Nebula Weekend 2005
Chicago, Illinois
Thursday, April 28 - Sunday, May 1, 2005
Service to SFWA Award: Kevin O’ Donnell
Grand Master: Anne McCaffrey
The Hotel
Room Block
The Allegro is full. We signed a contract for the W Chicago City Center Hotel (172 W. Adams) to hold 10 rooms available to our members Wednesday through Sunday nights at $229 single/$259 double. The information should be on their computer by noon on April 27.
Dates & Location
The 2005 Nebula Awards weekend will be Thursday-Sunday, April 28-May 1, at the Allegro Hotel, 171 W. Randolph Street, in the heart of Chicago’s Loop Theater District.
Room rates
Room rates will be $129 per standard room, $149 per Premiere room, and $219 per King suite, plus tax. To avoid attrition penalties, we have underbooked, rather than overbooked, our bloc of rooms, so early hotel reservations will be advisable. [Please also note that lawyers from the Illinois State Bar Association may be using part of our room bloc on Thursday night.] Check-in time is 3:00 p.m., and check-out time is 12 noon.
Hotel registration
You can book rooms via the Allegro’s website, http://www.allegrochicago.com, or at their secure online reservation site.
The Hotel’s instructions are to type “SFF” in the Rate Code Field. That should get you the special SFWA rate.
WiFi
The entire Allegro hotel has wifi and the hotel has wifi cards for rent at the front desk and technical support.
Thursday Programme:
ISBA-SFWA
Continuing Professional Education Program
Publishing Contracts for New Authors and New Publishers
(with handouts)
Moderators: Daniel Kegan and Jeffrey G. Liss
9:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m. (with an hour break for lunch) — A special joint Continuing Professional Education Program co-sponsored by the Intellectual Property Law Section of the Illinois State Bar Association. The morning program will be a potpourri of contract topics with speakers provided by the ISBA, including Jeffrey Liss, who also is a member of the SFWA Contracts Committee. The afternoon program will cover its topics as a soup-to-nuts analysis of a typical contract for a novel, section by section, and will be led by Charles Petit, a member of SFWA’s Contracts Committee, and will include Sean P. Fodera. The program is aimed at lawyers who don’t do this sort of thing very often and SF authors who don’t do it often enough (and who may not be able to afford a lawyer but need to know how to recognize the issues).
The separate registration fee for SFWA members is $25 (but is $100-115 for ISBA members).
Updated 2/1/2005
Morning Program
9:00-12:30
9:00-9:05 — Introduction (Daniel Kegan)
9:05-9:15 — The Intellectual Property Landscape: Trademarks (Stephen G. Kehoe) and Patents & Copyrights (Eugene F. Friedman)
9:15-9:30 — Authorship and Ownership (Eugene F. Friedman)
9:30-9:45 — Derivatives, Compilations, C, Joint Works (Eugene F.. Friedman)
9:45-9:55 — Fair Use (Eugene F. Friedman)
10:00-10:10 — Multi-Media — Graphics, Sounds, AudioVisuals (Kristen L. Lingren)
10:10-10:20 — Registration v. Unregistered Rights (Kristen L. Lingren)
10:20-10:30 — Licenses, Transfers, and Permissions (Aaron W. Brooks)
10:30-10:45 — Contracts & Forms (Jeffrey G. Liss)
10:45-10:50 — Royalties (TBD)
10:50-10:55 — Break
10:55-11:05 — Technology (Aaron W. Brooks)
11:05-11:15 — Technological Resources (Aaron W. Brooks)
11:20-11:30 — Wealth Creation (Daniel Kegan)
11:30-11:45 — Infringement Claims and Negotiations (Steven L. Baron)
11:45-11:55 — Lawsuits and Alternative Dispute Resolution (Steven L. Baron)
11:55-12:05 — Conflicts and Ethics (Eugene F. Friedman)
12:05-12:25 — Questions and Answers (the Panel)
12:25-12:30 — Morning Conclusion (Daniel Kegan)
1-hour Lunch Break
12:30-1:30
Afternoon Program
1:30-5:00
Book Publishing Contracts:
A Section-by-Section Analysis of a Contract for a Novel
(Charles E. Petit & Sean P. Fodera)
