My teacher at Hollins told me I should I enter a paper I wrote for him into the IAFA (International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts) Conference 2009. I submitted thinking it would be good rejection practice. I knew my paper wouldn’t get accepted, so when I received the acceptance letter telling me to confirm my attendance I thought “Oh, crap! How I am I going to afford this?”  The conference is March 18-22 in Orlando Florida. It’s just far away enough to be annoying to drive, flying is super expensive, and the date is two days after Ryan’s spring break ends.

I searched around trying to decide if the conference was even credible. I couldn’t find definitive evidence either way. I thought that all presenters got published but found out only the graduate student paper that wins gets published. My chances for that are slim to none. I would go if it weren’t so expensive. It would be good expereince to present my paper at a conference. But I can’t pay hundreds of dollars for practice. I will go read my paper on a street corner for free if I need practice reading in front of people. All in all, it wasn’t meant to be I think