OSFest Program Partipants - part 6

Travis Heerman – Blogging the Groove

Travis is a local author, born and raised in Nebraska. And like most good science fiction authors, went and got himself a science degree, electrical engineering to be exact. Though now he is working on a M.A. in English, he has taken courses in computer programming, linguistics, and Japanese language. I’ll bet the latter came in handy when he spent those three years in Fukuoka, Japan teaching English. Anyone need some Anime translated?

Travis has a solo novel out, though probably not still in print. If you’re planning on hitting any used book markets in the near future keep your eyes out for his 1996 novel, The Ivory Star. His second book will be out Spring 2009 entitled, Heart of the Ronin. He has published numerous works of short fiction, gaming supplements and magazine articles. In addition to running his own copywriting service, Travis has started a blog of interviews with various authors. Check out: Blogging the Groove, where if you scroll down you will find an interview with the Guest of Honor for this year’s ConQuesT: Joe R. Lansdale. He hopes to catch up with a few more authors this summer at OSFest, hopefully as a function at the convention. So be there and witness live action blogging.

The Omaha Science Fiction and Fantasy Festival will be July 11-13th, 2008 at the Comfort Inn & Suites at 7007 Grover Street Omaha, NE. I hope to see you there.

OSFest Program Participants part 5

Eric Coleman – Songwriter - Singer - Curmudgeon
Filk is a word created by a misspelling of ‘folk singing’ in a convention program book that has stuck with us. A Filk Song is a song created by re-writing the lyrics of another song, or writing lyrics to their own music, that has a fannish theme. Filk songs will be about TV shows and movies, books and their characters, or even events that have happened within the fannish community. Learn all about creating filk songs and performing them in “Filksinging: From Word to Sung”, then come to our nightly After Hours Filk sessions to have a good time with your new skills. Like with anything else, it takes practice, practice, practice.

So who’s going to introduce you into this wonderful new world? Why Eric Coleman, of course. Who is Eric Coleman, you ask? “He has spent much of the last 3 years claiming that is not a comedy musician. It looks like he is losing that battle (or perhaps winning it) as more and more he becomes part of the Dementia Underground that will eventually take over the airwaves from the corporate scum who rule it now. He may end up a martyr in this, but he is definitely not leaving a good looking corpse.” His words not mine. It must be a songwriter thing, writing about yourself in the third person. So some spend the weekend with the self described curmudgeon, learn about and do some filk singing, and spend some time with a really great guy.

The Omaha Science Fiction and Fantasy Festival will be July 11-13th, 2008 at the Comfort Inn & Suites at 7007 Grover Street Omaha, NE. I hope to see you there.

OSFES' Ides of March Game Day

The Ides of March fell on a Saturday this year and since none of us felt like visiting our local Orange Julius purveyor – besides the fact that it’s illegal to assassinate a Roman Emperor these days - we celebrated the day with gaming at the Skutt Student Center on Creighton University campus! Though a different Empire made its presence felt. Mason Hatfield as Boba Fett, Imperial ID number BH-9545, escorted by Storm Trooper Sam Cheek helped keep the crowds under control, rousting out suspicious presences – wait that’s our video game coordinator, Mai Tran. Thankfully they grabbed another hostage, err rebel scum, and let her go.

On the RPG gaming side, we ran a basic Dungeons and Dragons session in tribute to Gary Gygax, the man who started on that quest. There was also TMNT, Fluxx and others. Thanks to Dave Rosser, Micheal Maley, Ann Towney, and Rodney Ruff for braving the Senate and coming out to Game Master. Also Dale Meier, whose chariot was in the shoppe, for organizing our table games.

But with all that going on the room seemed sparse compared to Smash Brothers and Halo events going on in the next room. Super Smash Brother Brawl was released just a week earlier and with several systems running the game, we had people waiting to play. Of course we had scheduled a tournament for both it and Halo 3. Rock Band and Guitar Hero were quite popular also.
I will take one thing away from this day, the tremendous numbers of people involved in console or video games have convinced me to add another suite to The Omaha Science Fiction and Fantasy Festival. We will be having a video gaming room on our main hotel floor for those whose thumbs can handle it. It’s just our patriotic duty to train the virtual combatants of the future.

There will be another Game Day between now and OSFest along with the Family Fun Center evening we are organizing on April 10, 2008. Join us at 71st and Dodge, where a $10 donation will get you 20 tokens, food and a free attraction.

The Omaha Science Fiction and Fantasy Festival will be July 11-13th, 2008 at the Comfort Inn & Suites at 7007 Grover Street Omaha, NE. I hope to see you there.

OSFest Program Participants part 4

Daryl Frazetti – Xenolinguistist
“Klaatu barata nikto” aside, what would an alien language sound like? Well Professor Frazetti is coming to OSFest to talk about Xenolinguistics and hold a workshop on alien languages.

Xenolinguistics is a structural and cognitive linguistics course that uses alien languages, such as those from Star Trek, Star Wars, LOTR, Futurama, as examples and case studies. There will be an overview discussion of the material, followed by a workshop (on Sunday so we can digest the big words we used on Saturday) going over the steps on how to create an alien language.

While Daryl was born and raised in Boston, he currently teaches Anthropology at Lake Tahoe College in California. With a background in physical anthropology and work in paleopathology, he has taught specialty courses in The Anthropology of Star Trek, Xenolinguistics, and The Anthropology of The Lord of the Rings. So when he wrote us that he would like to come to Omaha for OSFest, we jumped at the chance. Make time to talk to this guy about his courses, his convention experiences; just don’t forget to ask him about his cats.

The Omaha Science Fiction and Fantasy Festival will be July 11-13th, 2008 at the Comfort Inn & Suites at 7007 Grover Street Omaha, NE. I hope to see you there.

OSFest Program Participants part 3

Fredd Gorham
It must take a strong sense of humor to grow up in this town, because like Mike Cole – our Artist Guest-of-Honor – Fredd is one of many comic artists to emerge from Omaha. He found work with Marvel Comics, DC Comics, CaliberPress, and Malibu Comics before becoming affiliated with Shocktrauma Studios.

Fredd also brings game design to OSFest. He has worked for several gaming companies: Iron Crown Enterprises, Hero Games, R. Talsorian, Steve Jackson Games, and FantasyFlight Games.

So seek Fredd out, find the fan table he is hiding behind, the panels and workshops he will be participating in. Talk to him about his many artistic avenues, including how you can make it in this world as a free-lancer. Oh and check out the art show where a panel of Fredd’s artwork will be displayed, admired and hopefully bid on.

The Omaha Science Fiction and Fantasy Festival will be July 11-13th, 2008 at the Comfort Inn & Suites at 7007 Grover Street Omaha, NE. I hope to see you there.