1. I. Introduction: Description of session A. Scope of rights (WFH, transfer copyright, all rights, specific rights) B. Duration of rights (explicit term; problems with “duration of copyright”; revocation / termination) C. Nature of rights 1. Territories (vanishing EU internals) 2. Languages 3. Forms and formats (e.g., Rosetta Books) 4. Subsequent editions; options
2. Responsibilities
1. Manuscript (timeliness, completeness)
2. Editorial duties (both sides; explain terms of art)
3. Publication and marketing (timeliness; author approvals; typical scope of marketing; cover process)
4. Warranties and indemnities
1. Necessary warranties (authorship, exclusivity)
2. Additional warranties (third-party rights)
3. Indemnification (mechanics; E&O insurance)
3. Compensation
1. Flat-fee contracts
2. Royalty contracts
1. Advances
2. Royalty basis and calculation
3. Reserves
4. Scheduling and timeliness
3. Subsidiary rights
4. Miscellany
1. Agent of record
2. Ipso facto
3. Dispute resolution
4. Auditing and examination
5. Author courtesies (galleys, copies & discounts, marketing materials)
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6:00 p.m.-10:00 p.m. — Registration
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7:00 p.m.-10:00 p.m. — “SFWA in the City”
A special welcoming event, a pizza party with an additional charge of $15. This event will be hosted by local SFWA members. Attending will be representatives from the four major Chicago-area science fiction conventions, who, it is hoped, will be looking for new SWFAns to invite as speakers. There also may be a special guest speaker.
Friday Programme:
Daytime Alternative I:
Tour of
Argonne National Laboratory
and
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab).
These National Labs are two of the world’s premier scientific institutions. One of our guides at Fermilab will be Bill Higgins, who is a radiation physicist there and also well known in the science fiction community. A bus will be provided. The cost of the tour will be $24. (If we get enough signups, we will rebate part of that fee.)
To visit Argonne, U.S. citizens need to bring a photo ID and non-US citizens need to bring a photo ID and fill out a site access form.
Lab Tour Schedule
* Depart hotel at 7:00 a.m.
* Tour Argonne from 9:00-11:30 or 12:00 noon
* Eat lunch in the Argonne cafeteria (at your own expense)
* Depart Argonne at 12:30 p.m.
* Tour Fermilab from 1:30 - 3:30 or 4:00 p.m.
* Return to the Hotel at about 5:30 p.m.
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Daytime Alternative II: Friday Program
* 8:00 a.m.-10:00 p.m. — Registration open.
* 9:00 a.m. - 9:50 a.m. — “The Architecture of the Future,” Richard Chwedyk) (Goodman A)
* 10:00 a.m. - 10:50 a.m. — “Revamping the Spaceport: Creating Interactive Scientific Exhibits,” John Meyer, Museum of Science and Industry. (Goodman A)
* 11:00 a.m. - 11:50 a.m. — “Symbolism in Ancient Egyptian Art and Architecture.” Emily Teeter, Oriental Institute. (Goodman A)
* Noon-1:00 p.m. — Lunch break
* 1:00 p.m. - 1:50 p.m. — “Latest Developments and Theories Concerning the Asteroid Belt,” Mark Hammergren, Adler Planetarium Astronomer (Goodman A)
* 2:00 p.m. - 2:50 p.m. — “Philosophy and Science Fiction,” Lyle Zynda (Goodman A)
* 3:00 p.m. - 3:50 p.m. — “Real Mars: Report from the Mars Rovers,” Geoffrey A. Landis, of the NASA-Glenn Research Center (Goodman A)
* 4:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. — “Report from Yesteryear: Whatever Happened to the Solar Guard, Space Patrol, Video Rangers, et al.,” Joe Sarno (Goodman A)
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Multi-Author Book Signing, Part I
5:30 p.m. - 7:00 p.m. — We have arranged for a Mass Book Signing at Borders, on State Street, just a couple of blocks away, at the northwest corner of Randolph and State. Borders can accommodate 25 authors at a time, and we have also arranged for signings on Sunday morning from 11:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.
