EUROPA SF – The European Science Fiction Portal

There is an exciting new site already on-line, that seeks to gather information and publish news, reports from events and articles about European Science Fiction. I am part of the Europa SF Team, together with Ahrvid Engholm (Sweden), Antuza Genescu (Romania), Aleksandar Ziljak (Croatia), Cristian Tamas (Romania), George Sotirhos (Greece), Jan van’t Ent (Holland), Juhan Habicht (Estonia), Lina Kulikauskienė (Lithuania), Marian Truta (Romania), SFmag.hu (Hungary)
and Sven Kloepping  (Germany).

This site is an European platform dedicated to all SF communities in Europe.

We have already published a number of articles about SF in Lithuania, Hungary, German and more.

As a part of the first editorial explains: “Essentially, this is where things stand currently in Europe: we have no idea what other European communities do. This may sound a tad categorical, but we must admit that to take the pulse of the SF communities in our neighbouring countries is not an easy task to fulfil. What new authors have been published in one country or another? What SF&F events are taking place in one country or another? What conventions will be held on our continent in the near future? And so on…”

And continues:

“EUROPA SF wants to bring the members of the European fandom together to build a continental-scale data network. Editors, writers, fans, anyone with an interest in SF will be able to see what is happening in any European country and will inform, in turn, the entire SF community about their own major conventions.

In time, EUROPA SF will be able to initiate cross-border and even continental events. There is no need to stress the significance of information exchanges, we all know how important these are within and among communities.”

You are invited to take part in a project that we consider more than necessary: the building of a European platform dedicated to all SF communities in Europe.

If you are wondering about the type of material Europa SF will host:

“we will begin with news – shorter and longer – and coverage of various conventions of the SF&F world. The more contributions we receive, the more various its contents will be. We plan to include presentations of European authors, translators and publishers, book and film reviews, interviews, essays, critical theory papers, as well as presentations of national SF communities, organisations and societies.”

Bottom line, Europa SF is conceived as an English-language portal of news and information from and for the European fandom, a generic site: http://scifiportal.eu (on demand will be created specific subdomains for each country/fandom involved − bg.scifiportal.eu, hr.scifiportal.eu, ro.scifiportal.eu, de.scifiportal.eu etc − and each country will manage its own sub domain).

Our central idea is to have a permanent, real-time mirroring of all European SF&F products, events and activities. We hope that all European countries with a SF&F community will become involved in this pan-European project.

Europa SF is dedicated to posting news, links and original materials related to science fiction, fantasy, horror, comics, films and TV series from all over Europe. Here are the columns we suggest and their titles:

1. Editorial – a monthly, 2-4,000-character general article on European SF

2. On the spot – short articles (1,000-1,500 characters) about important national or European events (festivals, conventions, book fairs, conferences etc.)

3. News – short news (400-700 characters) on major/minor European or world events

4. Events – a calendar, just the name and the date of the event

5. Reports – 2,000-character articles about (on-going) national or European events

If our correspondents indicate there is an interest in interviews, panels, essays, films, TV series etc. we will introduce new sections to cover them.

Any suggestions and recommendations are most welcome. We need at least one English-speaking person from each European SF community who is willing to help us with this project.

Please share to all those who may be interested in your country.

“EUROPA SF is open to all European SF&F lovers. Anyone can post materials that are relevant to the European fandom. It is enough to send an e-mail to EUROPA SF and say that you want to become a contributor (for details see Terms and Conditions). We will start with several important names in the European fandom, personalities who are willing to support this pan-European project. We hope that, in time, more and more people will join EUROPA SF.

EUROPA SF does not intend to replace any science fiction group or organisation in Europe. Its main goal is to gather information and then spread it all over our continent.”

CLICK HERE TO ACCESS EUROPA SF

Roberto Mendes

ISF Editor in Chief

Europa SF Team