Dan Steffan Wins 2009 Rotsler Award

By John Hertz: Dan Steffan of Portland, Oregon, has won the Rotsler Award, given annually for long-time artistic achievement in amateur publications of the science fiction community. Established in 1998, it carries an honorarium of US$300.

The award will be formally announced on Saturday, November 28, 2009, at the Los Angeles local science fiction convention “Loscon”, held every year over the U.S. Thanksgiving Day weekend.

Steffan’s imagination, his marshalling of detail and his poignant satire have kept his reputation high for decades. He won an award for the design of Science Fiction Eye, and has won the Fanzine Activity Achievement (FAAn) award as best fanartist four times. Recently his graphic art has appeared in Trap Door, Chunga, and Ansible (its logograph). He has one Hugo Award nomination. His work is always part of any conversation about excellence in fanzines.

The Rotsler Award is sponsored by the Southern California Institute for Fan Interests, a non-profit corporation, which in 2006 hosted the 63rd World Science Fiction Convention. The award is named for the late Bill Rotsler, a talented and prolific artist over many years. Current judges are Claire Brialey, Mike Glyer, and John Hertz.

The 2009 Loscon [www.loscon.org] will be the 36th. An exhibit honoring Steffan’s work will be in the Art Show.

For more about the Rotsler Award, visit www.scifiinc.org/rotsler/.

4 thoughts on “Dan Steffan Wins 2009 Rotsler Award

  1. I was glad to hear Dan finally won some “official” recognition for his year’s of fanarting. Why it took so long is puzzling, and it seems to me he should have been added to the list of Rotsler winners earlier than this. Just such a lot of choice, I suppose. Better late than never…

    However, there seems to be some sort of slip-up. I e-mailed Dan to congratulate him, and he wrote back.

    “Wow. Really? If you’re saying I won the Rotsler thingee, it’s the first I’ve heard about it. Thanks for your kind words and the head’s up.”

    It seems unlikely I’ve given away a secret. I read the news here on the F770 site, which is as every bit as public as walking around with your fly down. So how come nobody on the Rotslter panel told Dan?

  2. I’m a bit curious, actually, why, if the award is being presented on Saturday, the news of who won is being published in advance. It would seem to make the actual announcement (and clearly the winner won’t be there to accept) kind of lacking in drama, wouldn’t it? Is there some advantage to doing things this way that I’m missing? What’s the upside, as opposed to the quite obvious (if minor) downside?

  3. We used to wait til after the official announcement to publicized the winner. The marginal advantage in announcing the winner ahead of time is that it increases the number of people at Loscon who will recognize the significance of the artist when his/her name is announced. One of the award’s purposes is to heighten awareness of fanzines and fanart, and it seems (to me anyway) to have more effect doing it in this order.

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