My First Trip to ICFA

The International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts (ICFA) is an annual conference in Orlando, Florida, that's been running for almost fifty years. I was excited when I first moved to Florida, because it meant it would be easy for me to go... but I've never been! The issue is that ICFA is usually the same weekend or the weekend before/after my regular conference, NCSA. Obviously I can't do two conferences simultaneously, but even back-to-back would be tough, especially since ICFA usually falls during my kids' spring break, and thus all the childcare would be on Hayley.

But... this year NCSA has been moved to July, meaning that I was able to go to ICFA! It's about ninety minutes from home to the conference venue, so I ended up staying at home and driving out two days.

The unique thing about ICFA is that it's both an academic conference and a creative one. So there are the usual panels and such, but also a lot of people who write science fiction and fantasy; the conference has multiple guests of honor which also come from both tracks. So this year, for example, there was scholar guest of honor Sherryl Vint... but also author guests of honor Ann Leckie and Ted Chiang! Not to mention attendees like Seth Dickinson, Neil Clarke, Ray Nayler, all in high favor around these parts.

Driving back and forth meant I didn't see as much of the conference as I might have (I wasn't going to get there around 8:30am!) but I enjoyed what I saw. I saw a couple great panels; I also really enjoyed both the keynotes of Ted Chiang and Sherryl Vint. The conference theme was "(Meta)Cognition" and they both had interesting takes on it. Chiang talked about how writing was a technology that actually changed our brains (something that won't surprise people who read his short fiction) and how he was skeptical that we could improve computers by connecting them to our brains; rather, the next cognitive technology will be something we can't even imagine. Vint discussed the way we are in what in the 1960s they called "information overload" and how the conditions technologies like LLMs are creating are also the conditions that tyranny needs to thrive.

Ann Leckie read from the forthcoming Radch novel and then did a Q&A and signing. The reading from Radiant Star revealed it has an omniscient narrator, a big change from the first-person perspective she's used in previous Radch novels. Someone asked her about this during the Q&A and she said she read Middlemarch to figure out how to write it! So obviously this Victorianist is excited. I got her to sign my copy of Ancillary Justice but ended up talking to her a lot about Raven Tower. I asked her if she could explain her approach to fantasy, and she said she approached it like a science fiction writer. And I was like, "Aha, that's why I like it!" She takes a fantastic premise but then thinks it through completely logically. I also got some fantasy recommendations from her.

I also chatted with Sarah Pinsker a bit when I got her to sign Sooner or Later Everything Falls into the Sea; I told her I teach her uncollected story "Pay Attention," and she was like, "Oh, it's you!" I can't imagine being included in my course pack makes her a lot of money but I guess it is enough to notice! I also got to tell Ray Nayler I liked "Muallim" a lot. (Seth Dickinson, alas, seemed to be a no-show.)

Scholar-wise, probably the most interesting thing was there were a lot of scholars whose articles for Studies in the Fantastic I have copyedited but never met. I particularly enjoyed getting to chat withto Dennis Wilson Wise and Jess Gallerie. (I am always worried when I introduce myself to people I have copyedited, they will think I am a jerk... this has happened once but it did not happen this time.)

My own paper seemed to go over well enough, and I got some thoughtful questions and text recommendations. 

Anyway, I enjoyed it a lot overall... and now I am trying to figure out if there is a way to go to both NCSA and ICFA in 2027.