Jeanne Gomoll’s Rotsler Award Statement

[Editor’s note: Jeanne wrote this in comments and I wanted to give everyone a chance to see it.]

By Jeanne Gomoll: I am extremely honored to have received the Rotsler award and am grateful for this recognition for my work. Thank you so much!

A long time ago, in 1975, I was just learning what the words “fandom,” “illo,” and “egoboo” meant. “Send the fanzine editor an illo…” Hank Luttrell counseled neofan me, “…and they’ll send you a copy of their zine.” It was all a new world to me, and one that I was eager to explore. Around that time, I remember a fan telling me about a fabulous artist, Frank Frazetta, who was famed for his comic book and paperback book covers. I remember this fan sadly remarking that because Frazetta’s professional career was turning out so well, he had stopped doing fannish work. Now, (Google research tells me:) I suppose this was a reference to Frazetta’s fanzine, Outlooks, but at the time, I was simply struck with the mind-bending idea that a fanzine artist might move from amateur to professional work, and feel allegiance to both fannish and professional worlds. Later I would become acquainted with Bill Rotsler’s art. I was one of the lucky fan editors who received envelopes stuffed with Bill’s illos. Here was another artist who maintained a foot in fandom and a professional career.

This moment embedded itself in my memory, in the same way that a second, earlier experience did, and for the same reason: both moments ended up resonating with the course my life took.

The second experience happened long before I encountered fandom. I was probably only about 7 years old and sitting on the front porch watching people walk past on the sidewalk. A woman appeared, wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase, and I was so captivated by her purposeful, confident stride, that I ran to the sidewalk and watched her until she disappeared. I wanted to be that woman. Years later, I was walking up State Street carrying some posterboard in an artist’s portfolio, and I suddenly thought I had glimpsed that very same woman, from 25 years earlier, walking down State Street. But it was me; I had seen my own reflection in a store window. I had become the woman I had dreamed of becoming.

With this award, I realize that I have traveled another full circle. I’ve experienced and enjoyed a dual identity — as fannish AND professional artist. The possibility that so intrigued me in 1975 became a framework for my life. I have so much for which to thank fandom: the skills and experiences I gained as a fannish artist translated into a career, without dousing my enthusiasm for fannish projects.

To be honored for these life-definining experiences is a wonderful thing. Thank you.

[Below: A photo of the exhibit at Loscon courtesy of Elizabeth Klein-Lebbink.]

Jeanne Gomoll Wins 2017 Rotsler Award

The 2017 Rotsler Award has been given to Jeanne Gomoll, of Madison, Wisconsin.

The award, established in 1998 and named for the talented, prolific artist Bill Rotsler (1926-1997), is for long-time artistic achievement in amateur publications of the science fiction community.  The winner receives a plaque and an honorarium of US$300.

Gomoll (“go-MOLL”) was a Guest of Honour at the 72nd World Science Fiction Convention, held at London, England, in 2014.  She created the covers for its Pocket Programme Guide.  The 24th issue of the amateur magazine Chunga had covers by her, with a discussion in Chunga 25 (February 2017).  She has been praised for illustration, graphic design, and focus, in monochrome and color.

She was twice a finalist for the Hugo Award (Best Fanartist, 1978, 1980).  She created the logos for the Tiptree Award, and for the fanzine-interest convention Corflu.  She did covers and interiors for many issues of Janus, which she co-edited with Janice Bogstad.  Janus won two Fan Activity Achievement Awards and was three times a Hugo finalist (Best Fanzine, 1978-1980).

Gomoll co-founded Wiscon, the leading feminist S-F convention, and served on the board of its sponsoring organization for almost forty years.  She was elected the Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund delegate in 1987 and was sent to the 45th Worldcon, held at Brighton, England.

She worked for the State of Wisconsin, then started her own firm Union Street Design, serving State-agency clients and others.

The Rotsler is sponsored by the Southern California Institute for Fan Interests, a non-profit corporation which has produced the World Science Fiction Convention three times.  Current judges are Sue Mason, John Hertz, and Mike Glyer.  The Rotsler is announced at Loscon, the annual Los Angeles SF convention, sponsored by the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society, a non-profit corporation.

This year Loscon XLIV was held November 24-26 at the Los Angeles International Airport Marriott Hotel.  A display of Gomoll’s work was in the Art Show.

Pixel Scroll 7/28/17 The Pixhiker’s Guide To The Scrolexy

(1) WORLD SF. Rosarium Publishing has announced the table of contents for its American edition of Future Fiction: New Dimensions in International Science Fiction, edited by Bill Campbell and Francesco Verso, will be released March 1, 2018.

In its brief existence, Rosarium Publishing has worked hard in “introducing the world to itself” through groundbreaking, award-winning science fiction and comics. In combing the planet to find the best in each field, Rosarium’s own Bill Campbell has found a fellow spirit in Italian publisher, Francesco Verso.  Borrowing from the fine tradition of American underground dance labels introducing international labels’ music to the people back home, Rosarium brings to you Future Fiction: New Dimensions in International Science Fiction, a thrilling collection of innovative science fiction previously published by Francesco Verso’s company, Future Fiction. Here you will find thirteen incredible tales from all around the globe that will not only introduce you to worlds you may not be familiar with but also expand your horizons.

Table of Contents

  • James Patrick Kelly – Bernardo’s House (USA)
  • Michalis Manolios – The Quantum Mommy (Greece) – translated by Manolis Vamvounis
  • Efe Tokunbo – Proposition 23 (Nigeria)
  • Clelia Farris – Creative Surgery (Italy) – translated by Jennifer Delare
  • Xia Jia – Tongtong’s Summer (China) – translated by Ken Liu
  • Pepe Rojo – Grey Noise (Mexico) – translated by Andrea Bell
  • Liz Williams – Loose Strife (UK)
  • Ekaterina Sedia – Citizen Komarova Finds Love (Russia)
  • Nina Munteanu – The Way of Water (Canada)
  • Tendai Huchu – Hostbods (Zimbabwe)
  • Swapna Kishore – What Lies Dormant (India)
  • Carlos Hernandez – The International Studbook of the Giant Panda (USA)

(2) ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED. The Disabled People Destroy Science Fiction / Uncanny Magazine Year 4 Kickstarter met its goal in three days. The total last time I looked was $23,359 – the target had been $22,000.

(3) NEXT AT KGB. Fantastic Fiction at KGB reading series  hosts Ellen Datlow and Matthew Kressel present Gregory Frost & Rajan Khanna on Wednesday, August 16, 7 p.m. at the KGB Bar.

