Norwescon » Norwescon 37 https://www.norwescon.org The Pacific Northwest's Premier Science-Fiction and Fantasy Convention Sun, 11 May 2014 16:12:14 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.9.1 May ConCom Meeting https://www.norwescon.org/2014/05/10/may-concom-meeting-2/ https://www.norwescon.org/2014/05/10/may-concom-meeting-2/#comments Sat, 10 May 2014 20:21:00 +0000 https://www.norwescon.org/?p=4508 Though NWC37 is over, we have one last meeting to finalize this year’s con and start looking towards NWC38! Would you like to help plan, organize, and create the Pacific Northwest’s premier science-fiction and fantasy convention? Norwescon is always looking for volunteers, and our monthly Convention Committee planning meetings are a great way to get involved! Come pull back the curtain, meet the masterminds behind the event, and find out where your particular talents can be put to use!

LAST CHANCE TO VOTE: If you haven’t yet turned in your ballot, this meeting is the last chance to do so. Every vote counts, make sure we get to count yours!

STAFF T-SHIRTS: If you haven’t yet picked up your staff t-shirt, you can do so at this meeting. They will also be available at the Volunteer picnic this summer.

May’s Norwescon 37 post-con meeting will be held:

DATE

May 17Saturday, May 17th, 2014 (R.S.V.P. on Facebook or Google+)

TIME

  • 11:00 a.m.–12:00 noon: Executive Team Meeting
  • 12:00 noon–1:00 p.m.: Lunch
  • 1:00 p.m.–5:00 p.m.: Convention Committee (ConCom) Meeting

PLACE

Doubletree by Hilton Hotel Seattle Airport
18740 Pacific Highway South
SeaTac, WA 98188
206-246-8600

For directions and a map, please see the hotel’s website.

NOTE: There is a discounted charge of $8.00 for parking.

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Norwescon Volunteer Picnic https://www.norwescon.org/2014/05/02/norwescon-volunteer-picnic/ https://www.norwescon.org/2014/05/02/norwescon-volunteer-picnic/#comments Fri, 02 May 2014 20:56:57 +0000 https://www.norwescon.org/?p=4502 Did you volunteer at Norwescon 37? Are you curious about volunteering at Norwescon 38? Then please join us on July 20th for our annual Norwescon Volunteer Picnic! This year the picnic will be at Steel Lake Park in Federal Way, in the covered picnic area closest to the beach, from 10am until 3pm. We will be providing hamburgers, hot dogs, with fixings, along with soda and water. If you can please bring a side dish or desert for everyone to share would be great! Friends and family are welcome.

Park information is available here Parking is available, first-come, first-parked!

See you there!

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Norwescon 38 will be April 2–5, 2015 https://www.norwescon.org/2014/04/21/norwescon-38-will-be-april-2-5-2015/ https://www.norwescon.org/2014/04/21/norwescon-38-will-be-april-2-5-2015/#comments Mon, 21 Apr 2014 17:35:58 +0000 https://www.norwescon.org/?p=4469 Another successful convention weekend has gone by, and Norwescon 37 is done! Many thanks to all of you who attended, to the many volunteers who showed up to help out, to our concom staff who devote so much of their year to putting all of this together, to the many panelists, artists, vendors, and clubs who participated, and of course, to our excellent Guests of Honor!

We’ll be keeping an eye on social media and the rest of the web for your Norwescon 37 posts, pictures, and memories. We’ll get our official photos processed and posted as soon as we can, but with literally thousands of shots taken by seven official photographers over the course of the weekend, we have a lot of work to do to get them all sorted, processed, and ready to post, so we do ask for your patience. In the meantime, if you’d like to share your photos with your fellow fen, we’d love to see you add them to the Norwescon 37 group on Flickr!

But now that we’ve wrapped up 37, what about 38? If you haven’t heard already via social media or the official announcement at our Masquerade halftime, we have big, big news for next year!

Norwescon 38 will be held April 2–5, 2015; our theme is Distant Horizons, Epic Adventures. We will once again be at the Doubletree by Hilton Seattle Airport, and we expect to have room reservation information posted soon.

