Tag Archives: WSFA

Robert Briggs (1930-2013)

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Robert Briggs, who was present when the Washington Science Fiction Association “formed in a coal cellar”, died February 5 in Sarasota, FL.

He was one of seven DC fans who met at the Philadelphia Worldcon in 1947 and decided to start the Washington Science Fiction Society. Another founder, Franklin Kerkhof, recalls:

We progressed fairly well; we attracted some new and valuable members: Willy Ley attended a couple of meetings and once we had both Mr. Ley and Seabury Quinn. Then disaster threatened. Russell Swanson, who had been acting president, was discharged from the Army and left Ft. Myer for his home in Haddam, Connecticut sometime in December 1947.

Fortunately, Louis E. Garner, Jr., an energetic newcomer with a flair for organization, attended one meeting then came to the next full of plans and with the rough draft of a new constitution. The group changed its name to WSFA and elected officers. Briggs became WSFA’s first vice-president.   

The group soon decided to start a convention and Briggs chaired the first three Disclaves — 1950, 1951, and 1953 (they skipped 1952).

In recent years Briggs’ fan activity has been limited to membership in SAPS, an amateur press association, which he rejoined in 1978 after having briefly been a member in the early 1950s.

Wally Weber learned of Briggs’ death from Lutheran Services in Sarasota.

[Thanks to Robert Lichtman for the story.]

Judy Newton Update

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Barry Newton copied File 770 on the latest about Judy Newton’s bypass surgery:

First, let me thank you all for the comfort and support we’ve been getting. It means a lot, believe me. Also, please keep on with prayers and good thoughts, they seem to be working.

I got down there in good time to be there when they took a good 25 minutes unhooking support devices and making them portable with her bed, then went along until they shunted me into a waiting room. A large waiting room, which gradually filled with a lot of visiting families. There was a lot of surgery happening today. Judy’s was the first of four that her doctor had scheduled. Some four nervous hours later, the surgeon appeared with the welcome news that everything had gone well, and Judy had five dear God bypasses.

The rest of the day was spent ducking in and out of ICU on short visits. She eventually woke up, was able to respond to the staff–and to me–eventually got the breathing tube out, and actually could talk. If all continues to go well, she’ll be moved out of ICU sometime tomorrow, and even encouraged to spend some time on her feet. This just blows my mind. Home sometime next week, probably Thursday.

And a correction to the earlier post – Judy Newton was WSFA President last year. Barry Newton is the current President and he adds, “Yes, this was all very amicable–other interests forced her to make a choice.”

WSFA Small Press Award
Open for Nominations

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SF authors, small press publishers and WSFA members have until April 1, 2012 to nominate stories for the Washington Science Fiction Association Small Press Award for short fiction, now in its sixth year.

The award honors the accomplishments of small presses in promoting and preserving sf. Eligible nominees are works of short fiction up to 17,500 words long in the sf, horror and fantasy genres, published by a small press.

The winner will be chosen by the members of the Washington Science Fiction Association. Blind voting is done using texts with the identity of the author and publisher stripped.

According to The Rules: “Small press publishers and periodicals may nominate up to three (3) stories, published by themselves or others. A writer may nominate one (1) story, published by herself/himself or others. A WSFA member may nominate one (1) story.” Then five members of WSFA screen the submissions and produce the list of finalists.

This year’s Small Press Award Committee is: Colleen Cahill (Chair), Cathy Green, Paul Haggerty, Gayle Surrette, Meagen Voss, and Carolyn Frank (Administrator)

The award will be presented at Capclave 12 over the October 12-14 weekend.

The full press release follows the jump.

Continue reading →

WSFA Votes Award to Carrie Vaughn

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The Washington Science Fiction Association has given the 2011 WSFA Small Press Award for Short Fiction to “Amaryllis” by Carrie Vaughn, published in Lightspeed Magazine (June 2010), edited by John Joseph Adams.

The announcement was made this past weekend at Capclave, where Vaughn was a guest of honor. Michael J. Walsh explains, “While some may raise an eyebrow over one of the GoHs winning the award, I will note that winner was selected by vote of WSFA members who participate in a blind judging process — reading the texts with identity of the author, publisher and editor removed.”

2011 WSFA Small Press Award Shortlist

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The Washington Science Fiction Association has announced the finalists for the 2011 WSFA Small Press Award for Short Fiction:

  • “After the Dragon” by Sarah Monette, published in Fantasy Magazine (January 2010), edited by Cat Rambo and Sean Wallace.
  • “Amaryllis” by Carrie Vaughn, published in Lightspeed Magazine (June 2010), edited by John Joseph Adams.
  • “The Cassandra Project” by Jack McDevitt, published in Lightspeed Magazine (June 2010), edited by John Joseph Adams
  • “The Days of Flaming Motorcycles” by Catherynne M. Valente, published in Dark Faith, edited by Maurice Broaddus and Jerry Gordon, Apex Book Co. (May 2010).
  • “Enid and the Prince” by RJ Astruc, published in Worlds Next Door, edited by Tehani Wessely, FableCroft Publishing (June 2010).
  • “Lord Bai’s Discovery” by Jean Marie Ward, published in Dragon’s Lure, edited by Danielle Ackley-McPhail, Jennifer Ross, and Jeffrey Lyman, Dark Quest Books (June 2010).

The winner will be selected by vote of WSFA members who participate in a blind judging process – reading the texts with identity of the author, publisher and editor hidden.

The winning story will be revealed at Capclave, held this year on October 14-16 in Gaithersburg, Maryland.

The full press release follows the jump.

