Somewhere
between the realms of geek culture and home fiction, there are
several groups who gather and form speculative fiction stories based
around the culture they love.
--- From the role playing and anime
to the Wars and Treks in space, you can find a group for almost
everything in geekdom. Drawing in creative minds on both a writing
and fantasy level while staying true to the original story it spawned
from, not to mention conventions and educational groups devoted to
the works. And the majority of those groups all partake as part of a
council. The Utah
Speculative Fiction Council to be exact. I got a chance to chat with
council president “Joe M” about the group, its history, what it
does for the community and groups, and plans for the future.
Joe
M.
click to enlarge
http://www.utahsf.org/Gavin:
Hey Joe, first off, tell us about yourselves.
Joe: The members and leaders of the Utah Speculative Fiction
Council (UtahSF) are drawn from a variety of local science fiction,
fantasy, and horror groups, clubs, and other organizations. A need
was seen when several of us who work with and are members of multiple
local clubs and groups discovered there was another group that no one
seemed to be aware of. After that experience, we thought it would be
useful to have a common forum to help everyone learn about everyone
else. Since then, we have done a lot of promotion for as many groups
as we can find, and tried to make sure that the word is out about all
the various groups out there.
Gavin: For those who
don't know, what is the USFC?
Joe: The Utah Speculative Fiction Council was founded as a
501(c)(3) non-profit organization as a way to help bring speculative
fiction-related groups together so everyone could benefit from the
wide range of knowledge, talents and abilities of all the members.
UtahSF encourages communication between all the various groups by
offering various methods such as email mailing lists at no charge to
its membership. We also try to promote local talent such as authors
and artists, as well as local speculative fiction events and
activities by letting people know about upcoming events which feature
these individuals and groups. We also work to promote Reading For the
Future, a local organization which provides books free of charge to
libraries and schools in need of them. Additionally, UtahSF was
instrumental in bringing the 2008 World Fantasy Convention to
Utah.
Gavin: Where did the idea come from to start the
council up?
Joe: We
(the founders) discovered there was a local science fiction and
fantasy convention being planned, and that no one was aware of it
within any of the groups we knew about. After we contacted this
group, several of us got together and tossed around ideas until we
came up with the beginning of an idea for the group. We determined it
would be best if the organization was one not directly connected to a
specific group in order to maintain independence from any one group
or other organization.
Gavin: How did you go about
getting set up and finalizing the structure of it?
Joe: There were several attempts, first within one of the local
groups, and then as a separate group, to come up with what eventually
became UtahSF. The most important things we wanted to accomplish were
to 1) establish an independent organization which could benefit all
speculative fiction groups in the area, and 2) provide a way to share
information between all the various groups as well as spread the word
to as much of the interested local public as possible. There were a
few different organization meetings, but everything was finalized in
April 2005.
Gavin: Were there any groups you sought
out to join, or did you simply open up and wait for groups?
Joe: We contacted all of the local organizations, clubs, and other
groups of which we were aware and for which we could locate contact
information. We are also open to any group which wishes to join.
There is currently no charge for a group being a member of UtahSF,
and we offer a lot of useful tools to help people spread the word
about their own groups and find out about others.
Gavin:
Who are some of the members you currently have under the
banner?
Joe: There
are quite a few, actually. We have conventions such as Anime Banzai
(anime convention), CONduit (general science fiction convention),
Life, the Universe, & Everything (actually an academic
symposium), and Mountain-Con (media science fiction convention), and
we sponsored and staffed the 2008 World Horror Convention (a
convention for professionals in the horror fiction field). Many local
fans also helped out with staffing and running the international
costuming convention, Costume-Con 23, in 2005, very shortly after
UtahSF was organized. There are also a large number of clubs which
are members, including the Belegarth Medieval Combat Society, End of
the World anime club, Quark Science Fiction and Fantasy Club, Rebels
Associated (a Star Wars club), SLAAKers (an anime club), a number of
Star Trek clubs (USS Alioth, USS Kelly, USS Ticonderoga, and USS Ursa
Major), the Utah Filk Organization, and the Utah Costumers Guild.
Related to a previous comment, Reading For the Future Utah is also a
member organization of UtahSF, and we try to assist them as we can
with their book drives.
Gavin: What kind of assistance
do you normally offer them?
Joe: One of the main things we offer is communication. We operate
a large number of general and organization-specific email mailing
lists which are used for communication within specific groups as well
as for intergroup communication. We help these groups gets flyers to
the various conventions to help get the word out. And, at our
quarterly meetings, groups are encouraged to bring flyers and
bookmarks for others to take and distribute to bookstores, game
stores, and other locations around Utah. We also have a lot of people
working with us who have been running various organizations (clubs,
conventions, and so on) for many years; some have over 30 years'
experience in these areas. All of this allows us to offer experienced
assistance to people wanting to start up a club, a convention, or
just offer help if they need it.
