By John Hertz: Only a few days after Renovation, the 2011 Worldcon, WOOF contributors who could not attend had received their copies of WOOF 36 by mail or courier.
WOOF, the World Organization Of Faneditors, was one of Bruce Pelz’ ideas, an amateur press association in which zines are collated annually at the World Science Fiction Convention.
Most s-f apas are collated quarterly, or monthly. There have been dozens over the years. FAPA (Fantasy Am. Pr. Ass’n), our first, founded in the mid-1930s, is still ongoing. So is APA-L (Am. Pr. Ass’n – LASFS, produced at but not by the Los Angeles S-F Society), another Pelz project, founded in the mid-1960s, collated weekly – a shocking frequency before the rise of E-mail, still remarkable; so is WOOF, founded in the mid-1970s. The chief procedural honcho and Great Panjandrum of an apa is the Official Editor (sometimes by local custom, or deserving, called other things).
Randy Byers was the OE of WOOF for 2011, following Lloyd Penney and Alan Stewart. WOOF contributions are even less governed by rule than other fan activity. Byers was bodacious. In fourscore pages he got a Stu Shiffman cover, photos from Stewart’s 1994 DUFF (Down Under Fan Fund) trip to Winnipeg, David Cake the current DUFF delegate, John Coxon the TAFF (Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund) delegate, Claire Brialey & Mark Plummer, Chris Garcia, Guy Lillian, Penney, regulars Dean Gahlon and Roger Hill, and a host of others.
He modestly said he took up the task because some idealist in a funny hat persuaded him. This like many modest disclaimers is a half-truth. He’s willing to wade in the water, and he quotes Chuang Tzu. His bark is worse than his bytes.
