The Canadian Children’s Book Centre announces the creation of a new award for science fiction and fantasy in Canadian children’s literature. The Monica Hughes Award will come with a $5,000 prize and will be presented in October 2012. Sponsored by HarperCollins Canada, the award is named for the late Monica Hughes, who wrote several books in this category.
See the announcement of the Monica Hughes Award at the CCBC website.
Along with the Aurora voting extension, SFContario will be extending the current membership rate of $55 until October 17. Please use our online registration page to register for the convention.
On October 18, the full attending membership rate will become $65. Other rates (young adult, child, charter) will also be increased accordingly. Online registration will still be accepted up to and during the convention.
The CSSFA has let us know that the Aurora Award voting deadline has been extended to October 17, midnight Pacific time (so 3 AM on Tuesday, October 18 Eastern time).
In order to vote, you must be a registered member of the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association. Go to http://www.prixaurorawards.ca/Membership/ to register. Registration with the CSFFA is free. You must also either be a member of SFContario or else pay the CSFFA voting fee of $5.50. SFContario members vote in the Auroras for free.
Diane and Clint will be up next Monday night to process all the memberships, registrations, and votes as best they can. CSFFA registration requires a validation step by the Aurora administrators, and there is another manual step where SFContario passes the membership list to CSFFA. So you can vote until the last minute, but you should have your CSFFA registration in by 6 PM Pacific/9 PM Eastern and your SFContario membership in by 9 PM Pacific/Midnight Eastern to be sure that you will be eligible to vote.
You don’t need to vote in every category, you can just vote in categories where you are familiar with the nominees. The Aurora website has information about all the nominees in all categories (you have to click on the plus signs in the menu). We are hoping for a good voter count with this year’s Aurora, so be sure to vote!
SFContario is happy to announced that we are lowering our program book advertising rates. The pro rate for a full-page has been lowered to $180. Most of the other pro rates have been reduced by 30% or more, and the fan rates are 20% or more lower. For more details, see the advertising rate page. The deadline to reserve advertising space is October 15 (a week from Saturday), so get in touch with us now if you’d like to reach our membership.
Progress Report #2 is now online. PDF vesions for online reading and for offline printing, also .epub and .mobi versions for e-readers and smartphones. We will email the link to our members shortly.
SFContario is disappointed to announce that we will not have a masquerade this year. We do expect a number of costumers at the convention; among others, the Toronto Steampuk Society and KAG will be in attendance, with a fan table and party respectively. However, no one from the costuming community has offered to run a masquerade for us, so we’re kind of stuck. We may have a short window where we can reconsider this decision, but we are proceeding on the basis of not having a masquerade. we do hope to recruit a masquerade director for SFContario 3 in 2012.
We will be presenting hall costume awards at the convention. We will be making a short presentation of hall costume awards on the Saturday evening of the convention, and listing these in our at-con newsletter as well. We are also considering having an additional filk concert on Saturday evening to fill the time slot in the main room, details to follow when the convention schedule is published.
SFContario is pleased to announce that the current membership rate of $45 will be extended to May 22. On May 23, the new attending membership rate will be $55. You can register online at http://2011.sfcontario.ca/site/index.php/membership/register-online . Memberships are transferable, so if you can’t come, you can give your membership to someone else.
Other rates will be $42 for young adults (13-21), $30 for children (5-12), $60 for charter members (for those who haven’t attended three meetings who wish to vote at the fall general meeting at the convention).
Also the dealer table rate of $85 will be extended to May 31. On June 1, the dealer table rate will be increased to $95, or $50 for a half-table. Dealers can request a table at http://2011.sfcontario.ca/site/index.php/convention/dealers-room/dealers-registration .
So join now and get the lower rate! We had a great con in 2010, and we’re planning more fun this year. We are honoured to be hosting the Aurora Awards, which will bring in authors and members from across the country. Keep an eye out for the Aurora nomination ballot announcement on Sunday.
