Phoenix Rising Announces Artists and Authors Night

[Hallie Tibbetts]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
JULY 5, 2007



Contact: Kayla Castille, Phoenix Rising public affairs coordinator,
press at ... <mailto:kayla at ...>



Phoenix Rising and FictionAlley to present fandom showcase Artists and
Authors Night in New Orleans

Evening will feature fanfiction readings, fanart displays, live
SPELLcast and more





Phoenix Rising, a Harry Potter conference, and FictionAlley, the
fandom's largest Harry Potter-only archive, are thrilled to announce
Artists and Authors Night, a featured event at Phoenix Rising in New  
Orleans.  Artists and Authors Night, which occupies all of Saturday
evening on the Phoenix Rising schedule, will highlight and explore the
creativity of the abundantly talented Harry Potter fandom.



"Artists and Authors Night is a unique opportunity to incorporate the
online fan community into an academic conference on a large scale," says
Hallie Tibbetts, a Phoenix Rising lead event organizer.  "We've chosen
to dedicate an entire evening to this event in order to recognize the
valuable and exciting contributions that fans have made to understanding
Harry Potter."



Attendees of Phoenix Rising, scheduled for May 17-21, 2007, are invited
to present their writing or artwork in a variety of ways during Artists
and Authors Night, including fanfiction readings, art gallery displays,
creative booths, and drabble and sketch challenges. Also, as attendees
roam the ballroom of the Sheraton New Orleans, they will be able to
visit tables hosted by other online archives and fan sites, as well as
meet published authors of young adult novels, fantasy literature, or
other works related to Harry Potter.



Additionally, attendees are invited to several featured events, though
the focus of the evening is the myriad interactive opportunities for
fans to demonstrate their work.  First, world-renowned fandom scholar
Henry Jenkins will join several founders of the Harry Potter fandom --
including Melissa Anelli of The Leaky Cauldron, Heidi Tandy of
FictionAlley, and Ebony Thomas, formerly of Pumpkinpie.org and Harry
Potter for Grownups -- in a keynote presentation discussing the creation
of an online community from both academic and historical perspectives.
After the presentation, FictionAlley will host SPELLcast, the official
FictionAlley podcast, featuring fanfic reviews, fandom news, tips and
thoughts for artists, a Writer's Corner, and other types of creativity -
from knitting to vidding to event organization - straight from the
conference.



Phoenix Rising's online submissions system is now open, and authors,
artists, editors and others can submit their work for presentation at
http://www.thephoenixrises.org/submissions/exploratory. More information
about Artists and Authors Night programming and preparing for a
submission can be found here:
http://www.thephoenixrises.org/programming/exploratory/aanight/.



Artists and Authors Night is one of several unique aspects of Phoenix
Rising, a Harry Potter conference with themes celebrating rebirth and
the rise of the hero, set in a city that is herself being reborn. For
more information about the event, visit http://www.thephoenixrises.org,
or e-mail info at ....



FictionAlley.org, a 501(c)(3) charitable organization, was founded in
the summer of 2001 as an archive for Harry Potter fanfiction, and now
hosts over ten thousand stories and chapters by thousands of authors.
The site includes message boards for discussion of the series, writing
and art, and fan news, and presents a bi-weekly podcast, SPELLcast, on
fan creativity. In the summer of 2005, FictionAlley was invited to be
part of the MINERVA project at the Library of Congress; the Library now
archives all of the contents of FictionAlley for its permanent
collection.  FictionAlley can be visited on the web at
http://www.fictionalley.org.



Phoenix Rising is a presentation of Narrate Conferences, Inc., a
Colorado non-profit organization dedicated to creating conferences
focused on academic and exploratory programming that appeals to
scholars, students, professionals, and fans. Narrate Conferences can be
contacted at http://www.narrateconferences.com.



Phoenix Rising is an unofficial event and is not endorsed, sanctioned,
or any other way supported, directly or indirectly, by Warner Bros.
Entertainment, the Harry Potter book publishers, or J. K. Rowling and
her representatives.



###






[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]