Gregory Frost

Gregory Frost is the author of Shadowbridge, Lord Tophet, Fitcher’s Brides, and The Pure Cold Light and a whole mess of short stories of the fantastic. His collaboration with Michael Swanwick, “Lock Up Your Chickens and Daughters, H’ard and Andy Are Come to Town” won an Asimov’s Readers’ Award for 2015. That worked out so well that he and M. Swanwick are currently engaged in writing another collaboration. Greg is the Fiction Workshop Director at Swarthmore College, and with Jonathan Maberry founded the Philadelphia branch of The Liars Club, a collective of semi-deranged and often inebriated authors. Greg is working on a collaborative series with Jonathan Maberry based upon their novella “Rhymer,” published in the anthology Dark Duets.

Rajan Khanna

Rajan Khanna is an author, blogger, reviewer, and narrator. His post-apocalyptic airship adventure series starting with Falling Sky and Rising Tide concluded in July 2017 with Raining Fire. His short fiction has appeared in Lightspeed Magazine, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and several anthologies. His articles and reviews have appeared Tor.com and LitReactor.com and his podcast narrations can be heard at Podcastle, Escape Pod, PseudoPod, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and Lightspeed Magazine. Rajan lives in Brooklyn where he’s a member of the Altered Fluid writing group.

KGB Bar, 85 East 4th Street (just off 2nd Ave, upstairs), New York, NY.

(4) IF YOU CAN MAKE IT THERE. Andrew Porter tells me there are New York authors with historic plaques on their old homes:

There are historic blue plaques on Montague Street, in the building where Norman Mailer lived for a while. Around the corner, there’s a bronze plaque on the building where W.H. Auden lived.

Once I heard that, I decided we should start agitating for historic plaques on the birth homes of  historic SF writers.

Andrew Porter suggested Isaac Asimov, Frederik Pohl, Robert Silverberg, and Julius Schwartz. Some others have added:

Avram Davidson, born in Yonkers, 1923

Robert Sheckley, b. 1928 (Brooklyn?)

and Tom Disch died on Union Sq. W. on 4 July 2008

(5) FUN APPROACH. Jared begins his review of The War of Undoing by Alex Perry at Pornkitsch —

This is a long – and often quite meandering – book. There’s a slow start, followed by a lot of quiet, discursive tangents. Several of Undoing’s plots and ‘hints’ don’t coalesce until the very end, and certain momentous occasions and world-changing events – which would be the very heart and soul of other fantasy novels – are downplayed, and shifted to the background. As a result, The War of Undoing can feel frustrating at times. But, and I can’t stress this enough, stick with it: this book simply has different priorities.

The War of Undoing uses a deceptively simple premise and a by-the-numbers fantasy world to great effect. It isn’t a book about what happens, where it happens, or, in some cases, even who it happens to. It is, instead, a book about the why – the choices we make, and what drives us to them.

That’s all worth excerpting – but then, Jared goes into overdrive deconstructing the book’s familiar motifs as if he was scoring the qualities of a role-playing game. That part is really entertaining.

(6) SENDING UP OLD WHO. Fathom Events will show “RiffTrax Live: Doctor Who: The Five Doctors” in theaters August 17 and August 24.

The Doctor is in the house! The RiffTrax house, that is! The stars of Mystery Science Theater 3000®, Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett, are back on the big screen for a legendary riffing of the 1983 Doctor Who film “The Five Doctors.” Someone is taking the Doctor’s past selves out of time and space, placing them in a vast wilderness – a battle arena with a sinister tower at its center. As the various incarnations of the Doctor join forces, they learn they are in the Death Zone on their home world of Gallifrey, fighting Daleks, Cybermen, Yeti and a devious Time Lord Traitor who is using the Doctor and his companions to discover the ancient secrets of Rassilon, the first and most powerful ruler of Gallifrey.

Join Mike, Kevin and Bill as they join the Five Doctors for one of the most thrilling Doctor Who adventures ever!

(7) BUDGET BOOK LAUNCH. Mark-kitteh says, “I’m reading The Prey of Gods by Nicky Drayden — rather fun concept so far, not sure where it’s going but I’m interested to find out — and I went to check out her website. I thought this recent blog post on the finances of her book promotion might suit as a scroll item” — “Book Promotion on a $800 Budget”.

ARC GIVEAWAYS AND EARLY REVIEWS:

Four to six months before your book launches, you want to start getting ARCs (Advance Reader Copies) into as many people’s hands as possible. These early reviewers will help generate buzz for your book and get other readers interested. The easiest way to do this is by holding giveaways on Goodreads. Goodreads is where readers congregate and socialize, so you get a lot of visibility through social shares. Plus, unlike Amazon, people can start leaving reviews and ratings as soon as the book is listed, and not just once launch day has arrived.

Aim to give away at least 30 physical ARCs through random giveaways and targeting bigger name reviewers. If you’re with a big house or small press, they should be offering some giveaways on their own and getting you reviewers, so you’ll just be supplementing as necessary. For these figures, I’m assuming it costs about $7 to ship each book and $8 per book copy beyond free books provided by the publisher. I’m also assuming if you’re with a big house, you’ll get at least 20 free copies of your book, 10 for small press, and 0 for indie authors.

I’d recommend doing three big pushes prior to launch, and two small giveaways (1-2 books each) in the months after launch. Goodreads users can mark your book as to-be-read when they enter the contest, which will make them much more likely to purchase your book. With each giveaway you should see more and more interest. Below you can see how much “to-read” numbers jump when there’s a giveaway. The smaller spikes are the start of the giveaways….

(8) JULIE GOMOLL OBIT. Julie Gomoll (1962-2017), sister of Jeanne, died this past weekend. Jeanne’s eulogy on Facebook is now set to public.

Jackie Dana wrote this deeply touching reminiscence of Julie: “Our Chief Schemer Has Left Us”.

That was the last time I got to see you, and now I’m just reeling. How is it that you’re not going to be around anymore? No more Julie snark on Facebook, no photos of Mr. Pants sitting inappropriately, no more brainstorming. I just can’t bear it.

I sit here trying to make sense of it all, and I know you’re probably just rolling your eyes, wanting to tell me to go do something else. But it’s you, Julie, and I can’t. I knew about your personal struggles, and I knew you were trying to reinvent yourself professionally (like all of the best entrepreneurs do). But even though things were tough sometimes, you were a fighter. A bad ass. So I just can’t understand.

