One of this year's author guests of honor at the Science Fiction Research Association's annual conference in Las Vegas is our own
kijjohnson. If you've written a paper about one of the guest authors or special topics, you're especially likely to be accepted to present at this conference. Here's a web link to the Conference:
http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/sfra/SFRA2005_sked.htm
SFRA hosts a wonderful conference where you can spend time with other science-fiction academics and authors (and it's free of fans) while finding out where current SF scholarship if headed. Plus, it's in Vegas this year! Here's a link to the SFRA organization's website:
http://www.sfra.org/
By the way, Kij's novels are The Fox Woman (IAFA Crawford Award winner) and Fudoki (currently in contention for the World Fantasy Award, nominee for the James Tiptree Jr. Award and the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award, and a Publisher's Weekly Editors' Pick for the Year 2003). And if you want to be really clever about presenting a paper that includes her upcoming books, drop her an note -- I'm sure she'd be glad to help!
Best,
Chris