SFContario will be having a party at Ad Astra in Don Mills on Saturday, April 10, starting at 9 PM. We expect to be on the party floor so we’ll be easy to find. Diane, Catherine, and Jeff will be hosting the party. Come find out about Toronto’s newest science fiction convention.

SFContario will also be hosting the dessert buffet at FilKONtario in Mississauga on Saturday, April 10 starting around 8:30 PM. The party will be in the hospitality suite after the Filk Hall of Fame banquet. Marah, Alex, and Sue will be hosting the party. The green alien will be consumed. If you’re at FilKONtario that weekend, come and have fun with us!

If you are on Facebook, join our Facebook page to get notified about what’s going on. You can RSVP to one of our parties to let us know you’re coming.

The Aurora award nominees have been announced. Congratulations to all the nominees and to concom member Sue Posteraro Jeffers in particular. Yay Sue!!

Or at least their musicians! We are pleased to learn and share that the Bedlam Bards are coming to SFContario. Hawke and Cedric are a couple of great performers, long established in Celtic music and now widely known for their music about the worlds of Firefly and Serenity. The local filk community is reportedly excited to have these great filkers coming up all the way from Texas, and we’re hoping that a segment of Browncoat fandom will come along to join the fun.

The IDIC, aka USS Hudson Bay sponsored a concert this weekend at the North York Central library featuring Filk GOH Karen Linsley and many local filkers. (Judith Hayman, Peggi Warner-Lalonde, Howard Scrimgeour, Tom and Sue Jeffers, and Phil Mills).
It was a great concert, well attended, and a very good time. Thanks to Karen for organizing the concert and to Lynda Ciaschini and the IDIC for sponsoring it. We’re going to have a great filk track!

Karl Schroeder will be Writer in Residence at the Merril Collection for three months starting February 1. There will be a little afternoon reception at the main Toronto Reference Library at 789 Yonge Street on Monday, February 1 at 1:30-3:30 PM. (Karl says “Please come, or else I’ll be surrounded by librarians!”) Karl will be conducting three writers workshops over the next few months. He will also critique manuscripts up to 5000 words (so like a dozen flash fiction pieces or half a chapter of a doorstop fantasy, I’m leaning towards the latter). I took a class in writing science fiction that Karl taught at George Brown back in the ’90s. Stephanie Bedwell-Grime was in the class and she’s done amazing things since, as has Karl himself. Contact the Merril Collection library for further details.

USS Hudson Bay (IDIC) is having their regular monthly meeting at the North York Public Library on Saturday, January 30 starting around 1:30 PM. Aside from the usual nice people, a bunch of our filker friends are showing up to perform, including our filk guest of honor Karen Linsley and our filk program person, Sue Jeffers. Guaranteed to be fun.

So we’ll keep the calendar up to date. I’m off to the NASFiC meeting in Raleigh on Friday, but I’ll be back next week. See some of you at First Thursday!