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National Black Writers Conference symposium on Octavia Butler

The National Black Writers Conference Bi-Annual Symposium celebrates the life and work of renowned speculative fiction author Octavia E. Butler in a daylong symposium to be held on Saturday, March 28, 2009 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Medgar Evers College, 1650 Bedford Ave., Brooklyn, NY 11225.

“Octavia Butler was the first black woman to come to international prominence as a science fiction writer and she has influenced a generation of authors as well as a diverse general public who still eagerly look for her work,” said Dr. Brenda Greene, Conference Coordinator and Executive Director of the Center for Black Literature. “Our celebration of her work and life is a testament to her impact on literature and a fulfillment of our mission to expanding the literary canon.”

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“Science Fiction, Globalization, and the People’s Republic of China,” by Lavie Tidhar

On visiting China in the summer of 2000 I was surprised at the complexity and determination I found in the SF field. Structures were forming that I would not have expected to see outside the US-UK axis, paralleling to a surprising degree the field’s development in the West.

See also the mini-Chinese SF profile as part of the report on the 2007 Chinese SF conference within the 2007 autumnal newscast:

Today much Chinese SF is published by popular science publishing houses and SF authors tend to belong to a science writers association rather than a writers association.

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Jamaica Gleaner report on University of the West Indies speculative fiction symposium

Michael Holgate (l), Brian Heap (r) photo by Nalo Hopkinson, copyright 2009

Poet and journalist Mel Cooke reports on the readings portion of the speculative fiction symposium recently held at the Mona, Jamaica campus of the University of the West Indies:

The physical gathering was very small but the readings at the Philip Sherlock Centre for the Creative Arts on Sunday morning were a gateway to other worlds and their inhabitants – wondrous or horrific.