Welcome

Au Contraire is the New Zealand National Science Fiction Convention for 2010. Not sure what a science fiction convention is? See About. The convention will be taking place in Wellington over 27-29 August 2010 - the weekend before the WorldCon in Australia. This is to allow fen [Fen is the fannish plural of fan, or more precisely, of "member of the science fiction fandom subculture". SF fans do weird things like that sometimes. ("SF fen" would be a tautology)] travelling from overseas to attend both conventions while in Australasia.

News

New Zealand GoH

We're pleased to announce an additional Guest of Honour - Elizabeth Knox! Our New Zealand GoH is an exceptionally talented writer whose work has been well-received by both genre fans and the mainstream literary establishment. Elizabeth will be attending the Friday and Saturday of the convention.

In less happy news, Jennifer Fallon deeply regrets that for reasons beyond her control she will be unable to make it to Au Contraire this year. She will still be attending AussieCon 4, for those of you who can make it across the ditch, and hopes to attend a Kiwi con in the near future. But we do have some good news for writers - Russell Kirkpatrick will also be doing a workshop at the con.

The programme continues to be refined, though it's not final yet. Note that some events are limited numbers and/or require advance booking. And it's not too late to volunteer to help out with the convention!

We've decided not to issue any further Progress Reports; this web site will be updated frequently over the next couple of months, and in the internet age, PRs no longer effectively serve their original purpose as primary source of information on planning for a con.

And finally, a reminder you've only got about a month left to get your drabble and filk competition entries in...

Draft Programme

Our first draft of a programme is now online! Bear in mind that this is only provisional, and will change in both timing and lineup of events. We're still looking for more panelists, so let us know if you see anything you'd like to be involved in and we'll see if we have room for you. And though the programme is already quite full, we're still open to ideas for other events (especially if you're willing to run them!).

The nominees for the 2010 SJV Awards have been announced - check them out! All members of Au Contraire (including supporting members) are eligible to vote, and the awards will be presented at the con on the Sunday evening.

We apologise for the lack of updates this year; we've been somewhat distracted by, amongst other things, an unexpected house move. Rest assured planning for the con has been continuing apace.

Rapier Wit #1

As a special Christmas Eve treat, here's the first official Au Contraire podcast! Listen to the first installment of Rapier Wit here (mp3, 9.3MB). And remember, the deadline for the short story competition is coming up at the end of January, so get those stories finished. Stay tuned for a website update in next month, with more detail on events we have planned.

Progress Report 2

Our second progress report has been released - download the pdf (673 KB). With this report, we're pleased to announce our Guests of Honour - Sean Williams, the multiple-award-winning Australian author, and Fan GoH Paul Mannering of Brokensea Audio. We've also made some updates to this website, including a form to fill in if you're interested in volunteering to help out with the con.

In other news, no bids for the 2011 NatCon were presented at ConScription. Since Au Contraire will be taking place realtively late in the year, anyone interested in bidding for 2011 should contact SFFANZ. Go on, you know you want to! 8)

Progress Report 1

The convention's first progress report is out now - download the pdf (422 KB). The main news is that our first two competitions are open - an art competition for the Au Contraire 2010 calendar, and the short story competition. We have a very special prize for the story competition - the best entries will be included in an anthology of NZ speculative fiction to be published by Random Static Press. The deadlines for these competitions are August this year and January next year respectively, so don't put off entering too long!