Category: Geen categorie

7 days to go: food

Don’t forget to prepare. Sign up for lunches and dinner through May 8, 2022.

Dear HSFCon member,

Due to the large number of participants we expect at HSFCon, we recommend that you book your packed lunch and/or your dinner beforehand. You are not permitted to bring your own food and drink for use inside the hotel.

This is why we offer you this early opportunity to arrange your meals directly with the hotel. Payment is possible during the con itself by means of tokens that you can buy at the hotel reception. A packed lunch will cost 4 tokens and a hot meal will cost 7.5 tokens (the tokens can be broken in two). The packed lunch is a standard selection, but for your hot dinner we offer you a choice of meat,
fish or a vegetarian meal. You can make your choice on the day.

You can make your reservation by sending an email to sales@sneek.valk.com stating the following:
Name:
Number of persons:
Lunch Saturday – Yes/No
Hot dinner Saturday – Yes/No
Lunch Sunday – Yes/No
Hot dinner Sunday – Yes/No
Comments:

Please note: if you do not book your meals beforehand, it is possible that you have to wait longer for you lunch or dinner due to the pressure of demand on the day itself.

Reservations for lunches and dinners can be made until 8 May 2022.
We thank you for your co-operation.

Staff and management Van der Valk Hotel Sneek

#HSFCon2022 #WeLoveItLiterally

Guest: Frank van Dongen

Frank has been making up stories and creating things for as long as he can remember. As a child he created games that were so complicated that there could never be a winner. He painted and drew exotic and dystopian landscapes in the style of Don Lawrence and Frank Frazetta. He wrote stories about adventures on strange planets, stories that never ended because there was too much going on.

Frank has always had a fascination for fossils. To him, fossils are a window into the history of life on Earth, a story that remains almost as strange and unfathomable as that of the future of life on Earth, and beyond.

A major source of inspiration for the author are books and films in which humans travel to other worlds. The promise of human exploration of distant and unknown worlds, and that in the near future, is something that gives a wondrous and profound new dimension to life. In 1969, as a five-year-old, Frank saw this ‘dream’ come true in front of his eyes, via a small black-and-white television. The first man set foot on the Moon.

After finishing secondary school in Dordrecht, Frank went on to study evolutionary biology and palaeontology in Utrecht. He started work in the pharmaceutical and biotech industry. In his time off he is always busy creating things: painting, making furniture and most of all writing. Frank has been working on the SF series Ontdekking van de Mens every day since 2016.

If there is one word that characterises the author, then it has to be creating. Making something out of nothing. And most of all, that something has to be different, thrilling and mysterious, adventurous and unpredictable.

Frank has three daughters and lives with his wife Diana among the trees of Almere-Hout.

Guest: Roderick Leeuwenhart

Roderick Leeuwenhart (1983) mainly writes science fiction, with the occasional diversion into other types of speculative fiction, such as dark fantasy and horror. Typical for his work is a fascination with Japan and East
Asia. His latest SF novel is De Heren XVII (Quasis Uitgevers), in which the question is asked: what if the Dutch East India Company had never ceased to exist? Roderick is a winner of the Harland Awards, the top award for speculative fiction in the Netherlands. His work has been translated into many languages, even Chinese.


At HSFCon Roderick will lead a workshop on Flash Fiction, including feedback after the convention. So be sure to bring that one brilliant idea that you’ve been playing with for ages, but that never fit in the rest of your work.

Guest of Honor: Kim ten Tusscher

Kim ten Tusscher was born in Twente in 1979 and never really left. She lives with Björn in a house from 1902, and she shares with him a passion for history, travel and adventure. Together they crossed England along Hadrian’s Wall from west to east by bicycle (sleeping in a tent along the way), made a road trip across the southwestern US and camped next to Icelandic waterfalls. On her own, she visited the Lakota Indians. All these trips have one thing in common: they all give Kim loads of inspiration.

Writing stories is Kim’s passion and fantasy is a great way to explore the world around her. She does not shy away from tough subjects, because they challenge her to think without prejudice about what happens in the world around her. It’s no coincidence that Kim’s stories are known for their characters
who are neither ‘good’ nor ‘evil’. Her books are thrilling rides, but also show great depth and feeling.

