Flushing author at sci fi confab in China

Local author David W. Hill delivered a paper at the International Conference on Science Fiction and Fantasy, in Chengdu, a city in the Sichuan province of the People’s Republic of China, recently.
The conference, which lasted from August 24-29, was Hill’s second invitation to speak at the international gathering. In 1997, he addressed the conference when it assembled in Beijing.
At this year’s conference, Hill discussed how science fiction often points to the science facts of the near future. He cited global warming and identity theft, two subjects he wrote fiction about and discussed in his first paper, long before the issues gained public awareness.
The event drew science fiction writers, editors and publishers from China, the United Kingdom, Japan, Russia and the U.S., and was hosted by “Science Fiction World” magazine. The periodical has been published since 1979 and with a monthly circulation of 300,000 is the most-read magazine of the genre in the world.
Hill, who spent 20 years as an executive chef for several hotel chains, considers his culinary specialty to be Sichuan cuisine - “another reason I was excited about the conference,” he admitted.
His first published work was a cookbook, Menus for Romance under the pseudonym Diana Haven, in 1981.
A Flushing resident since 1996, Hill is the author of more than 30 published stories, including The Curtain Falls, which Hill called “a dire environmental parable about global warming.”
The Chinese government distributed hundreds of thousands of copies to the people of Beijing in 1997, in conjunction with an international scientific conference on the ozone layer being held there.
The New York City native studied under Joseph Heller, author of the best-selling novel and cult movie, “Catch 22,” while attaining a master’s degree in Creative Writing at the City College of New York.
Although honored by the chance to follow up on his paper of 10 years ago, Hill will be happy to get back home. “The food is better in Flushing,”