One thing’s for sure. I’m not alone. There’s a not-so-small army of friends and family who you inspired, and we’re all struggling to understand. We miss you so much already. You didn’t leave a hole behind when you left us—you left a chasm as wide as the Grand Canyon.

A fundraiser for Austin Pets Alive! has been started in her honor.

Please join me in honoring the memory of Julie Gomoll, a true digital pioneer.

Julie founded Go Media in 1987. It became one of the first major digital agencies in Texas. The web just seemed to run in her veins. Even when companies asked Julie to create mailers, she’d build them a website. One day, I was fortunate enough to see Julie’s portfolio. One page after another, I saw another piece of Austin digital history. Dell. Whole Foods. The City of Austin. Julie helped pin these organizations on the digital map. With the switch of a DNS server, her company connected them to the entire world.

Julie took the money she made on the sale of Go Media to Excite, and invested in a coworking space named Launchpad. This wasn’t 2015?—?this was 2007. She was a coworking goddess when other people were sweating their 9–5. Launchpad was an unfortunate casualty of the 2008 recession. The coworking movement, however, was not. Dozens of other Austin coworking formal and informal spaces emerged thanks to early adopters like Julie. There are hundreds of small companies that emerged as a result…

Julie loved dogs. Like, pretty much any dog. She even built the first website for Austin Pets Alive!, which has saved thousands of them. Thanks, Julie. We’d like to help you save thousands more. Please help honor Julie’s memory by donating to Austin Pets Alive! in her name.

And Julie Gomoll’s professional website has more about that side of her story.

(9) ZIMMERMAN OBIT. Bookstore owner Lorraine Zimmerman died July 12 reports The Indy. Along with her husband Norman, she owned the Fahrenheit 451 bookstore in Laguna Beach, CA from 1976 until it closed in 1988. It wasn’t a specialty store, however, they did sell everything Bradbury had in print. I bought Bradbury’s book of Irish stories there in the Eighties.

Lorraine Zimmerman, owner of legendary Fahrenheit 451 Books in Laguna Beach (1978-1988), of Collected Thoughts Bookshop in Berkeley (1996-2004), and partner at Berkeley’s University Press Books (2004-2017), passed away on July 12. She was 76 and is survived by her two brothers, three children and seven grandchildren.

Born and raised in Chicago, Lorraine entered the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in 1957. Pausing from university studies after marrying and starting a family, Zimmerman relocated to Orange, Calif., with family in 1970. She resumed her studies at UC Irvine, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in social ecology. A lover of books and ideas, Zimmerman bought Laguna Beach’s Fahrenheit 451 Books in 1976.

The bookstore soon received national recognition. In 1981, Lorraine was one of five booksellers interviewed in The New York Times for an article on independent bookstores. In 1987, the Los Angeles Times described Fahrenheit 451 Books as “one of the most distinctive independent bookstores in Southern California,” and “Laguna Beach’s literary landmark.” Zimmerman inspired Laguna residents with her own literary flare, publishing Fahrenheit Flasher, a newsletter with colorful images, stories about upcoming author signings and her reviews of forthcoming books. Zimmerman’s innovative promotional strategies included a children’s reading program that enrolled 40 families at its height, and a 12-book plan whereby customers received credit for the average price of their purchases.

Zimmerman made headlines by hosting book signings with such renowned authors as Ray Bradbury, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Allen Ginsberg, June Jordan, P.D. James, and Michael Chabon. Upon selling Fahrenheit 451 Books, Zimmerman reflected on her experience in American Bookseller magazine, writing in May 1989: “Discussing books with customers and local writers; sponsoring literary events; having a finger on the pulse of current American thought through the knowledge of forthcoming books and my customers’ requests; having the ability to disseminate hard-to-find information–these were the daily rewards of bookselling.”

(10) TODAY IN HISTORY

  • July 28, 1957 The Cyclops premieres.
  • July 28, 1995 Waterworld debuted in theaters.

(11) COMIC SECTION. John King Tarpinian recommends today’s Moderately Confused.

(12) CLARKE WINNER. Colson Whitehead said in his Arthur C. Clarke Award acceptance remarks, “Way back when I was 10 years old, it was science fiction and fantasy that made me want to be a writer. If you were a writer, you could work from home, you didn’t have to talk to anybody, and you could just make up stuff all day. Stuff about robots and maybe zombies and maybe even miraculous railway lines. Fantasy, like realism, is a tool for describing the world, and I’m grateful that a book like The Underground Railroad, which could not exist without the toolkit of fantastic literature, is being recognized with the Arthur C. Clarke award.”

(13) ELLISON BIO. Daniel M. Kimmel gives a glowing review to his friend Nate Segaloff’s A Lit Fuse, The Provocative Life of Harlan Ellison.

What makes this so special? It is a full-bodied portrait of Ellison the writer as well as the ups and downs of his personal life. It doesn’t turn away from the touchy subjects (“The City on the Edge of Forever,” the Connie Willis controversy, the never published Last Dangerous Visions), but it also celebrates not only his successes, but the way he has inspired the writers who followed him, created works of lasting value, and demonstrates that while he is, indeed, one of the giants of science fiction, he is also a writer of mysteries, of criticism, of essays, and of one of the most interesting lives in modern American letters. Even If you are not a devoted Ellison fan, it is a fascinating story, and you may find yourself eager to fill in the gaps in your own reading of Ellison.

(14) SUMMERTIME AND THE READING IS EASY. The Washington Post’s Michael Dirda presents “A summer book list like no other”.

To everything there is a season, and the season for short stories is summer — except for tales of ghosts and demons, which should be reserved for late fall. To help you enjoy your time on a beach or in a hammock, here are seven short-story collections worth looking for.

Other Arms Reach Out to Me: Georgia Stories , by Michael Bishop (Fairwood Press). Michael Bishop is well known as a science fiction writer — don’t miss his best-of collection, “The Door-Gunner and Other Perilous Flights of Fancy” — but this new book collects his equally fine stories about contemporary Southern life. How can anyone resist “The Road Leads Back,” which pays homage to Flannery O’Connor? From the opening sentence, its tone is pitch-perfect: “Flora Marie did not want to visit the Benedictine monastery in Alabama. Back in April, at the insistence of her aunt Claire, who had paid for the pilgrimage, she’d made a fatiguing round-trip journey by air to Lourdes. Aunt Claire had believed that a reverent dip in the shrine’s waters would enable Flora Marie to throw away her crutches and live again as a ‘normal person.’ ” Other stories recall the trailer-park black humor of Harry Crews or Barry Hannah: In “Doggedly Wooing Madonna,” a misfit teenager repeatedly writes letters proposing to the Material Girl, who eventually pays him a visit while he is working at Finger Lickin’ Fried. Bishop closes his excellent collection with the Nebula Award-nominated “Rattlesnakes and Men.” …

(15) YOU’RE INVITED. There will be a “Chinese Fandom Fan Party” at Worldcon 75. The public is invited. (Here is the Facebook event link.)