To introduce the guests of honor we have confirmed so far, here’s Norwescon 37′s Programming Director and Guest of Honor Selection Committee Chair, Loree Parker:

As Director of Programming, I have the distinct privilege of chairing the Guest of Honor Selection Committee. Along with the convention chair, vice chair, and the two elected members of the committee, it is our job to assemble our dream lineups for the next convention – and next year’s selection of guests is truly amazing.

Another of my duties on the committee is to come up with the theme for the next convention. In some years, the theme informs the guests we invite, and in other years the guests we select give us the idea for the theme. This year is definitely the latter.

The theme for Norwescon 38 will be Distant Horizons, Epic Adventures.

Our Science Guest of Honor works with space telescopes and knows a thing or two about Distant Horizons. She is Deputy Project Scientist for the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer. At JPL she is the Principal Investigator for the NEOWISE project to study minor planets, and the proposed Near Earth Object Camera space telescope mission. She has appeared several times on the History Channel series The Universe, as well as the documentary featurette “Stellar Cartography: On Earth” included with the Star Trek Generations home video. I am honored to announce that the Norwescon 38 Science Guest of Honor will be Dr. Amy Mainzer.

Our Artist Guests of Honor practically define Adventure. Working nearly exclusively in fantasy, their hyper-representational paintings cover dozens of book covers in the genre. Their awards include the British Fantasy Award and the Chesley award, and have multiple Hugo nominations to boot. Avid fitness and weightlifting enthusiasts, they each have played the role as model for the works of art they produce. I am thrilled to announce that the Norwescon 38 Artist Guests of Honor will be Boris Vallejo and Julie Bell.

Our Author Guest of Honor takes Epic Adventures to new heights. But I can’t take credit for inviting him, I’m afraid — all accolades for that go to my predecessor SunnyJim. It’s taken awhile to get him here, because he is very, very busy. How busy? When we asked him in 2012 if he could join us, his reply was “Not next year, or the year after. How’s 2015?” The Executive Team enthusiastically agreed he was worth waiting for. A novelist, short story author, and anthology editor, he is well known in the realms of fantasy, horror, science fiction, and television. His writing career began by writing and selling monster stories to other children in the neighborhood, dramatic readings included. He moved on to writing letters to comics editors, and the first of his many writing awards was for a prose superhero story. He organized the first Hugo Losers’ Party at the 34th Worldcon, served as regional director and vice president of SFWA, left the world of novel writing for a while to become a book editor, and then made the move to Hollywood.

Brace Yourselves: George R. R. Martin is Coming

Thanks to SeattleGeekly for creating this!

In the 90s, he returned to writing novels, beginning a fantasy novel inspired by the Wars of the Roses and Ivanhoe. This blossomed into an epic fantasy series, the fifth volume of which won the Locus Poll Award for Best Fantasy Novel. In 2011 the series made the jump to television, winning numerous Emmy and Hugo awards, among so many others. The fourth season is airing now on HBO, and if you haven’t seen last week’s episode, you are in for a treat. I am absolutely gobsmacked to announce that Winter Is Coming, because the Norwescon 38 Author Guest of Honor will be none other than Mr. George R.R. Martin.

Pre-registration for Norwescon 38 is now open! A full four-day membership is $65; this rate will increase later this year, so pre-register today for the best deal! We’ll be rolling our website over to Norwescon 38 information in a few weeks (our webmonkeys need some downtime to sleep and recharge their banana supply after this weekend), so keep an eye on this website and our Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ social media accounts for further announcements about Norwescon 38 over the coming year!

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2014 Philip K. Dick Award Winner Announced https://www.norwescon.org/2014/04/21/2014-philip-k-dick-award-winner-announced/ https://www.norwescon.org/2014/04/21/2014-philip-k-dick-award-winner-announced/#comments Mon, 21 Apr 2014 17:25:15 +0000 https://www.norwescon.org/?p=4476 It was announced on Friday, April 18, at Norwescon 37, in SeaTac, Washington, that the winner for the distinguished original science fiction paperback published for the first time during 2013 in the U.S.A. is:

Ben H. Winters

Ben H. Winters, author of Countdown City, winner of the 2014 P.K. Dick Award

COUNTDOWN CITY by Ben H. Winters (Quirk Books)

Special citation was given to:

SELF-REFERENCE ENGINE by Toh EnJoe, translated by Terry Gallagher (Haikasoru)

The Philip K. Dick Award is presented annually with the support of the Philip K. Dick Trust for distinguished science fiction published in paperback original form in the United States. The award is sponsored by the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society and the Philip K. Dick Trust and the award ceremony is sponsored by the NorthWest Science Fiction Society. The 2013 award was given to LOST EVERYTHING by Brian Francis Slattery (Tor Books) with a special citation given to LOVESTAR by Andri Snær Magnason (Seven Stories Press). The judges for the 2014 Award were Elizabeth Bear (chair), Siobhan Carroll, Michael Kandel, Jamil Nasir, and Tim Sullivan.

