Tag Archives: Juanita Coulson

Hertz: DUFF Voting Opens

Posted on by

By John Hertz: Nominations have closed and voting is open for the 2014 Down Under Fan Fund delegate.

DUFF annually sends fans between North America and Australia – New Zealand, alternating directions each time. This year’s delegate goes west. Nominations were accepted until midnight Pacific Standard Time January 6. Three NA nominators and two ANZ nominators were required for each candidate, also a written platform of about 100 words and a donation of at least US$25 or C$ equivalent.

No candidates said they could attend both the 53rd Australia national convention Continuum X, Melbourne, June 6-9, and the 35th New Zealand natcon Conclave II, Auckland 24-27 April. The 2014 delegate will be sent to Continuum X. Candidates hoped to visit NZ also if elected, as DUFF will attempt.

The ballot has our two candidates Aurora Celeste and Juanita Coulson, each interesting in different ways, nominators and platforms likewise. Look them over.

Votes will be accepted until midnight Pacific Standard Time March 31, 2014, and must be accompanied by a donation of at least $5 Australian, Canadian, United States, or $7 New Zealand.

As the ballot explains, it may be sent by paper mail or PayPal, and must include the voter’s name, paper-mail address, and any further needed contact information. Paper ballots must be signed. Voters who think they may not be known to an Administrator should include the name and contact information of someone who knows them and who will be known.

Anyone active in fandom on or before January 1, 2014 may vote. “Active in fandom” means a natural person involved in fannish pursuits in our community, such as participation in clubs or conventions or fanzines, singing, costuming, social life, physically, electronically, or otherwise.

DUFF is supported by donations. If you can’t or don’t care to choose between the candidates you can always vote “No Preference”.

My counterpart the ANZ Administrator is Bill Wright, Unit 4, 1 Park St, St Kilda West, VIC 3182, phone (61-3) 9534  0163, E-mail <[email protected]>.

I’m the NA Administrator, 236 S. Coronado St., No. 409, Los Angeles, CA 90057, U.S.A., phone (213) 384-6622.

Duff2014 ballot [PDF file]

Upload 02/11/2014: Replaced ballot file with revision containing voting directions and Bill Wright’s correct e-mail address, courtesy Dave Langford.

DUFF Will Hold Over Funds

Posted on by

By John Hertz and David Cake: This year’s Down Under Fan Fun voting was counted on June 1, 2012 by John Hertz the North American Administrator and David Cake the Australia – New Zealand Administrator.

Founded in 1972, and supported by donations from all over the world, DUFF each year votes for a delegate from NA to ANZ,or the other direction in alternate years. Anyone active in fandom may vote.

The 2012 candidates were Juanita Coulson of the United States and Murray Moore of Canada. Moore in his platform urged voters to choose Hold Over Funds and said he would not go if elected.

The decision was clear from first-choice votes. Counting lower choices was not needed.

Hold Over Funds received 38 first-choice NA votes + 19 ANZ. Coulson received 24 first-choice NA votes + 1 ANZ. Moore received 11 first-choice NA votes + 2 ANZ.

Funds will be held over. No delegate will be sent in 2012.

Each Administrator received some out-area votes (e.g. Britain) which were included in the totals above.

2012 DUFF Race Begins

Posted on by

Votes are now being accepted in the 2012 Down Under Fan Fund race. North American DUFF Administrator John Hertz and Australian DUFF Administrator David Cake very recently held a telephone conversation and determined to select a delegate to travel to Australia/New Zealand despite the tight scheduling — votes will be accepted until midnight May 31 (PST).

The contenders are Juanita Coulson and Murray Moore, however, while Coulson is running with the intention of making the trip, Murray Moore’s platform actually advocates no one be sent — 

“…[My] unusual position is that, if elected on this ballot, I will not attend the Australian national SF convention June 8-11 in Melbourne. Furthermore I encourage you to join me in voting for Hold Over Funds on this ballot.”

Juanita Coulson (London, Ohio, U.S.A.) — NA nominators Sue & Steve Francis, Chris Garcia, Joyce & Arnie Katz; ANZ nominators Bruce Gillespie, Marc Ortlieb.

Murray Moore (Mississaugua, Ontario, Canada) — NA nominators Hope Leibowitz, Spike, Art Widner; ANZ nominators Cath Ortlieb, Bill Wright.

Eligibility and other voting information appears on the ballot linked below:

2012_DUFF_Ballot

Gene DeWeese (1931-2012)

Posted on by

Gene DeWeese died on March 19. “He had been in great pain (physical and mental) from Lewy body dementia,” reports Mike Lowrey, “and it finally took him pretty suddenly, after months of pain and mental suffering had traumatized [him and his wife, Bev] badly.”

Bev and Gene had been married for many years. Beverly Amers and Juanita Wellons formed the Eastern Indiana Science Fiction Association (EISFA) in the early 1950s and in time wed two other club members, Buck Coulson and Gene DeWeese.

Buck revealed in a Pixel interview:

When we first got acquainted, he wrote voluminous letters to loads of people but would barely say two words in a face-to-face contact. A friend of mine met him once, and after he’d left, asked, “Does he talk?”

The Coulsons’ fanzine Yandro won the Hugo in 1965. About the same time, Buck and Gene launched pro careers as collaborators on a couple of Man From U.N.C.L.E. novels. DeWeese remembered:

The U.N.C.L.E. books were the first sales Buck and I had made, in fact the first things either of us had written longer than a short story, so we considered them a great ‘earn-while-you-learn’ program.

The team of DeWeese and Coulson wrote several sf novels, plus two murder mysteries set at Worldcons, Now You See It/Him/Them (1975) and Charles Fort Never Mentioned Wombats (1977), filled with references and in-jokes. Another reference-filled short story  “Queen of the Timies,” appeared in Mike Resnick’s Alternate Worldcons (1994), in which Time Tunnel fans gather to honor Time Fleet Admiral Bjo Trimble and the show’s creator, Gene Roddenberry, presents a special cut of “The Trouble with Trimbles.”

DeWeese, writing solo, also did novels based on TV sf shows like Star Trek and Lost in Space and wrote gothics under a pen name. His YA novel The Adventures of a Two-Minute Werewolf was made into a TV movie. His last story may have been “The World of Null-T,” published in 2010.

Before turning to fiction DeWeese was a technical writer in the Apollo program of the 1960s.

With Christopher Priest’s name being bandied about lately, it’s an interesting coincidence that DeWeese once named him as one of the authors he especially liked:

Gene: I’ve always read both sf and mysteries — PLANET STORIES and Clarke and Erle Stanley Gardner in grade and high school, Priest and Clarke, Gorman and Pronzini, etc., now.

[Thanks to Mike Lowrey, Steven H Silver and Andrew Porter for the story.]