Hosted by The Shimmer Program, Storycom and Science Fiction World Publishing House

Thursday, August 10 at 9 PM – 11 PM UTC+08 Room 103, Messukeskus, Helsinki, Finland

You have to be a Worldcon 75 member to attend the parties. Our party welcome all guests and feel free to share it with your friends who are coming to Worldcon this year! The more the merrier! Highlights:

  • Meet Chinese sf authors, Xia Jia, Zhang Ran, A Que, Luo Longxiang, Tan Gang, Nian Yu and more…
  • Meet Chinese editors in Science Fiction World to discuss how to publish your works in China
  • Meet Chinese fans who won Storycom’s Worldcon 75 Attending Funding…
  • Introduction of Chengdu City – “SF capital of China”
  • Welcome to The Fourth China (Chengdu) International SF Conference
  • Learn about various ways of attending cons in China for free
  • Free snacks and drinks
  • Chinese specialties and Chinese tea

(16) KEEPING UP WITH JEOPARDY! Steven H Silver sent me this information from the future about a genre reference on today’s episode of Jeopardy!

In Double Jeopardy, categories were:

Plan

9

From Outer Space

Other Odd Films

(17) SLUSSER CONFERENCE. Organizers have put out a call for papers for The George Slusser Conference on Science Fiction and Fantasy to be held at UC Irvine on April 26-29, 2018.

Coordinators: Jonathan Alexander (University of California, Irvine)

Gregory Benford (University of California, Irvine)

Howard V. Hendrix (California State University, Fresno)

Gary Westfahl (University of La Verne)

Although the late George Slusser (1939–2014) was best known for coordinating academic conferences on science fiction and editing volumes of essays on science fiction, he was also a prolific scholar in his own right, publishing several books about major science fiction writers and numerous articles in scholarly journals and anthologies. His vast body of work touched upon virtually all aspects of science fiction and fantasy. In articles like “The Origins of Science Fiction” (2005), he explored how the conditions necessary for the emergence of science fiction first materialized in France and later in England and elsewhere. Seeking early texts that influenced and illuminate science fiction, he focused not only on major writers like Mary Shelley, Jules Verne, and H. G. Wells but also on usually overlooked figures like E. T. A. Hoffmann, Benjamin Constant, Thomas De Quincey, Honoré de Balzac, Guy de Maupassant, J.-H. Rosny aîné, and J. D. Bernal. His examinations of twentieth-century science fiction regularly established connections between a wide range of international authors, as suggested by the title of his 1989 essay “Structures of Apprehension: Lem, Heinlein, and the Strugatskys,” and he fruitfully scrutinized both classic novels by writers like Arthur C. Clarke and Ursula K. Le Guin and the formulaic ephemera of the contemporary science fiction marketplace. A few specific topics repeatedly drew his interest, such as the mechanisms of time travel in science fiction and the “Frankenstein barrier” that writers encounter when they face the seemingly impossible task of describing beings that are more advanced than humanity. And he aroused controversies by criticizing other scholars in provocative essays like “Who’s Afraid of Science Fiction?” (1988) and “The Politically Correct Book of Science Fiction” (1994). No single paragraph can possibly summarize the full extent of his remarkably adventurous scholarship.

The George Slusser Conference on Science Fiction and Fantasy seeks to pay tribute to his remarkable career by inviting science fiction scholars, commentators, and writers to contribute papers that employ, and build upon, some of his many groundbreaking ideas; we also welcome suggestions for panels that would address Slusser and his legacy. To assist potential participants in locating and studying Slusser’s works, a conference website will include a comprehensive bibliography of his books, essays, reviews, and introductions. This selective conference will follow the format that Slusser preferred, a single track that allows all attendees to listen to every paper and participate in lively discussions about them. It is hoped that the best conference papers can be assembled in one volume and published as a formal or informal festschrift to George Slusser.

Potential contributors are asked to submit by email a 250-word paper abstract and a brief curriculum vitae to any of the four conference coordinators: Jon Alexander ([email protected]), Gregory Benford ([email protected] ), Howard V. Hendrix ([email protected]), or Gary Westfahl ([email protected] ). The deadline for submissions is December 31, 2017, and decisions will be provided by mid-January, 2018. Further information about the conference schedule, fee, location, accommodations, and distinguished guests will be provided at the conference website.

(18) AT HOME WITH RAY’S HUGOS. Jonathan Eller writes about this photo —

Ray Bradbury’s two most recent Retro Hugo Awards, “Best Fan Writer, 1941” and “Best Fanzine, Futuria Fantasia, 1941,” have been in the Center for Ray Bradbury Studies since Center director Jon Eller accepted them on behalf of the Bradbury family at the 2016 World Science Fiction Convention in Kansas City (August, 2016). The Bradbury family graciously agreed to have the Bradbury Center curate these Hugo Awards through a long-term loan agreement completed earlier this year.  Here you see both awards in the Bradbury center, guarded by a Martian modeled on one of the 1970s stage productions of The Martian Chronicles.  The Bradbury Center, as well as the Indiana University School of Liberal Arts and IUPIU, are deeply indebted to the Bradbury family for this curatorial loan.  —  Jon Eller

[Thanks to Steven H Silver, Matthew Kressel, Howard Hendrix, Andrew, JJ, Cat Eldridge, Andrew Porter, Mark-kitteh, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day ULTRAGOTHA.]

Pixel Scroll 4/18/16 It’s Better To Pixel Out, Than To Scroll Away

(1) WHILE YOU WERE WAITING. Ann Leckie must be wondering if any of us are paying attention.

Quite frequently someone at a reading will ask me if I’ll ever explain about that icon Breq is carrying. And the answer is, I already have.

(2) JUST SAY THANKS. Joe Vasicek has some intriguing “Thoughts on series and perma-free”.