Toh EnJoe

Toh EnJoe, author of Self-Reference Engine, winner of the 2014 P.K. Dick Special Citation Award

This year’s judges are Jon Armstrong, Ritch Calvin, Ellen Klages, Laura J. Mixon, and Michaela Roessner,

For more information, contact the award administration:

Gordon Van Gelder (201) 876-2551
John Silbersack (212) 333-1513
Pat Lo Brutto (301) 460-3164

For more information about the Philip K. Dick Trust: http://www.philipkdick.com

For more information about the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society, http://www.psfs.org/
Contact Gary Feldbaum (215) 665-5752

For more information about Norwescon: https://www.norwescon.org/
Contact NorthWest SF Society: (425) 686-9737

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Norwescon Supports Northwest Harvest https://www.norwescon.org/2014/04/12/norwescon-supports-northwest-harvest/ https://www.norwescon.org/2014/04/12/norwescon-supports-northwest-harvest/#comments Sat, 12 Apr 2014 17:00:18 +0000 https://www.norwescon.org/?p=4426 Norwescon is once again supporting the efforts of Northwest Harvest, Washington State’s largest resource for hunger relief efforts. We will have a donation bin in the lobby for shelf-stable food donations. We will also have items to bid on in Sunday’s auction. All funds raised on these items will go to NW Harvest, so please come check out our donations — you could get a great deal and help this wonderful organization at the same time! Finally, our charity liaison, Phillip Buff, and the lovely Willow Clark will be accepting cash donations ($2.00 minimum). While supplies last, con-goers can get our special ribbon by finding Phillip or Willow and donating to Northwest Harvest.

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Let’s Make A Movie! https://www.norwescon.org/2014/04/11/lets-make-a-movie/ https://www.norwescon.org/2014/04/11/lets-make-a-movie/#comments Fri, 11 Apr 2014 17:00:06 +0000 https://www.norwescon.org/?p=4411 If there’s one thing you never thought of doing before at Norwescon (well, of the three things you just thought of), maybe it’s making a movie.

That’s right, from planning, to shooting, to editing — making a movie at Norwescon is a hilarious and brilliant thrill ride with the Let’s Make a Movie workshop. In this hands-on adventure, you and your fellow workshop members learn about making short movies the best way anyone possibly could — by doing it right there!

With the help of a few professional filmmakers (representatives from Hellbender Media, Seattle International Films, and Maelstrom Productions), you work up a story, work up characters, hunt down props, plan a shoot, get it “in the can,” and, eventually, finish the final edits.

For fourteen years, the gang’s been doing this, and every single year, a new movie has shown up by the end of the weekend!

If you want to get REALLY in-depth, you can volunteer for an “internship” that weekend, where you join the pros during all the “behind-the-scenes” stuff. We’re not even sure how much this kind of instruction is worth, because whenever we price it at film schools, we usually find ourselves saying “Wait — and we do this FOR FREE?! What are we, nuts?!”

So if you want to be a part of some hilarious fun, learn what it’s like to make your own movie, or just help out on one, then please come by any of the workshops!

By the way, it’s not strictly necessary that you attend EVERY workshop, but if you do, that’s the most bang for your buck (which is pretty bangin’, considering there are no bucks!)

Hope to see you there!

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Great Norwescon Nerf Battle https://www.norwescon.org/2014/04/10/great-norwescon-nerf-battle/ https://www.norwescon.org/2014/04/10/great-norwescon-nerf-battle/#comments Thu, 10 Apr 2014 17:00:21 +0000 https://www.norwescon.org/?p=4384 Norwescon is proud to announce a new alternate Lazer Tag event! This year, for the first time, we will be providing Nerf weaponry for use during the Saturday morning melee! Come join us in Grand 2 from 10 am until 12 pm for the fun!

