Finalists have been announced for the annual Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Awards for best short science fiction writing of 2002.

The award will be presented Friday at Kansas University during a three-day conference. The conference is the final event of the Writers Workshop in Science Fiction and the beginning of the Intensive English Institute on the Teaching of Science Fiction.

This year’s conference features a free-form discussion Saturday morning on “Science Fiction and History.” Participants and audience members will discuss how sci-fi has been shaped by historical forces, how writers have used history as a subject and how history has influenced the genre.

Following the discussion, KU film professors Matt Jacobson and Kevin Willmott will present their alternate history film “C.S.A. — The Confederate States of America,” a feature-length look at how the world might be had the South won the Civil War.

There will also be a booksigning in the Oread Bookstore in the Kansas Union, with writers Kij Johnson, Robin Wayne Bailey, Frederic Pohl and more.

For more information on the conference, call 864-2509.