For the last five years, the conventional wisdom among most indie writers has been to write short books in sequential series and make the first book permanently free. It’s a strategy that works, to a certain extent. It’s what got me from making pizza money on my book sales to making a humble living at this gig. However, I’m starting to question that wisdom….

….Also, when you have a book that’s permanently free, it tends to accumulate a lot of negative reviews. It’s strange, but some people seem to feel more entitled to XYZ when they get it for free, as opposed to paying for it. Or maybe these are the people who try to go through life without actually paying for anything? Who hoard everything, even the stuff that they hate, so long as they can get it for free? I don’t know.

Certainly, that’s not true of everyone who reads free books. But when you have a perma-free book, it tends to accumulate more of the barely-coherent “dis buk sux” kinds of reviews from people who probably weren’t in the target audience to begin with. And over time, that tends to weigh the book’s overall rating down, which unfortunately can be a turn-off for people who are in the book’s audience.

(3) TIPTREE AUCTION. Here’s an advance look at an item in the Tiptree Auction at WisCon.

On Saturday, May 28, fans of the Tiptree Award will have the opportunity to bid on a genuine blaster that was once the sidearm of Space Babe, a legendary feminist superhero. (Blaster is modeled here by a Space Babe impersonator). This rare item will be part of the annual Tiptree Award Auction, to be held at at WisCon in Madison Wisconsin….

 

Blaster-wielding Jeanne Gomoll.

Blaster-wielding Jeanne Gomoll.

(4) MANCUNICON. Starburst brings you Ed Fortune’s 2016 Eastercon report.

Event highlights included interviews with the Guest of Honour John W. Campbell Award-winning novelist Aliette de Bodard, Hugo Award-winning author Ian McDonald, British Fantasy Award-winning creator Sarah Pinborough, and noted astrophysicist David L. Clement. Each drew a huge crowd, and coloured the event in their own unique way. Notably, Clement spearheaded a science-heavy approach to many of the panel items, and many of the talks centred on science and Manchester’s iconic research centre, Jodrell Bank. The iconic building, which has inspired many works of science fiction throughout its history, was thoroughly explored in many talks and lectures.

(5) NUMBER FIVE. Nina Munteanu, at Amazing Stories, continues the series — “The Writer-Editor Relationship, Part 2: Five Things Writers Wish Editors Knew – and Followed”.

  1. Edit to preserve the writer’s voice through open and respectful dialogue

Losing your voice to the “hackings of an editor” is perhaps a beginner writer’s greatest fear. This makes sense, given that a novice writer’s voice is still in its infancy; it is tentative, evolving, and striving for an identity. While a professional editor is not likely to “hack,” the fear may remain well-founded.

A novice’s voice is often tangled and enmeshed in a chaos of poor narrative style, grammatical errors, and a general misunderstanding of the English language. Editors trying to improve a novice writer’s narrative flow without interfering with voice are faced with a challenge. Teasing out the nuances of creative intent amid the turbulent flow of awkward and obscure expression requires finesse—and consideration. Good editors recognize that every writer has a voice, no matter how weak or ill-formed, and that voice is the culmination of a writer’s culture, beliefs, and experiences. Editing to preserve a writer’s voice—particularly when it is weak and not fully formed—needs a “soft touch” that invites more back-and-forth than usual, uses more coaching-style language, and relies on good feedback….

(6) KELLY LINK. Marion Deeds picked the right day to post a review of a Kelly Link story from Get in Trouble at Fantasy Literature.

“The Summer People” by Kelly Link (February 2016, free online at Wall Street Journal, also included in her anthology Get in Trouble)

“The Summer People” is the first story in Kelly Link’s new story collection Get in Trouble. Fran is a teenager living in a rural part of the American southeast. Her mother is gone, and she is neglected by her moonshiner father. While Fran is running a fever of 102 with the flu, her father informs her that he has to go “get right with God.” On his way out the door, he reminds her that one of the summer families is coming up early and she needs to get the house ready. However, that family isn’t the only group of summer people that Fran “does for,” and this is the point of Link’s exquisite, melancholy tale.

(7) HE’S FROM THE FUTURE. While Doctor Who can travel to anyplace and nearly any point in time, he invariably ends up in London. The Traveler at Galactic Journey seems likewise constrained always to arrive at the same opinion of John W. Campbell, although his fellow fans voted Analog a Hugo for this year’s work — “[April 18, 1961] Starting on the wrong foot”.

Gideon Marcus, age 42, lord of Galactic Journey, surveyed the proud column that was his creation.  Three years in the making, it represented the very best that old Terra had to offer.  He knew, with complete unironic sincerity, that the sublimity of his articles did much to keep the lesser writers in check, lest they develop sufficient confidence to challenge Gideon’s primacy.  This man, this noble-visaged, pale-skinned man, possibly Earth’s finest writer, knew without a doubt that this was the way to begin all of his stories…

…if he wants to be published in Analog, anyway.

(8) ON MILITARY SF. SFFWorld interviews Christopher Nuttall.

Christopher Nuttall’s Their Darkest Hour has just been released as part of the Empire at War collection where four British Science Fiction authors have joined forces to show the world that British Military Science Fiction is a force to be reckoned with….

So what is different with British Military SF? Obviously in Their Darkest Hour you have the UK setting that probably will be more familiar to a Europeans than Americans, but do you also think there are other aspects where British authors are able to bring something different and unique to military SF? 

I think that’s a hard question to answer.

There is, if you will, a cultural difference between American MIL-SF (and military in general) and British MIL-SF.  Many American military characters (in, say, John Ringo’s work) are very forward, very blunt … I’d go so far as to say that most of them are thoroughly bombastic.  Think a Drill Instructor screaming in your face.  While a great many British characters are often calm, competent and basically just get the job done.  We’re not as outwardly enthusiastic as the Americans; we’re more gritty endurance, stiff upper lip and just keep going until we win.

To some extent, I think that comes from our differing experiences.  The Americans are staggeringly rich and, even as early as their civil war, had little trouble keeping their troops supplied.  Britain, particularly in the years after 1919, had very real problems making ends meet, let alone keeping the troops supplied.  We operate on a shoestring and know it.  The Falklands was our most successful war in years, yet it was a very close run thing.  We simply cannot afford to be as blatant as the Americans.

I think that is reflected in our SF too.  Independence Day was followed by Invasion: Earth, a six-episode TV series set in Britain.  Independence Day is blatant; the enemy is clearly visible, merely overwhelmingly powerful.  Invasion: Earth has an enemy who hides in the shadows, at least up until the final episode.  They both represent, too, a very different set of fears.