Continue reading →

Nominees Sought for WSFA Small Press Award

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SF authors, small press publishers and WSFA members have until May 1, 2011 to nominate stories for the Washington Science Fiction Association Small Press Award for short fiction, now in its fifth year.

The award honors the accomplishments of small presses in promoting and preserving sf. Eligible nominees are works of short fiction up to 17,500 words long in the sf, horror and fantasy genres, published by a small press.

The winner will be chosen by the members of the Washington Science Fiction Association. Blind voting is done using texts with the identity of the author and publisher stripped.

According to The Rules: “Small press publishers and periodicals may nominate up to three (3) stories, published by themselves or others. A writer may nominate one (1) story, published by herself/himself or others. A WSFA member may nominate one (1) story.” Then five members of WSFA screen the submissions and produce the list of finalists.

This year’s WSFA Small Press Award Committee is Colleen Cahill (Chair), Cathy Green, Paul Haggerty, Gayle Surrette, Michael Walsh, and Carolyn Frank (Administrator).

The award will be presented at Capclave 11 over the October 14-16 weekend.

WFSA Award Short Fiction Nominees Announced

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Finalists for the 2010 WSFA Small Press Award for Short Fiction are these stories from 2009:

  • “each thing i show you is a piece of my death” by Gemma Files and Stephen J. Barringer, published in Clockwork Phoenix 2, edited by Mike Allen, Norilana Books (July 2009).
  • “Images of Anna” by Nancy Kress, published in Fantasy Magazine, edited by Cat Rambo (September 2009).
  • “James and the Dark Grimoire” by Kevin Lauderdale, published in Cthulhu Unbound, edited by Thomas Brannan and John Sunseri, Permuted Press, (March 2009).
  • “Race to the Moon” by Kyell Gold, published in New Fables, Summer 2009, edited by Tim Susman, Sofawolf Press (July 2009).
  • “Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast” by Eugie Foster, published in Interzone (January 2009) / Apex Magazine (August 2009), edited by Andy Cox (Interzone,) / Catherynne M. Valente (Apex).
  • “Siren Beat” by Tansy Rayner Roberts, published in Twelfth Planet Press, edited by Alisa Krasnostein (October 2009).
  • “The Pirate Captain’s Daughter” by Yoon Ha Lee, published in Beneath Ceaseless Skies issue #27, 10/08/2009, edited Scott H. Andrews.
  • “The Very Difficult Diwali of Sub-Inspector Gurushankar Rajaram” by Jeff Soesbe, published in DayBreak Magazine, edited by Jetse de Vries (October 2009).

The winner is chosen by the members of the Washington Science Fiction Association, all voting done using texts with the identity of the author and publisher stripped. They hope this improves the chances of the winner being picked solely for reasons of its quality, and they’re probably right.

But who creates the pool of nominees? It’s tautological that a work can’t win unless it makes the ballot. Any room for bias to gum the works there?

Not really. According to The Rules, nominations come through a wide-open process. “Small press publishers and periodicals may nominate up to three (3) stories, published by themselves or others. A writer may nominate one (1) story, published by herself/himself or others. A WSFA member may nominate one (1) story.” Then five members of WSFA screen the submissions and produce the list of finalists.

The award will be presented at Capclave over the October 22-24 weekend.

[This is part of a continuing series titled, “It’s probably still news to someone.” Thanks to Michael Walsh for the link.]

2008 WSFA Small Press Award

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[Press release.] The Washington Science Fiction Association is pleased to announce the winner of the 2008 WSFA Small Press Award for Short Fiction: “The Wizard of Macatawa” by Tom Doyle published in issue 11 of Paradox magazine (www.paradoxmag.com), publisher and editor Christopher M. Cevasco. “The Wizard of Macatawa” tells the story of how the life of a young girl intersects with that of L. Frank Baum.

The award honors the efforts of small press publishers in providing a critical venue for short fiction in the area of speculative fiction. The award showcases the best original short fiction published by small presses in the previous year. An unusual feature of the selection process is that all voting is done with the identity of the author hidden so that the final choice is based solely on the quality of the story. The award consists of trophies for both the author and publisher and $250 for the author.

The other finalists were:

“Bufo Rex” by Erik Amundsen published in issue 347 of the magazine Weird Tales (http://weirdtales.net/wordpress/); publisher John Gregory Betancourt, fiction editor Ann VanderMeer,

“Orm the Beautiful” by Elizabeth Bear published in the January 2007 issue of Clarkesworld Magazine (http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/bear_01_07); publisher and editor Neil Clarke; senior editor Sean Wallace,

“Harry the Crow” by John Kratman published in issue 12 of the magazine Aeon Speculative Fiction (http://www.aeonmagazine.com/); editors Marti McKenna and Bridget McKenna,

“Mask of the Ferret” by Ken Pick and Alan Loewen published in the book Infinite Space, Infinite God by Twilight Times Books (http://www.isigsf.com); publisher Lida E. Quillen, Editors Karina Fabian and Robert Fabian, and

“The Third Bear” by Jeff VanderMeer published in the April 2007 issue of Clarkesworld Magazine (http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/vandermeer_04_07); publisher and editor Neil Clarke; senior editor Sean Wallace.

The winner is chosen by the members of the Washington Science Fiction Association (www.wsfa.org) and is presented at their annual convention, Capclave (www.capclave.org), held this year on October 17-19 in Rockville, Maryland. Present to accept their awards were Tom Doyle and Chis Cevasco, the editor and publisher of Paradox. Also present to accept their Honorable Mention certificates were: Alan Loewen; Neil Clark, publisher of Clarkesworld, accepting on behalf of Elizabeth Bear and Jeff VanderMeer; and John Gregory Betancourt, publisher of Weird Tales, accepting on behalf of Erik Admundsen.