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"Discovering the Fantastic": A creative writing component of "Curious, if True: The Fantastic in Literature" Graduate Student Conference 2011

University of Victoria
Victoria, British Columbia
March 10-12, 2011

The historical, theoretical, and cultural contexts of the fantastic in literature are the focus of this year's graduate student conference at the University of Victoria. The fantastic crosses many formal and generic barriers in literature, and challenges the historical concept of the novel as a realist production. The conference invites graduate students who are writers of the fantastic to contribute their creative work as a complement to the academic presentations and research papers also offered.

Presenters of creative writing will also be invited to participate in one or more roundtable discussions related to their work, or to literature and the fantastic. Discussions will explore the following themes:

- The artistic legitimacy and/or marginalization of "genre fiction"
- Magic realism and the fantastic
- The fantastic and children's literature
- "Sub-creation" or alternate worlds in literature
- Literature as myth; myth as literature
- The "trueness" of myth; forms of trueness, verisimilitude, veracity in fiction
- New narrative media (films, television, graphic novels, games, hypertext) and the fantastic
- Animals and anthropomorphism
- Mysticism, the occult, and literature
- The relationship between realism and the fantastic
- Miracles, magic, and the extraordinary
- The imaginative storyteller as liar/trickster

Creative writing submissions related to these discussion themes are especially encouraged.

Submission Guidelines:
Creative submissions of poetry, fiction, or other material can be sent in their entirety, but should not exceed ten pages double-spaced. Presentations should be a maximum of twenty minutes in length. For additional information, including presentation format, submissions guidelines, keynote speaker, or any other considerations, please contact egpro@uvic.ca.

All proposals must be submitted by February 1, 2011