(9) OVER THE EDGE OF HISTORY. Jeff Somers considers “6 Historical Fiction Novels That Are Almost Fantasy” at B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog.

Hild, by Nicola Griffith Set in the so-called “Dark Ages,” after Rome abandoned Britain but before the squabbling kingdoms and tribes were unified under one crown, Griffith’s novel tells the true story of the Christian saint Hild, who would become Saint Hilda of Whitby, patron saint of learning. In 7th century Britain, she is the 6-year old niece of King Edwin of Northumbria, and becomes his seer and mystic upon arrival at his court. The reality of otherworldly forces is taken for granted as real in this brutal, violent land, and Griffith plays with the concept expertly as Hild becomes increasingly masterful at sniffing out plots and advising her uncle in ways that often seem magical. Anyone who has been awed by a brilliant mind’s ability to perceive what most cannot will witness that superpower at work in Hild, one of the most complex and deeply-drawn characters to ever appear in a novel—historical, fantasy, or otherwise.

(10) AN OP-ED. David Dubrow, in “David A Riley and the HWA”, criticizes how Horror Writers of America handled the recent controversy. And he’s announced he’ll be publishing an interview with Riley about it.

At times it’s interesting to get under the hood of the writing business and see how the sausage is made, to mix cliched metaphors. This issue happens to concern horror writers, so it has particular meaning for me at this time.

In short, an English horror author named David A Riley was set to be on the jury for the anthology segment of the upcoming Bram Stoker Awards. As it turns out, Riley was once a member of a far-right, nationalist political party in the UK called the National Front. A Tumblr blog was created to curate some of Riley’s online commentary, titled David Andrew Riley Is a Fascist. Wikipedia’s entry on National Front can be found here.

When outraged members protested Riley’s appointment to the jury, Horror Writers Association President Lisa Morton issued a tepid statement on Facebook that satisfied nobody. As is so often the case, the most arresting thing wasn’t the statement, but the ensuing discussion. Three distinct elements stood out and are worth examination….

Second, the thread has really big buts. The biggest but is, of course, “I believe in free speech, but…” A clever reader always ignores everything before the but in any statement containing a but. Anyone who puts his big but into the free speech discussion is not on the side of free speech, but is actually in favor of criminalizing speech he finds offensive (see what I did there?). As someone who worked at the bleeding edge of First (and Second) Amendment issues in publishing for over thirteen years, I find the big buts disturbing, but they’re there, and they stink like hell….

(11) THE FIRST RULE OF CHICXULUB. According to the BBC, this is “What really happened when the ‘dino killer’ asteroid struck”.

Where armies of trees once stretched skywards, seemingly escaping from the thickets of ferns and shrubs that clawed at their roots, only scorched trunks remain. Instead of the incessant hum of insect chatter blotting out the sound of ponderous giant dinosaurs, only the occasional flurry of wind pierces the silence. Darkness rules: the rich blues and greens, and occasional yellows and reds that danced in the Sun’s rays have all been wiped out.

This is Earth after a six-mile-wide asteroid smashed into it 66 million years ago.

“In the course of minutes to hours it went from this lush, vibrant world to just absolute silence and nothing,” says Daniel Durda, a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in Colorado. “Especially in the thousands of square miles around the impact site, the slate was just wiped clean.”

Much like putting in all the edge pieces of a jigsaw, scientists have outlined the lasting impacts of the meteor strike. It claimed the lives of more than three-quarters of the animal and plant species on Earth. The most famous casualties were the dinosaurs – although in fact many of them survived in the form of birds….

(12) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY GIRL

  • Born April 18, 1976 — Melissa Joan Hart. She’s not a teenaged witch anymore.

(13) THE STARLOST. Created then disowned by Harlan Ellison, the 1970s series The Starlost can be seen here on YouTube. The link takes you to the entire series for Starlost (16 episodes plus the “sales pitch.”)

Complaining about how the show was dumbed down from the original concept, Ellison took his name off the credits and substituted his Writers Guild alias Cordwainer Bird.

(14) DUTCH TREATS. Wim Crusio reminisces about conversations with writers at the 1990 Worldcon, in “Writing science, writing fiction (I)”.

Synopsis: Whether writing a good novel or a killer scientific article, the process is much the same: What scientists can learn from science fiction authors…

Many years ago, back in 1990, I attended my first Science Fiction Worldcon, called “ConFiction“, in The Hague. An interesting feature that year was the “Dutch Treat”. One could sign up with a group of about 10 people and invite a science fiction writer for lunch and talk with them in that small circle. To me, these “treats” were the highlights of that particular meeting. I did as many of them as I could and have fond memories of speaking with John Brunner, Harry Harrison (a Guest of Honor, accompanied by his charming wife, Joan), Fred Pohl, Brian Aldiss, and Bob Shaw (I think that’s all of them, but I am writing this from memory, so I may have forgotten one). Of course, these conversations spanned many topics and I was not the only participant, but at some point or another I managed to pose the same question to each of them, namely: how do you write a story (be it a short story or a novel in multiple parts). Do you just start, do you write some parts first and only continue when you’re completely done with revising them, or something else entirely?

(15) REJECTION. Editor Sigrid Ellis’ post “On handling publishing rejection” tells things that can’t really be said in rejection letters. Some of them would be encouraging to writers!

Speaking from my work as a short fiction editor, I can 100% genuinely assure you — sometimes your story is fantastic, it’s just not what that venue needs at that time.

I hated writing those rejections. I knew that the writers would take them as a sign that the story wasn’t any good, no matter how much I tried to say “I swear to GOD it’s not you, it’s us! We just need something lighter/darker/fantasy/sf this month I SWEAR!!!”

Of course authors take that hard. Because — and here’s the secret — the generic blow-off letter is very similar to a genuine, personal rejection. That similarity is on PURPOSE. It permits everyone to save face. It allows everyone to walk away, dignity intact. But, then, if you get a personal rejection, you understandably might wonder if this is just the blow-off.

I know. It’s hard, and I know.

But here’s what I always wanted every author to do when they received a rejection, whether standard or personalized…..

(16) STRICTLY ROMANCE. The first romance-only bookstore starts in LA. (Strictly speaking, The Ripped Bodice is in Culver City.)

Romance novels are a billion dollar industry, vastly outselling science fiction, mystery and literary books.

And there’s only one rule for writing a romance – it has to have a happy ending.

