Norwescon 33 is proud to host Vernor Vinge as Writer Guest of Honor.  

Dr. Vinge is the author of such works as "True Names" (1981), A Fire Upon the Deep (Hugo Award winner, 1992), A Deepness in the Sky (Hugo, Campbell, and Prometheus Awards winner, 2000), and "Fast Times at Fairmont High" (winner Hugo Award for Best Novella, 2002). His latest novel, Rainbows End, won the Hugo and Locus Awards in 2007.

While a professor of mathematical and computer sciences at San Diego State University (he retired in 2000 to pursue writing full-time), Dr. Vinge explored the idea that accelerating technological change would fairly quickly result in a world qualitatively different from today, and in some ways unknowable, in his essay "The Coming Technological Singularity." His work often deals with people exploring the boundary of this phase change. 

Dr. Vinge took time this week to talk to Raymond McCauley about important philosophical questions, technology wish lists,  and a glimpse of what's on his desk (including a peek at the draft for The Children of the Sky!) for the Norwescon eNewsletter. 

(Editor's Note: All links added by the interviewer.) 

Norwescon: Lots of folks know you as the originator of the term "technological singularity", and some people know about your early and eerily predictive take on networked culture and security in "True Names". What don't we know about where you were especially prophetic?

Vinge: So far I'm pretty happy with the track record of Rainbows End, though the transition from "this is crazy" to "this is blasé" is happening painfully fast for that novel. 

Norwescon: Do you have any spectacular misses that you want to share?

Vinge: :-) There are some extremely embarrassing miscues in my story, "The Accomplice", which is reprinted in The Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge. It's a good example of a common feature of science fiction: the mixture of wildly wrong speculations with occasional bull's-eyes. 

Norwescon: When can we expect Rainbows End the movie? Or a graphic novel adaptation of "True Names"? How do you feel about your work being adapted in other mediums? 

Vinge: No plans for such are on the horizon :-) 
Such adaptations can be wondrous things (better than the original), but commercial, legal, artistic issues make them rare events... (continued at norwescon.org)

The deadline for electronic submissions of short stories and novel excerpts in the science fiction, fantasy, and horror genres is December 20, 2009. 
Click here for complete rules and guidelines.

Single Pattern Contest
This year's Single Pattern Contest features Simplicity pattern #2972 - a shoulder bag! Whether you sew or not, like to costume, dress in garb or just enjoy attending the convention, everyone needs a good shoulder bag.  Use it for your purchases in the dealer's room, to hold your collection of swag or to carry all the things you need while attending panels! 
Click here for complete rules and guidelines.

Eleventh Annual Fandance Film Festival
Forget about the tuxedo, the parachute, and the collagen injections - this is a film festival you can have fun at!

Announcing the Eleventh Annual Fandance Film festival, hosted at Norwescon 33!  Eleven years of madness, eleven years of filmmaking, eleven years of seeing all the latest and the greatest and the funniest and the weirdest and the most bleeding, squealing, giant smashing roboting edge entertainment still available without extensive tipping (mind you, we're not saying "no"...).  The Festival is a celebration of low- and no-budget cinema, brought to wondrous lurching life by amateur filmmakers from all around the Pacific Northwest.

The integral part of this is, of course, the movies. We need 'em! The shorter, the better (ten minutes maximum length - no minimum length) and any genre is fine (but if you're smart, you'll realize that this is a sci-fi/fantasy type convention) but the judges reserve the right to be way grossed out by what they see.  Click here for submission rules and guidelines.