Press Release: 2015 World SF Travel Fund Recipient

In 2011 a combination of genre professionals and fans from the international scene and the United States gathered together to create the World SF Travel Fund. The fund was set up to enable one or two international persons involved in science fiction, fantasy, or horror to travel to a major genre event. This year’s recipient is:

Haralambi Markov is a Bulgarian critic, editor, and writer of things weird and fantastic. A Clarion 2014 graduate, Markov enjoys fairy tales, obscure folkloric monsters, and inventing death rituals (for his stories, not his neighbors . . . usually). He blogs at The Alternative Typewriter and tweets at @HaralambiMarkov. His stories have appeared in Geek Love, Electric Velocipede, TOR.com, Exalted 3, and are slated to appear in Genius Loci, Stories for Chip and Upside Down: Inverted Tropes in Storytelling. He’s currently working on outdoing his output for the past three years and procrastinating all the way.

The Fund has set up a Kickstarter Project with the hope of bringing Haralambi Markov, and next year’s recipient, over to World Fantasy. The Board, tasked with selecting future candidates, is composed of Lauren Beukes, Aliette de Bodard, Nnedi Okorafor, Ekaterina Sedia, and Charles Tan, reflecting the truly international nature of the SF world today. For inquiries and further information please contact co-administrators Lavie Tidhar or Sean Wallace at worldsftravelfund@gmail.com.

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Update

The fund raiser was a success – thank you so much to everyone who contributed, and to the publishers who donated their books!

The 2013 recipients are Rochita Loenen-Ruiz from the Philippines and Csilla Kleinheincz from Hungary, who will both be travelling to the World Fantasy Convention in Brighton in November.

The 2014 recipient(s) have not yet been selected, but we have the funding in place to bring at least one person to World Fantasy Con in Washington, D.C.

Rewards!

We apologise for the delay in sending out rewards for levels 1 and up. Reward e-mails will be going out today and over the weekend!

Many thanks to Angry Robot Books for sponsoring the fund and providing us with books!

Rewards update

Level 0 rewards have already gone out.

Levels 1, 2 and 3 are awaiting the download codes from our gracious sponsor, Angry Robot Books, who are busy setting them up! We will send these out as soon as possible.

We apologise for the wait! We hope to send these out by next week.

2013/2014 Funding Achieved!

I’m delighted to say we’ve exceeded our goals for the World SF Travel Fund, thanks to so much generosity. We’ve raised an amazing $5082 which, after peerbackers and paypal fees, comes to $4675.

We will be using some of that money for this year’s recipients, Rochita Loenen-Ruiz and Csilla Kleinheincz, to travel to World Fantasy Convention in Brighton, UK in November. The board will consider carefully how best to utilise the money for next year’s grant, which will look at bringing one or more people to WFC in the United States.

Thank you!

Press Release: 2013 World SF Travel Fund Recipients

In 2011 a combination of genre professionals and fans from the international scene and the United States gathered together to create the World SF Travel Fund. The fund was set up to enable one or two international persons involved in science fiction, fantasy or horror to travel to a major genre event. This year’s recipients are:

Csilla Kleinheincz is a Hungarian-Vietnamese writer living in Kistarcsa, Hungary with her husband and daughter. She is the author of two novels and a short story collection. Her stories can be read in English in the anthologies Interfictions, Heiresses of Russ 2011, and The Apex Book of World SF 2. Some of her stories were translated into Portuguese, Finnish, Czech and Estonian. Csilla is also a translator of works by Peter S. Beagle, Kelly Link, Ursula K. Le Guin and Catherynne M. Valente. She currently works as the editor of the SF/F publishing house Ad Astra, and in her free time edits the Hungarian online SF magazine SFmag.

Rochita Loenen-Ruiz is a Filipino writer of science fiction and fantasy. A graduate of the Clarion West Writer’s Workshop, Rochita was the recipient of the 2009 Octavia Butler Scholarship, and the first Filipina writer to attend Clarion West. Her short fiction has appeared in a variety of online and print publications, including Interzone, Fantasy Magazine, Apex Magazine, Weird Tales, and the anthologies Robots: The Recent A.I., and The Apex Book of World SF 2. In the Philippines, her short fiction has been published in Philippine Panorama, Philippine Speculative Fiction 2, and Philippine Speculative Fiction 4. Rochita currently resides in the Netherlands with her husband and her two children.

The Fund has set up a Peerbackers Project with the hope of raising $3000, enabling two years of running. The Board, tasked with selecting future candidates, is composed of Lauren Beukes, Aliette de Bodard, Nnedi Okorafor, Ekaterina Sedia, and Charles Tan, reflecting the truly international nature of the SF world today. For inquiries and further information please contact co-administrators Lavie Tidhar or Sean Wallace at worldsftravelfund@gmail.com.

Press Release: 2012 World SF Travel Fund Recipients

Press Release

Set up last year to enable one or more international people involved in science fiction, fantasy or horror to travel to a major genre event, this year’s two recipients of the World SF Travel Fund are Swedish authors Karin Tidbeck and Nene Ormes. Both will be attending World Fantasy Con 2012 in Toronto, Ontario, also helped by the kind assistance of Cheeky Frawg Books (Ann & Jeff VanderMeer) and SF in SF, a San Francisco-based organization.

Karin Tidbeck has published one story collection, won a prestigious literary grant, and just sold her first novel to Sweden’s largest publisher. A graduateof the iconic Clarion Writer’s Workshop at the University of California, San Diego, in 2010, her English-language publication history includes Weird Tales, Shimmer Magazine, Unstuck Annualand the anthology Odd. Her first English-language collection, Jagannath, will be published by Cheeky Frawg books in November 2012, and has already been blurbed by the likes of China Mieville and Ursula K.  Le Guin. Tidbeck blogs at karintidbeck.com and has an author page at www.facebook.com/ktidbeck

Nene Ormes has been dubbed Sweden’s first urban fantasy author. She debuted in 2010 with the critically acclaimed novel Udda Verklighet (“Odd Reality”), a tale that draws on folklore and local legend to create a unique vision of her native Malmö. The sequel, Särskild (“Special”), is out in August 2012. Ormes was awarded a prestigious working grant from the Swedish Authors’ Fund this spring. Originally a trained archaeologist, Ormes writes part-time and works in SF-Bokhandeln, Sweden’s oldest and most popular science fiction and fantasy bookstore. Ormes blogs at neneormes.wordpress.com and has an author page on FB: www.facebook.com/pages/Nene-Ormes/163512086998912

The World SF Travel Fund Board, tasked with selecting future candidates, is composed of Lauren Beukes, Aliette de Bodard, Nnedi Okorafor, Ekaterina Sedia, and Charles Tan, with Lavie Tidhar and Sean Wallace acting as administrators for the fund, reflecting the truly international nature of the SF world today. For inquiries and further information please contact worldsftravelfund@gmail.com.