Yet the romance genre has long been dismissed as smut or trashy by many in, and out, of the publishing world – a fact that mystifies sisters Bea and Leah Koch, who last month opened the US’s first exclusively romantic fiction bookstore.

Their shop in Los Angeles is called The Ripped Bodice, and the store’s motto is “smart girls read romance”.

(17) DEFINING X. They say it’s the intersection of politics and Marvel comics: “A People’s History of the Marvel Universe, Week 9: The Mutant Metaphor (Part I)” at Lawyers, Guns & Money.

A lot of people have discussed the manifold ways in which the “mutant metaphor” is problematic, but what I’m going to argue in this issue is that a big part of the problem with the “mutant metaphor” is that it wasn’t clearly defined from the outset, in part because it wasn’t anywhere close to the dominant thread of X-Men comics.[i] While always an element of the original run, as much time was spent on fighting giant Kirby robots or stopping the likes of Count Nefaria from encasing Washington D.C in a giant crystal bubble. And this was always problematic, because in the shared Marvel Universe, you need to explain why it is that the X-Men are “feared and hated” and must hide beneath the façade of Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters in Westchester, whereas the Avengers and the Fantastic Four were treated as celebrities and could live openly on Fifth Avenue and Madison Avenue, respectively.

So what did the “mutant” metaphor mean initially?

One of the best ways to understand how the “mutant metaphor” was originally understood is to look at depictions of anti-mutant prejudice. In the early Lee and Kirby run, anti-mutant prejudice is described almost entirely as a mass phenomenon, a collective hysteria that takes hold of large groups of people. You can see this especially in the way that crowds of humans descend into violence in contexts that you wouldn’t normally expect them. Like sports events:…

(18) SKYWALKERED BACK. J. J. Abrams made a little mistake…. CinemaBlend has the story: “Star Wars: J.J. Abrams Backtracks Statement About Rey’s Parents”.

Earlier, J.J. Abrams sat down with Chris Rock at the Tribeca Film Festival to talk about the director’s work in television and film. During the Q&A segment, a young fan asked the identity of Rey’s parents and Abrams said “they aren’t in Episode VII.” This implies that just about every fan theory is wrong, but Entertainment Weekly caught up with Abrams after the show and he was able to clarify his statement:

What I meant was that she doesn’t discover them in Episode VII. Not that they may not already be in her world.

So, Rey’s parents could be somewhere in The Force Awakens as opposed to not being in it at all. That’s a pretty serious backtrack, but it opens the floor back up for fans to come up with theories on the heroine’s lineage. This potentially limits the amount of suspects, but most theories were already focused on Force Awakens characters. There are a few contenders that have risen above the rest, each with there own amount of logic and speculation.

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, JJ, Alan Baumler, Chip Hitchcock, and Martin Morse Wooster for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Hampus Eckerman.]

Tiptree or Sheldon?

A unique occurrence or the start of a trend? SF Signal’s link collection for December 2 includes this entry:

That is, of course, the real name of “James Tiptree, Jr.” I can’t recall seeing Sheldon’s name standing alone before. Even the linked article, about this weekend’s Tiptree symposium at the University of Oregon in Eugene, identifies the writer by both her pseudonym and real name.

Yet SF Signal’s usage of “Sheldon” is not a mistake. And it made me begin to wonder if someday in the future scholars and fans will routinely use Sheldon’s name by itself?

I ran the question past Jeanne Gomoll, long associated with the Tiptree Award as a member of its Motherboard.

Jeanne Gomoll: I will leave for Eugene tomorrow morning and am looking forward to the Symposium … but I think it’s going to feel more like an academic conference than a con to fans. On the other hand, it may also feel a little strange to the academics, especially when the Tiptree Motherboard opens the party Friday night.

At the conference, I expect people to use both Tiptree’s and Sheldon’s names. I tend to use “James Tiptree, Jr” when speaking of her stories and about the public author. But I use “Alice Sheldon” when speaking about the private person and her relationships with people who knew her true identity. It’s complicated, especially when you include her other pseudonym, “Raccoona Sheldon,” but that very complexity is what makes her work so interesting and so appropriate for the award that was named after her. I don’t ever expect “Tiptree” to replaced by “Sheldon” — she will remain ineluctably BOTH female and masculine.

Here is a collage Jeanne designed for the Symposium’s Facebook event page.

Event banner by Jeanne Gomoll.

Event banner by Jeanne Gomoll.

The James Tiptree, Jr. Symposium (December 4-5) celebrates the acquisition of the James Tiptree, Jr. (Alice B. Sheldon) literary papers by the University of Oregon’s Special Collections and University Archives. The archive also holds the Ursula K. Le Guin Papers, the Joanna Russ Papers, the Sally Miller Gearhart Papers, and the Suzette Haden Elgin Papers.

The keynote talk will be given by Julie Phillips, author of the biography James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice Sheldon. There will be a panel discussion with other writers who corresponded with Tiptree, including Ursula K. Le Guin, Suzy McKee Charnas and David Gerrold. A panel about the Tiptree Award will be held on Saturday afternoon.

An exhibit based on the Tiptree Papers and featuring the Tiptree Quilt will be in Knight Library.

QuiltPosterBIG

The Tiptree Quilt is based on James Tiptree, Jr.’s science fiction novel, Brightness Falls from the Air, which tells the story of humans and aliens who witness the spectacular passing of a fiery wave-front, and the incineration of the planet Damien, caused by the nova of The Murdered Star. 1,248 squares of fabric were used to construct this 100-[inch] x 121-[inch] textile painting of this fantastic scene. Except for two small pieces, the swirling image is constructed with only straight-cut pieces. If you look closely you can see female signs in the planet below. Work spanned ten years and the combined effort of 65 people from around the world, many of whom had never quilted before. Elspeth Krisor directed and coordinated work on the quilt; Jeanne Gomoll and Tracy Benton designed it.

After visiting London for Jeanne Gomoll’s guest of honor appearance at the 2014 World Science Fiction Convention, the Quilt has been donated to the feminist science fiction archive at the University of Oregon at Eugene.

WisCon Memories in 40×40

WisCon is turning 40 and has begun a retrospective series about the con that created a home for those interested in science fiction and feminism.

WisCon: 40×40 will reminisce about one or two past conventions each week. Chris Wallish of the SF3 Communications Committee is actively looking for submissions. “Anyone who’s interested in writing about a particular WisCon can email me directly (to the comms chair email address) to enquire.”

Jeanne Gomoll

Jeanne Gomoll

The first post in the series is by Jeanne Gomoll, who was present at the creation.