Gavin: Is there any
bickering between groups since some of them operate within the same
fictional universe, or do they generally get along?
Joe: There will always be some disagreements between people, but
fans in general are very friendly people and all of the groups we
work with generally get along. Utah has far fewer problems that most
other states as far as bickering goes. Fans in Utah are, for the
most part, very supportive of the other groups. We really want
everyone to succeed. When there are disagreements of one sort or
another, there are people in our various groups who try to find
common ground and get things worked out. This tends to be much more
effective in the long run as we can always accomplish more if we're
working together to help each other out.
Gavin: How do
you go about planning festivals and events to showcase these
groups?
Joe: We
haven't done any cross group events for the most part yet, but we do
have some ideas for things to do in the future. I think it would be
wonderful to have some sort of Speculative Fiction Day event where
all the various groups could participate in some way and share with
the community at large. These kinds of events are being considered.
When UtahSF sponsored the 2008 World Horror Convention, people from
all the other conventions and several clubs stepped in to help
organize and run the event. This helped the convention be very
successful and well received by the attendees.
Gavin:
Do you work with any organizations like yourselves out of state, or
primarily focus on Utah?
Joe: We've had some contact with groups in Washington state,
Idaho, and Colorado, but there aren't a lot of umbrella groups like
this around out there (as far as we know). We are certainly
interested in working with other groups, though, as it will only
provide more avenues for the member groups of UtahSF to be promoted
to a larger audience. There are groups which work with Fandemonium
(an Idaho convention), MileHiCon (Denver), and a large number of
local fans volunteered to help run various parts of Denvention 3
(Worldcon) in 2008 in Denver. Some local fans have also helped at
SakuraCon (in Seattle).
Gavin: If someone wanted to
join, what are the requirements and the process like?
Joe: The best thing to do is to go to our website where we have
all the
requirements to do so.
You can also come to our quarterly meetings where we go over business
and discuss what we can do to help each other. The next meeting is on
our site in the top right corner: Saturday, March 14, 2009 at the
Salt Lake City Main Library.
Gavin: Do you take
offense to the idea that some believe its just "fan fiction",
or is that more par for the course with people who don't know
more?
Joe: We
like to think we cover a wide range of speculative fiction interests.
From fan fiction (those who write stories based in their favorite
media or literary world) to New York Times Bestselling authors and
academic discussions on the literary aspects of SF&F; from Star
Trek clubs and the Society for Creative Anachronism to creating
historically accurate costumes for theatrical productions and manga
to classic SF. It's certainly true that some people just dismiss
science fiction, fantasy, horror, anime, etc., because they don't
understand it or it doesn't appeal to them, and that's perfectly
fine. The range of interests is as varied as the variety of
speculative fiction groups in Utah. UtahSF is just there to help
people find that niche for themselves, and to allow them to let
others know about it, too.
Gavin: Do you ever take
part in local festivals or conventions, or leave that more to the
groups to take part in?
Joe: We allow all the groups, festivals, and conventions to do
their own thing. UtahSF doesn't want to try and run things for
people. Instead, we are here to assist them, and we have a number of
people who go to most or all of the local events and help out where
they can and where needed. I think it's far more interesting to see
all the different approaches taken to the same set of problems
encountered by the various groups, and then try and distill those
approaches and spread the best methods around to other groups. In
this way, everyone benefits from everyone's knowledge and experience,
but without trying to force people to do things a specific
way.
Gavin: What can we expect from you guys the rest
of the year?
Joe: We're looking at bringing other roving conventions to Utah.
(Conventions that are run by different groups in different parts of
the world every year.) We are also working out the details for a
periodic speculative fiction newsletter which will cover local events
and let people know about upcoming events, club activities, and so
on. We'll be having our quarterly meetings, and we'll continue to
seek out new groups to help out. You can find out a lot of
information on our
site.
Gavin: Is there anything
you'd like to plug or promote?
Joe: We have several confirmed member (and non-member) conventions
and events coming up this year:
Utah Renaissance Festival &
Fantasy Faire, May 8-10 and 15-17, 2009 in Marriott-Slaterville, Utah.
CONduit is coming up May 22-24, 2009 in downtown Salt Lake City.
Anime Banzai is coming up October 16-18, 2009 in downtown Salt Lake
City.
Life, The Universe, & Everything is held annually in February or
March at Brigham Young University down in Provo. It's an academic
symposium on speculative fiction which focuses on writing, literature
and art.