The deadline for online voting in the 2010 Prix Aurora Awards is soon: May 22, noon, Central Daylight Time.

Robert J. Sawyer has been invited to be Toastmaster at SFContario, November 19-21 in downtown Toronto.

SFContario’s toastmaster Robert J. Sawyer is a futurist and frequent keynote speaker and media science commentator with over 500 appearances on Canadian and international radio and television. He is a favorite at science fiction conventions across Canada, the United States, and elsewhere; he has been toastmaster at VCON, Norwescon, and Con-Version.

When he is not doing public speaking, Rob is a prolific science fiction author, having written 19 novels (as of April 2010) plus assorted short fiction and non-fiction. He also works in television, currently as creative consultant for the ABC/CityTV series FlashForward (based on his novel of the same name. For his fiction, Robert Sawyer has won the Hugo, Nebula, Aurora, and many other science fiction awards in three decades in the field.

The SFContario programming page is now online. You can give us ideas for panels or other program events on this page. Also, if you are interested in participating in the program, there’s a form where you can give us information about yourself.

The best convention programs I’ve seen are those that bring in the best ideas from many people. With about three tracks of programming, we won’t be able to use every idea or every person who volunteers, but we’ll use as many good ideas and good people as we can. So let us know what you’d like to see or talk about at SFContario. We look forward to your suggestions.

We’re putting together a Hugo recommendation page, similar to the Aurora recommendation page we put up recently. If you’d like your suggestions to be included on our page, please contact Diane at program2010-at-sfcontario-dot-ca.