Both Jeanne Gomoll and Janice Bogstad had been impressed by an event that happened during the previous year’s Worldcon (MidAmericon 1). Susan Wood had struggled and succeeded in getting a single “Women and SF” panel scheduled, though the concom frankly didn’t expect many people to actually attend and therefore placed it in a tiny, out-of-the-way room. As it turned out, there was a rather huge number of people interested in it, and the 100 or so folks who had managed to squeeze into the room, or who had stood around outside the room trying to hear what was being said inside, stuck around in the lounge outside the panel room for several hours afterwards, talking with one another and networking. Victoria Vayne proposed A Women’s Apa during that extended conversation. And Jeanne and Jan began to talk about a convention where there would be more than a single “women and SF” panel. WisCon 1 programming got kickstarted in that lounge and many women left it intent on making new kinds of cons, publications, and networks.

***

Everyone on the first WisCon concom contributed program ideas. In fact, in the early years, there was no separate department that managed programming. Many panels were inspired by articles written for Janus and/or rehearsed in the group’s monthly public meetings. The group met weekly at Nick’s Bar on State Street; in addition, the group produced a monthly program at UW’s Union South, advertised in the campus press. Members volunteered to present (For example: “Your First Time…Reading SF” and “Will the Real James Tiptree, Jr. Please Stand Up!”); I designed flyers for these events and they were posted on campus kiosks. Many group members found one another through these events and eventually joined the concom. The best of those monthly presentations were turned into WisCon programs. For many years, the task of creating programming was shared by everyone on the committee. Most planning meetings devoted significant time to brainstorming and refining program ideas. Although I love the crowd-sourcing process used by WisCon nowadays, I sometimes miss the camaraderie of those early meetings when it felt as though we were inventing WisCon.

Jeanne Gomoll Resigns from WisCon

Ending a 38 year association with WisCon, Jeanne Gomoll resigned from the convention committee and the board of its parent organization, SF3, on October 5. “Leaving it has broken my heart,” she wrote.

Gomoll was chair of WisCon 20 (1996) and 30 (2006), and served as President of SF3 from 1992 to 1994 and 2010 to 2013.

Gomoll made the announcement on WisCon’s Facebook page and also sent a copy for use by File 770. After an introductory paragraph paraphrased above, the rest of her statement says:

2014 has been a strange year. In August I was honored by Loncon 3 as a guest of honor at the 72nd World Science Fiction Convention, in part for my work on WisCon’s concom. But during the con, a part of me was thinking about the situation back home and sometimes I felt a bit as if I was attending worldcon using a secret identity.

Through the summer and early Fall of 2014 a complicated, painful, and very intense conversation raged about how we should deal with fellow members who caused damage to the con. A number of people resigned from the concom in the midst of the conversation, including three past chairs and several others who have held major responsibilities. The surviving concom has done a remarkable job recently in recruiting to fill open positions and I frankly regret that I will not get the chance to work with some of the new folks. But the loss of both experienced hands and institutional knowledge will make it a difficult year.

I will not engage in discussion about the substance of our disagreement here. I have always felt that in any volunteer organization, the people who do the work have the right to choose the process for that work. So I will leave the discussion to those who it most affects now. In brief, I disagreed with the process that was chosen by the majority of the concom and so I felt I had to resign.

Working on the concom is a very different thing than attending WisCon. The two are intimately connected of course. But my resignation from the concom does not affect my support of WisCon. I will be forever proud of my work on WisCon and for the space it offers the feminist science fiction community and its allies. I count myself lucky to have worked on WisCon for as long as I have, and hope that it continues for many more years. I plan to attend WisCon 39 in 2015 and many future WisCons.

Photos From Day 1 of Loncon 3

Scenes at the 2014 Worldcon, shot by Francis Hamit:

Loncon 3 Guests of Honor Bryan Talbot, Jeanne Gomoll, Robin Hobb, with co-chair Steve Cooper at the press briefing.

Loncon 3 Guests of Honor Bryan Talbot, Jeanne Gomoll, Robin Hobb, with co-chair Steve Cooper at the press briefing.

Loncon 3 co-chairs Steve Cooper and Alice Lawson at left. Guests of Honor John Clute and Malcolm Edwards at right, during press briefing.

Loncon 3 co-chairs Steve Cooper and Alice Lawson with Guests of Honor John Clute and Malcolm Edwards.

Inside the ExCel at Loncon 3.

Inside the ExCel at Loncon 3.

Sales tables at Loncon 3.

Sales tables at Loncon 3.

Millennium Falcon exhibit at Loncon 3 -- .

Millennium Falcon exhibit at Loncon 3 — <http://www.loncon3.org/exhibits.php#70>.

Robbie Bourget, co-chair Anticipation, 2009 Worldcon.

Robbie Bourget, co-chair Anticipation, 2009 Worldcon.

Gay and Joe Haldeman at Loncon 3.

Gay and Joe Haldeman at Loncon 3.

Read Janus/Aurora Online

The entire run of the famous fanzine Janus which Jan Bogstad and Jeanne Gomoll originated in the 1970s is available online here. It was a great zine, and the SF3 site explains:

Janus was nominated for three “Best Fanzine” Hugos in 1978, 1979 and 1980. Jeanne Gomoll was nominated for two “Best Fan Artist” Hugos in 1978 and 1980. Janus and Aurora were the most prominent feminist science fiction fanzines of their time. With the exception of Amanda Bankier’s fanzine, The Witch and the Chameleon, which ceased publication in 1976, Janus and Aurora were the ONLY fanzines with this focus.

Just how long it’s been available I don’t know: Bill Burns of eFanzines recently gave the archive a signal boost.

The publicity couldn’t be more timely with Jeanne Gomoll having been announced as a Loncon 3 guest of honor this past weekend.

Jeanne Gomoll at Work

Union Street Design is renowned fanartist Jeanne Gomoll’s business website. A lot of her past projects are on display there: an impressive collection.

About half of them stfnal or fannish. She’s done several things for the Tiptree Award, the logo and a mascot, the Spacebabe.

The book design for Flying Cups and Saucers: Gender Explorations in Science Fiction & Fantasy,Debbie Notkin, ed. might be her most beautiful project, with a quite gorgeous Freddie Baer cover.

And I greatly liked the invitation she created for the 50th birthday party she celebrated jointly with three other women, with gorgeously patterned autumn colors surrounding their four smiling faces.

50th Birthday Invitation