For Immediate Release Wednesday August 30 2006

Thomas Seay: About SF First Annual Report

We've taken on many projects since AboutSF launched, and we're still working on several more. Some of these are almost complete, while others are just in their beginning stages:

• AboutSF.com We launched our webpage, which publicizes the project and serves as a home for all of the other projects mentioned below.
• Speculation Speakers: We established a nonprofit speakers program for SF professionals. We've registered 115 speakers from 35 states and 4 foreign countries. Among the contacts speakers have received from the webpage are requests for presentations at libraries, schools, and invitations to join the boards of nonprofits.
  
  The backend for the speakers program is very well developed. It includes the ability to search the speaker database by distance from the searcher's location, speaking topic, speaker name, and other criteria. Search results can be displayed either as text or graphically using a Google Maps interface.
  
  Also, speakers can register and maintain their own profiles online, including pictures, speaking topics, biographies, location, etc. New profiles are submitted through an automated registration process that allows the AboutSF administrator to decline unqualified speakers. We've received publicity for the Speculation Speakers program on SF-oriented sites across the Internet, on several mailing lists for teachers and librarians, and in magazines for meetings professionals.
  
  So far we estimate that a dozen speakers have arranged actual engagements, a number we hope to grow exponentially as the service becomes better known.
• Curriculum Wiki: We posted a wiki to the AboutSF webpage for the collaborative creation of curricula on the speculative genres. In particular, we modified the MediaWiki software to permit the creation of a password-protected section where Accelerated Reader tests can be actively developed by volunteers while remaining inaccessible to the general public in order to prevent cheating on tests. The wiki also hosts a list of university programs specializing in genre fiction, and volunteers are currently working on posting lists of SF novels oriented toward non-SF readers (e.g., SF novels of interest to psychologists, engineers, etc.).
  
  We expect more participation by institutions as the opportunity gets more visibility.
  
  
• Online Course for SF Teachers: We will sign a contract in August with Continuing Education at the University of Kansas for an online, three-hour, graduate course on the teaching of science fiction designed for teachers who want to develop a SF class. The class is focused on short SF written after 1800 and incorporates elements of both KU's annual Intensive Institute on the Teaching of SF and James Gunn's book Alternate Worlds: An Illustrated History of SF.
  
  The final student assignment is to build a course plan for a SF class that, ideally, students will choose to share with others via the AboutSF Curriculum Wiki, allowing for further development of that site.
• Literature Donations Program: We've established the framework for a program that would allow donors to contribute used SF novels and magazines to libraries, low-income youths, youth centers, etc. We have received only a few donations or requests for materials thus far, but we hope to expand this project in the future!
• Teen SF Workshop: We've begun planning for a proposed residential workshop for teenage SF writers and readers to be hosted at KU in the summer of 2007. The workshop will run concurrently with the CSSF Writing Workshop and will allow teens to read and discuss classic science fiction and then have their own SF writing critiqued by a group of peers.
• Presentations on AboutSF: We've also presented information on AboutSF's programs in a number of venues, including regional conventions, informational sessions for KU, a local library, and plan further presentations at the annual SFRA conference and the World Science Fiction Convention.
• Other Upcoming Projects: We're currently developing the backend code for an online database of SF enthusiasts, with the goal of allowing anyone to search their area for others interested in the genre (in order to, for instance, create local critique circles, form new conventions, start SF study groups, and so on). We're working to launch an annual contest for teenage SF writers, much along the lines of the now-ended Worldcon Student SF Contests, with the winner to be announced at the annual Campbell Conference. We're reaching out to associations of librarians and teachers in order to increase the number of requests for the Speculation Speakers program. We're actively recruiting volunteers to develop a substantial library of AR tests on the Curriculum Wiki. And, of course, we're searching for other projects to help advance the SF genre!

Thomas Seay
Project Coordinator

AboutSF.com Website

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Updated Wednesday August 30 2006