this happen!

(Long post is long)

A suggestion

Sun, 13 Jan 2008 02:39:35 GMT

My brother and i live on the West Coast, and we both wanna go to the convention, but cant. (He's 19, im 13.) I'm suggesting that you do the Convention on the West Coast so more kids/teens can come. After all, that's what you're aiming for, right?
Hope it was okay to post that. Disregard, if you want. ^_^

Any people for programming?

Sat, 12 Jan 2008 08:56:50 GMT

Hmm... I'm not sure, I'm probably jumping the gun a little bit, but I guess I might as well ask. Has anyone considered the programming staff for this convention?

Such as, Do you wanna be on it? do you wanna run it? do you wanna give input? anything like that...

I was also wondering how the whole, getting the concept into more like.... reality... thing was going lol.. Sorry I suppose I'm too lazy to go through all the posts, but none of them seemed to expressly deal with my questions specific.. ^__^; hope this post isn't a bother... <3