Chair’s Welcome
On behalf of WASFF and Parasol Corporation I would like to welcome you to the 35th Annual Western Australian Regional Science Fiction Convention.
This year the committee have worked hard to bring you a wide and diverse variety of topics, discussions and guests. Each year, after the conventions, it is always heartening to hear what people’s highlights and opinions were. I hope we can add to this with our convention.
We have managed to convince Scott Sigler, a San Francisco based author of science fiction, that a trip to Australia is worth his while and that we really do ride around on kangaroos. Scott has self published and has recently been picked up by Hachette. Over the last few years he has managed to get several titles on the shelves and has garnered a fair bit of interest out in the community.
This year Ian Irvine also returns in the capacity of Australian guest. As well as being a best selling fantasy author, Ian is a marine scientist who has worked on some of the guidelines for Australian Marine and Coastline protection. It is entirely possible that we may manage to get him to tell us about the problems involved in looking after such a large coastline or perhaps give us some insight into how he goes about setting his novels.
John Samuel has kindly accepted our offer to be fan guest. John has been going to Swancon for as long as I can remember. In fact, if it wasn’t for Swancon, I wouldn’t have met John and developed a taste for games like Settlers of Catan and Rail Baron. So I embrace him as well as curse him. John over the years has been known to offer his time up for Swancon either supplying games, anime videos or being on discussions. John is also a recipient of the Mumfan (Marg Hughes Award).
It’s been a long road. There were times I wasn’t sure we would make it to this point. I’d like to take a moment to thank each and every committee member for their hard work and dedication to making this happen. Once again welcome to Swancon. We ask you to respect the rules of the convention but most of all, we hope you all have a good time.
Todd Rowlands
Co Convenor
Swancon 2010