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Science Fiction Convention to Feature Blacksburg Writer

Posted on: Thursday, 30 March 2006, 01:38 CST

By Paul Dellinger paul.dellinger@roanoke.com (276) 228-4752

BLACKSBURG -- Tiffany Trent, an English instructor at Virginia Tech, has landed a 10-book contract with a major fantasy and science fiction publisher.

But she can't talk about it yet, which seems likely to complicate her role as a writer guest at Technicon, a science fiction and fantasy convention in Blacksburg this weekend.

"It's the reason I got on the Technicon program ... And then I got my contract and it said you can't say anything," she said.

"I was completely not expecting that."

Technicon, now in its 23rd year, is organized by the Virginia Tech Science Fiction & Fantasy Club. It will be held from Friday through Sunday at the Blacksburg Ramada Inn.

The convention usually draws hundreds of science fiction fans. Admission -- called membership in standard convention terminology -- is $25 for students and $35 for the public. Activities will include autograph sessions, evening dances, panels and workshops with published professionals, and an art show and auction.

The convention's two main speakers are an established fantasy author and an artist who has done lots of fantasy and science fiction work.

As for her part in Technicon, Trent does not even know how organizers found out about her writing success. She mentioned it to some colleagues and assumes word got back to students organizing the convention.

She will write five of the books in the series, and collaborate with other writers on the rest. She turned in this month the first draft of book one this month, which is scheduled to appear with the second and third books in the series as a trilogy in fall of 2007.

But the publisher wants to announce the series on its own schedule, and her contract forbids her releasing any details about it.

She said the Technicon organizers were understanding about the requirements and still wanted her to participate, even though neither she nor they can talk about what she is writing. She wonders how she will be introduced during the panels she is on.

"I don't know what they're going to say," Trent said. "It should be very funny."

She will be on panels discussing sex and science fiction, electronic publishing and small-press publishing.

"Which is kind of interesting because I haven't done e- publishing or small-press publishing," she said, and is writing a young adult series with no overt sex. But she is familiar enough with the topics from her reading and from other writers she knows.

Trent grew up in Roanoke. She has enjoyed writing fantasy stories and poetry since age 9. She met her future husband at a martial arts school in Roanoke when they were teens.

"My mother was wonderful because she really inspired me to read," Trent said. "My father would ask me things like, 'Is that part of your homework?' " They worried that she would end up as a starving artist. "But I wanted to write and that was all I really wanted to do. So I just kept doing it."

The first convention she ever attended was RoVaCon, a long- running annual gathering in Roanoke that had an educational emphasis and awarded college scholarships based on writing entries. Trent won a $1,000 scholarship for a story she wrote when she was a high school senior.

"That really kind of validated my feelings about writing," she said. So she kept at it.

She earned bachelor's and master's degrees at Virginia Tech, additional masters' in science and environmental studies and in fine arts and creative writing at the University of Montana.

She did her first master's thesis on Frank Herbert's 1965 novel "Dune," which had been serialized in science fiction magazines. "He was a genius," she said.

She has published a lot of nature writing and other nonfiction. And now she will be polishing her some-90,000-word first novel.

She also has continued attending cons, from the annual World Fantasy Con, which is business-oriented with writers, publishers and agents, and the Wisconsin SF Convention, the only feminist-oriented con, to Dragon Con in Atlanta.

"And Dragon Con is just pure insanity. Last year, for instance, there were pixies running around the streets at 2 o'clock in the morning. I watched Superman and Darth Vader walking down a corridor, holding hands," she said.

These cons allow participants to have a freedom that society might not allow elsewhere, she said.

"No one is going to look askance at you if you dress like Tinker Bell, even if you're a guy," Trent said. "The bizarre appeals to me because life is not normal."

On the Web: www.technicon.org/tcon23

A history of sci-fi conventions

n Science fiction conventions grew out of a letter column published in Amazing Stories, which first published in 1926 and was the first all-science-fiction magazine. Letters included writers' addresses and allowed fans to get in touch with one another. This resulted in groups of enthusiasts from New York and Philadelphia getting together in 1936.

n The first so-called World Science Fiction Convention followed in New York in 1938, deriving its name from the World's Fair being there that year. But except for some interruptions during World War II, World Cons have continued annually in different sections of the United States and occasionally overseas.

n Attendees at the early cons numbered in the dozens, including fans who would become big-name writers or publishers in the field. Today, with ranks swelled by the popularity of "Star Trek,""Star Wars" and other shows, the large cons draw thousands. Dragon Con in Atlanta is the largest with sometimes more than 20,000 participants. There also are "relaxacons" that are more for socializing than programmed panels, costume contests, art shows, huckster rooms and other traditions from the larger cons.

n Some cons specialize in movies or TV shows, role-playing games, comic books, fantasy, horror or any combination besides science fiction. There is probably not a weekend all year when con gatherings are not being held somewhere in the country. SheVaCon, Rising Star, Point North and Technicon are among those organized each year in the Roanoke-Blacksburg area.

Source: Roanoke Times & World News

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