The 28th ICon was held October 20-22, 20-24 in Tel Aviv, Israel, and included almost 350 panels, lectures, workshops, games, and roleplaying. Some 11,000 tickets were sold to the different events. In each of the three days, at a certain point, entrance to the venue had to be restricted to those who had tickets, because the 1,800 people limit on premises, set for health and safety reasons, was reached.

The ...Read More

Can*Con 2024 was held November 1-3 in person at the Sheraton Hotel in Ottawa, Canada. Guests of honour were Jennifer Brozek, Sarah Gailey, Diana M. Pho, Waubgeshig Rice, and Arley Sorg. A separate virtual Can*Con was held on April 20 with roughly one hundred attendees.

There were 400 in-person registered attendees. Programming featured 115 panelists and 107 items on writing, literature, and more, such as ‘‘Post-Colonial Perspectives on the Post-Apocalypse’’ ...Read More

The 50th World Fantasy Convention was held as a hybrid event October 17-20, 2024, with the in-person portion held at the Sheraton Niagara Falls and Niagara Falls Convention Center in Niagara Falls NY. Guests of honor were Scott H. Andrews, Galen Dara, and Heather Graham, with toastmaster Michael Swanwick. P. Djèlí Clark was a special guest, and Life Achievement Awards winners were Ginjer Buchanan and Jo Fletcher. The theme was ...Read More

StokerCon 2025 has announced their Guests of Honor: Scott Edelman, Paula Guran, Adam L.G. Nevill, Joyce Carol Oates, Gaby Triana, and Tim Waggoner.

StokerCon 2025 will be held June 12-15, 2025 at the Hilton Stamford Hotel & Executive Meeting Center in Stamford CT.

For more information, see the official website.

While you are here, please take a moment to support Locus with a one-time or recurring donation. We rely on ...Read More

Seattle Worldcon 2025 has announced a Special Hugo Award for Best Poem to be part of the Hugo ballot in 2025.

The award is open to “your favorite poem within the speculative, science fiction, and fantasy genres, published in 2024, that is at least three lines.”

Additionally, Seattle Worldcon 2025 has announced a Community Fund, seeded with $30,000 from DisCon III. The fund will have “four focus areas: Pacific Northwest ...Read More

The Academic Conference on Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy 2024 was held on June 8-9 in Toronto ON. Keynote speakers were Larissa Lai and Nicholas Ruddick, with remarks from the organization’s chair, Allan Weiss. Held quasi-annually since 1995, ACCSFF features papers and panel discussions on “all aspects of the field,” with a long associa­tion with the Toronto Public Library’s Merril Collection of Science Fiction, Speculation and Fantasy.

This year, ACCSFF ...Read More

Readercon 33 was held July 11-14, 2024 at the Boston Quincy Marriott in Quincy MA. Guests of honor were Rebecca Roanhorse and Amal El-Mohtar; Naomi Mitchison was the memorial guest of honor. The focus of Readercon is ‘‘imaginative literature’’ – literary science fiction, fantasy, horror, and their intersections, with ‘‘near-total focus on the written word.’’

There were 700 members, with a peak of 596 warm bodies on site Saturday. There ...Read More

StokerCon, sponsored by the Horror Writers Association (HWA), was held May 30 – June 2, 2024 both virtually and in person at the San Diego Marriott Mission Valley in San Diego CA. Guests of honor were Justina Ireland, Jona­than Maberry, Rob Savage, Nisi Shawl, and Paul Tremblay. The Stoker Awards were hosted by Kevin Wetmore Jr., and Mort Castle, Cassandra Peterson, and Steve Rasnic Tem received Lifetime Achieve­ment Awards. Co-chair ...Read More

Glasgow 2024: A Worldcon for our Futures, the 82nd World Science Fiction, to be held August 8-12, 2024 at the Scottish Events Campus in Glasgow, Scotland, published Media Release #25 on June 7, 2024, announcing Samantha Béart Announced as Special Guest at Glasgow 2024. Beart “is a BAFTA and DICE nominated, GANG Award-winning actor. They are best known for their role as Karlach in Baldur’s Gate 3.” For more.

The ...Read More

BayCon will host both Westercon 77 (2025) and 78 (2026).  Site selection for 2026 was held during Westercon 76, July 4-7, 2024 in Salt Lake City UT. BayCon 2025 was previously awarded the right to host Westercon 77, announced on June 14, 2024.

More information about the vote is available on the Westercon website. Information about BayCon 2025/Westercon 77 is available at the BayCon site.

While you are here, please ...Read More

VICFA 3, the third Virtual International Conference for the Fantastic in the Arts, is open to academic and creative proposals. The theme of the conference is “Pantheology in World-Building and Magic Systems,” but VICFA welcomes proposals “on any topic of interest and specialization whether part of the conference theme or independent of it.” Submissions are open until July 31, 2024, and the conference will take place online from October 9-12, ...Read More

LuxCon, which celebrated its tenth anniversary this year, is a large comicon-like festival in Luxembourg, Europe’s ‘‘seventh smallest country.’’ It did make me wish to visit a convention in Liechtenstein next, just for comparison! While the main attraction of the festival is its truly impressive cosplay display, it is also home to numerous roleplay­ing and board game en­thusiasts, with a large dealers’ room. Some of the merchandise, such as those ...Read More

The annual Writers and Illustrators of the Future Awards gala event was held on April 25, 2024 at the Taglyan Complex in Los Angeles. This years’ proceedings marked two important mile­stones: the 40th anniversary of the Awards for Writers and the 35th for Illustrators. The lavish ceremonies commemorated 24 new winners and included retrospectives on four decades of imagi­native achievement; Grand Prize winners were Jack Nash in writing (for his ...Read More

Iain J. Clark will design the base of the 2024 Hugo Award tro­phy, and Sara Felix will design the 2024 Lodestar Award trophy. Each year, the rocket-shaped Hugo Award trophy ‘‘is given a unique base design to reflect the personality of the hosting Worldcon.’’ The Lodestar trophy is also given a unique design every year. Felix previously designed the first Lodestar trophy in 2018. The designs will be re­vealed on ...Read More

The 47th Williamson Lectureship was held April 11-13, 2024 in Portales NM. The theme of Lectureship, held at Eastern NM University and around town to honor SF pioneer Jack Williamson, was “Oh, the (In)Humanity”, and included discussions of AI, robots, posthumans/anti-humans, and guest of honor Martha Wells’s Murderbot Diaries, including 2023’s System Col­lapse. Connie Willis served as toastmistress.

San Jose criminalist Cordelia Willis started events Thursday with a presentation ...Read More