  • All participants under the age of 18 must have a parent or guardian present, or have that person provide officials with an onsite emergency contact number and sign the waiver.

  • All participants are required to wear either provided protective eyewear or provide their own, approved by officials.

  • All participants are required to remain within the arena while armed. Any participant wishing to leave the arena must turn in their equipment. Carrying the battle into the hallways of the hotel will not be permitted.

  • At the end of each round, all participants will be required to assist in cleaning up all spent ammunition from the arena before the next round may begin.

  • Any participant in an active battle who has expended their ammunition must depart the arena to reload, and at that time may be permitted to rejoin the battle.

  • All weapons will be provided by Norwescon. No outside weapons will be allowed.

  • All participants are required to avoid discharging their weapon at another participant from a distance of less than two feet.

  • No physical contact with other participants will be tolerated, and any intentional contact will result in expulsion from the arena, and may result in being banned from future events at Norwescon. Further, if the official feel that this event is not being played in a fun and safe manner, Norwescon has the responsibility to shut this event down.

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Guidebook is Live! https://www.norwescon.org/2014/04/10/guidebook-is-live/ https://www.norwescon.org/2014/04/10/guidebook-is-live/#comments Thu, 10 Apr 2014 15:00:36 +0000 https://www.norwescon.org/?p=4393

It’s here! We are once again using Guidebook to provide the best possible smartphone/tablet/mobile experience! Just download the official Guidebook app on your iOS or Android device, search for the Norwescon 37 guide, and you’ll be ready to go!

While the interactive Guidebook is the most up-to-date version of our schedule, we are happy to provide web-based and downloadable grids on our schedule of events pages as well!

We strongly encourage you to download our mobile guide to enhance your experience at Norwescon 37 (2014). You’ll be able to plan your day with a personalized schedule and browse exhibitors, maps and general show info.

The app is compatible with iPhones, iPads, iPod Touches and Android devices. Windows Phone 7 and Blackberry users can access the same information via our mobile site at m.guidebook.com.

To get the guide, choose one of the methods below:

  • Download ‘Guidebook’ from the Apple App Store or the Android Marketplace
  • Visit http://guidebook.com/getit from your phone’s browser
  • Scan one or both of the following images with your mobile phone…

Guidebook QR Code

Scan this code to download the Guidebook app!

Norwescon 37 Guide QR Code

Use the Guidebook app to scan this code to download the Norwescon 37 guide!

The guide is also listed under the “Download Guides” section of the application for manual searching.

See you at Norwescon 37!

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Posterspotting Contest! https://www.norwescon.org/2014/04/09/posterspotting-contest/ https://www.norwescon.org/2014/04/09/posterspotting-contest/#comments Wed, 09 Apr 2014 21:00:54 +0000 https://www.norwescon.org/?p=4388 Once again, Norwescon has engaged the services of Keep Posted to hang our promotional posters throughout the Puget Sound region. Posters started going up at the end of February and placement will finish by the end of March. If you see one of our posters out and about, snap a photo with your phone and either submit it with the form on our posters page, or send it in an email to pr@norwescon.org along with the location where you saw the poster. Posterspotters will receive a special ribbon for their Norwescon 37 badge (ribbons will be available in the office by real name or badge name; bring ID/badge for pick up). NEW this year: a special prize for anyone who submits photos and locations for all 23 King County Library locations (out of the total 41 KCL branches)!

There are about 350 posters to find…happy hunting!

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Art Show Change of Hours https://www.norwescon.org/2014/04/09/art-show-change-of-hours/ https://www.norwescon.org/2014/04/09/art-show-change-of-hours/#comments Wed, 09 Apr 2014 17:00:47 +0000 https://www.norwescon.org/?p=4379 The Norwescon art show will be closing to the public on Sunday at 2:30 p.m. this year. This is a half hour earlier than our normal time, so please plan accordingly.

The art show map is available on our art show page, along with a list of all the artists who will be showing. Many of the artists have provided links to their website or gallery page. We encourage you to check out our attending artists, and hope that you will be as excited as we are about this year’s lineup.

We are also pleased to announce a brand new feature of the art show. Our concert performers will be able to sell their musical CDs not only at their shows, but also in the art show. So, if you attended a show and happened to leave your wallet in your room, come to the art show to buy your favorite concert performers’ music.

See you at the show!

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