Once Kim had introduced Lilith’s world in 2010, it would not let her go again. She is just as curious about the world in her stories as about the real one. What is behind those mountains? How did this culture grow into what it is now? Each of Kim’s questions turns into a new story. And she can promise you this: there is much, much more to tell.

Kim’s most recent work (‘Vertellingen van de Ondergang’) is a five-part fantasy sequence with a dark edge. English translations of her books are available.

Guest: Sandy Butchers

Sandy Butchers is an author/artist, known for her elaborate dystopian/sci-fi worlds and creature designs. Her life has been like a giant cake but instead of ingredients like sugar, spice, and everything nice, her cake was layered with travel, exploration, myth, and folklore. In a time span of only 5 years, she visited Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Poland, and Scotland, and decided to live 350km above the arctic circle in Finland for a year. There, in the company of the Northern Lights, the magic happened: Sandy started her first full-length novel, inspired by the myths and folklore she found herself surrounded by in real-world situations. 

She was, however, no stranger to all things fantasy/Sci-Fi. At the age of 14, she had already written her own novella which was picked up by a local publisher and kickstarted her career as the Youngest Author in the Country at the time. Today, she has won several awards in best-selling anthologies (‘Forgotten Ones’ and ‘Dark Magic’ by Canadian Publishers Eerie River Publishing, and ‘Pride’ & ‘Lust’ by Australian Publisher Black Hare Press)  and runs her own sci-fi/fantasy project that combines stories and art in the form of monthly novellas and a selection of collector’s items on Patreon. To top things off with a cherry, Sandy now teaches graphic design and art, and gives lectures about contemporary platforms for writers to explore. For more information on her work, go to www.TheSingularian.net

HSFCon 2022: 14 & 15 May. Fourth time lucky?

Dear HSFCon visitor,

We had it all sorted out: HSFCon was going to happen on 2 and 3 April 2022. But unfortunately it turns out that a large military exercise is planned in Friesland in exactly that weekend, which means that pretty much every hotel room in and around Sneek is booked for the Lads and Lasses in Green. At the time when we made our arrangements with the hotel, this exercise would be taking place several weeks earlier and we would not be in each other’s way. But then they decided to move to ‘our’ weekend.

After some consideration we have decided that an HSFCon cannot be called a hotel con if our visitors can’t actually stay at the hotel. So, to give everyone the chance to have a lovely weekend out, we have had to move the convention forward again. Our As Far As We Can Tell Really Ultimate, Final Dates are 14 and 15 May 2022. Sigh 😉
Tickets that have been bought will remain valid for the new date.
It is now possible to book your hotel rooms through the website of Van Der Valk Hotel Sneek. If you wish to take your lunches and dinners at the hotel, you can let the people of the hotel know beforehand by sending them an email.
The convention dates have been changed on our website and on those social media platforms where we are present. Should you have any other questions, please let us know at info@hsfcon.nl.

We hope to see you on 14 and 15 May!

HSFCon 2022: April 2 and 3

Dear HSFCon visitor,

As you no doubt have heard or read, we have decided not to go ahead with HSFCon this year. We were greatly looking forward to meeting you this weekend, but the current situation surrounding the corona virus made it impossible to do so in a safe way. We had everything prepared, a great programme to look forward to and a lot of people who were ready to help out, so it obviously hurt to make this decision. But the alternative, a stunted convention where people might not feel safe, would hurt even more in the end.

Over the past few days we have been working hard and now we are happy to tell you that we have found an alternative date that will suit us just fine: HSFCon will be held in the weekend of 2 and 3 April 2022. The location will be exactly the same: Van der Valk Hotel in Sneek. We hope we can still count on you to be there, and to help us turn it into a warm and wonderful convention. Save the date!

The ticket you bought for November 2021 will remain valid for April 2022!

Should it happen that you can’t or do not wish to join us on 2 and 3 April, we would of course be sorry to hear that. In that case you can have the ticket price refunded by sending us an email on info@hsfcon.nl before 1 January 2022. Use the subject line ‘HSFCon Refund’ and make sure you state the following:

IBAN:
Name:
Place of residence:

(We will delete your bank details one week after completing the refund.)

We’re all ready to start again and we hope to see you on 2 and 3 April!

The HSFCon team,

André, Tanja, Paul, Jan, Alice, Heidi