Signing on Friday:
Catherine Asaro
Donald J. Bingle
Kate Brallier (Anne Groell)
Robert Buettner
James L. Cambias
Ellen Datlow
Scott Edelman
Cynthia Felice
Martin Gidron
Anne Groell (writing as Kate Brallier)
Eileen Gunn
Joe Haldeman
Tina Jens
Ellen Klages
E.E. Knight
Lee Martindale
Anne McCaffrey
Jack McDevitt
Mike Moscoe (writing as Mike Shepherd)
Jody Lynn Nye
Deborah J. Ross
Stanley Schmidt
Mike Shepherd (Mike Moscoe)
Ruth Souther
Jennifer K. Stevenson
Sean Stewart
Connie Willis
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Grand Master Reception
9:00 p.m. - 11:00 p.m.: Del Rey Books hosts a Grand Master Reception in honor of Anne McCaffrey. At the Reception, the SFWA Board will present Nebula Nominee pins to all the Nebula nominees in attendance. (Goodman A and B)
Saturday Programme:
• 8:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m. — Registration (Goodman B)
• 8:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m.; noon - 5:00 p.m.; 10:30 p.m. - end — Hospitality Suite (Goodman B)
• 8:30 a.m. - 9:45 a.m. — SFWA Board Meeting. By invitation only. (Allegro Suite)
• 10:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. (approx.) — SFWA general business meeting.
• 1:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. — Programming
• 6:00 p.m. - 11:00 p.m. — The Festivities
Programming
• 1:00 p.m. - 1:50 p.m. — “The Availability of Markets: How to Sell, Where to Sell.” Bill Fawcett. (Goodman A)
• 2:00 p.m. - 2:50 p.m. — “How Editors Edit Stories and How Newer Writers Should Self-Edit” — Stanley Schmidt (Editor, Analog) (Goodman A)
• 3:00 p.m. - 3:50 p.m. — “The State of Short Fiction” 2005-2006” — Ellen Datlow (editor, SciFiction), Gardner Dozois (editor, Year’s Best SF) and Gordon Van Gelder (editor, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction) (Goodman A)
• 4:00 p.m. - 4:50 p.m. — Brave New World: SFWA, the Circulating Book Program, and Science Fiction Research Collections in Academic Libraries. Lynne Thomas, head of Rare Books and Special Collections, Northern Illinois University. (Goodman A)
SFWA General Business Meeting
• More info TBA
The Festivities
• 6:00 pm - 7:00 pm — Reception (cash bar). (Chicago Symphony Orchestra Room)
• 7:00 pm - 8:30 p.m. — Banquet (cash bar). (Walnut Room)
• 8:30 p.m. - 10:30 p.m. — Nebula Awards® Ceremony. Open to all registrants. (Walnut Room)
• 10:30 p.m. — Post-party. (Goodman A-B)
Sunday Programme:
Multi-Author Book Signing, Part II
11:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m. — Sunday session of the Mass Book Signing at Borders, on State Street, just a couple of blocks away.
Signing on Sunday
Kevin J. Anderson
Lois McMaster Bujold
Cory Doctorow
Eric Flint
Janis Ian
Geoffrey A. Landis
Todd McCaffrey
Rebecca Moesta
Mike Resnick
Benjamin Rosenbaum
Steven H Silver
Laurel Winter
W.R. Yates
Other events
Still Pending: The Zero G, Lunar G and Martian G Experience. As of January 19, 2005, we are still negotiating with the Zero Gravity Corporation to provide SFWA members attending the Nebula weekend in Chicago with a chance to experience Zero Gravity, lunar gravity and Martian gravity on Sunday. If 25 persons sign up for the flight, ZeroG, the first commercial provider of such flights, will fly their newly refurbished plane to Chicago and provide the training, the ride and the one day event. The cost will not be low, but it will be for a once-in-a-lifetime experience. It probably will cost $4,400 per person if 25 sign up, or $3,500 if 52 sign up (in which case there would be a second flight). But you will get to do it with your colleagues. (If it is to provide background for a possible story, it might even be tax deductible; ask your accountant.)
Staff:
* Chair: Jeffrey Liss
* Omsbudsman: Steven H Silver
* Registration: Randy Kaempen
* Hotel Liaison: Jodi Fox
* Guest Liaison: Kelley Higgins
* Publisher Liaison: Lois Tilton
* Hospitality Suite: Pat Sayre McCoy
* Publications: Karen Mermel
* Media Relations: Karen Mermel
* Web:
o Graham Collins
o Vonda N. McIntyre
* Planning Committee:
o Richard Chwedyk
o Raymond Cyrus
o Jim Frenkel
o Bev Friend
o Richard Gilliam
o Mary Anne Mohanraj
o Jody Lynn Nye
* Special Thanks:
o Catherine Asaro
o Robin Wayne Bailey
o Astrid Bear
o Andrew Burt
o Jane Jewell
