When libraries, schools, businesses and other institutions look to hire a speaker to discuss science fiction and fantasy, they too often don't know how to contact a qualified author or even where to begin looking. When news media need a well-versed source to offer commentary on the implications of new scientific or technological breakthroughs, time constraints often limit their ability to tap the wealth of knowledge held by SF authors.

The Speculation Speakers and Media Resource program hopes to change that.

Speculation Speakers is the first major project of AboutSF, an organization funded in part by Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) and hosted at the University of Kansas. Through AboutSF's website, SF authors and other qualified speakers can post and maintain their own online profiles in an easily searchable database.

"For decades, there has been a lot of well-meaning talk about somehow connecting futurists and science fiction visionaries with a public that seems eager to learn more about the road ahead," said best-selling author David Brin. "Our hope is to make countless companies, schools, agencies and conferences aware that a great pool of vividly entertaining authors and futurists can be accessed at the touch of a button, sorted by topics of interest, by geography, and by honorarium." "It also offers an opportunity to help passionate, future-oriented speakers to spread positive messages, offering forward-looking ideas to a civilization that badly needs some jolts of encouragement and confidence," he said. Speculation Speakers also serves as a press list for journalists and other media representative seeking unique perspective, commentary and insight from SF authors. The program actively seeks engagements for enrolled speakers. "The aboutsf.com website is the fruition of a project to provide coordination of science-fiction volunteer activity, and the speakers service is the first major product of that project," said James Gunn, director of the Center for the Study of Science Fiction and past president of SFWA. "The project has received broad-based support from SFWA, the Science Fiction Research Association, Tor Books and individuals." "David and I hope to see hundreds of willing and able speakers volunteer their services so that the public--particularly school teachers and administrators--can provide to students at all levels the reading attractions and skills, and the social benefits, of science fiction," he said. "Science fiction is the literature of change, and change is the dominant characteristic of our times."

For additional information, visit the AboutSF website at www.aboutsf.com.

Posted February 9, 2006