Well we’ve pretty much come up with two conclusions from our online survey:

So given that, we have a few unsurprising conclusions:

What people like strongly:

What people like or prefer:

Mild preference for:

What people don’t care about:

What people don’t like:

For the other questions on our survey, we got a range of opinions that averaged out. Things like filking, costuming, gaming, art, parking, tourist attractions, etc. matter more to some people than to others.

We thank everyone for their input. We’ll take down the quantitative survey shortly, but we will continue to welcome input and suggestions for how to make our convention better.

All of the tables for dealers selling during SFContario are sold.

The list of our dealers, and links (when available), are here.

/\/\
Murray

Douglas Smith will be participating in the programming at SFContario. Find out more about him at www.smithwriter.com

Toronto’s Peter Watts is the International Guest of Honour of Dudcon, AKA the 49th Australian National Science Fiction Convention.

Dudcon runs concurrently with Aussiecon 4, this year’s World Science Fiction Convention.

Watts also is a 2010 Hugo Award nominee, in the Novelette category, for “The Island.”

Watts’s Dudcon guest description ends with “If you can find him at this con, it means that the US Border Patrol and Homeland Security haven’t yet got around to putting him on one of their terrorist watch lists. It’s probably only a matter of time.”

Watts’s travel to Melbourne was made possible by donations by fans of his writing and friends.

On July 19 co-ordinator Cat Sparks reported “I’m pleased to report that thanks to your generosity, enough money was raised to bring Peter out to Australia for Aussiecon and the Hugo ceremony. The ‘State of Grace’ tuckerization was won by Dave Luckett of Western Australia

“Peter says he has wanted to visit Australia ever since he was eight years old:

‘Australia; it’s like Deathworld on Earth. You’ve got things down there that can cause respiratory collapse in 30 seconds, just floating around in tide pools or sitting in your back yards!’”

/\/\
Murray

Retired University of Toronto mathematics professor Chandler Davis is the first male author to have a book published by feminist press Aqueduct Press.

Chandler and his editor Joshua Lukin will be at Buffalo’s Talking Leaves Books Wednesday, August 11, at 7 pm to celebrate publication of It Walks in Beauty, a selection of Davis’s writings on science, politics, human rights, and of some of his groundbreaking science fiction stories.

More about the Buffalo event here.

/\/\
Murray

A Polaris attendee has posted to the SFContario LJ account a link to a video of
the recent Polaris including an appearance by our chair, Alex, at our table promoting SFContario.

/\/\
Murray

I recommend the blog of our Author Guest of Honour, Michael Swanwick.

This example includes a link to an audio interview.

/\/\
Murray

Here’s an exercise: compare and contrast the Sunburst Award Adult category shortlist with the 2010 Prix Aurora Awards English novel nominees.

Prix Aurora Awards are the result of nominating and voting by members of the Canadian fan community. Novels submitted for the Sunburst Awards are read by a five-person jury, the members of which select the best novel in each of the Adult and Young Adult categories.

Karl Schroeder, nominated in the Adult category, likes the Sunburst physical prize. On his blog Karl explained “(Best thing about this award? It comes with a medal.)” Plus $1,000.

The full name is The Sunburst Award for Canadian Literature of the Fantastic.

Winners starting in 2001 are Sean Stewart; Margaret Sweatman; Nalo Hopkinson; Cory Doctorow; Geoff Ryman; Holly Phillips; Mark Frutkin; Nalo Hopkinson, Adult, and Joanne Proulx, Young Adult; Andrew Davidson, Adult, and Cory Doctorow, Young Adult.

/\/\
Murray

We do have tables available. However, the number of tables remaining is less than the number of people who’ve said they are interested in being dealers but haven’t confirmed yet. So if you would like to be a dealer at SFContario, waiting until August to make a decision might not be advisable.

We have a little information on our dealers room page. This includes an online payment form. Please note that the dealer table rate of $65 (until September 1, if we have tables left) does not include a membership. People can purchase a membership online at our registration page.

Merle is cajoling the dealers who have paid for tables to provide links and logos that we can put on our dealers room page. Hope to have some of that online by July.

Five months until SFContario and 75 per cent of the tables in the Dealers Room are sold.
/\/\
Murray