LoneStar Con 3 Announces Guests

The Texas bid for the 2013 Worldcon was officially declared the winner at Renovation’s Saturday business meeting. It had been essentially unopposed and received 694 of the 760 votes cast, with 14 other choices receiving votes.

Co-chairs Laura Domitz and Bill Parker announced the con will be called LoneStar Con 3 and will be held in San Antonio from August 29-September 2, 2013.

The guests of honor will be James Gunn, Norman Spinrad, Darrell K. Sweet, Ellen Datlow, and Willie Siros. Toastmaster will be Paul Cornell. There also will be two Special Guests, Leslie Fish and Joe R. Lansdale.

At this time a new adult attending membership costs $160, young adult (under 21) $110 and Child $75.   

The detail of Site Selection voting is: Texas 694, None of the Above 14, and write-ins — Xerpes 6, Minneapolis in ’73 5, Denton, the Happiest Place on Earth 4, Boston 2020 Christmas 3, and the following each received 1 vote, Antartica, Babylon 5, BSFS Clubhouse, Chicago, Cincinnati, Fred Duarte’s House, Peggy Rae’s House, Spuzzum, Unalakleet (AK). There were also 14 invalid ballots submitted.

The full press release follows the jump.

[Thanks to Patrick Molloy for a copy of the voting stats.]

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When the Economy
Goes Off the Rails

It’s hard to visualize all the economic connections that are tangled up in the current crisis. It’s easier to understand practical examples, like the long trains of freightcars that link farmers with city-dwellers.

A Filknet discussion reminded Kay Shapero about Leslie Fish’s “The Grain Train“.

I forget who said it, but it’s true that when you try to pick up just one thing you invariably find it’s hitched to the rest of the universe.

Leslie Fish explained, “I wrote that song in Chicago, which sits at a huge rail-junction, and at the southern edge of one of the Great Lakes, AND at the edge of the Wheatlands. If the trains stopped rolling, even Chicago would be in serious trouble.”

[Thanks to David Klaus for the link.]

Joanie Winston Passes Away (1931-2008)

Joanie Winston, 77, an organizer of the original Star Trek conventions of the early 1970s, died September 11 after several months in an assisted living center.

I remember her from the 1975 NASFiC, and a couple other cons of that era.

ComicMix gives a detailed look back at her life.

Her chapter in Jacqueline Lichtenberg and Sondra Marshak’s Star Trek Lives! provided people with a glimpse into the birth of the conventions along with a take on the Star Trek fan fiction world. She continued to talk about those days, providing information to William Shatner for his Get a Life! memoir and can be seen on camera in Denise Crosby’s documentary Trekkies 2.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg, in her review of the Trekkies 2 DVD, lists some of Winston’s credits:

Joanie Winston was a contributor to Star Trek Lives! with a chapter on the first Star Trek Convention in New York that started all this. She went on to write a whole book — The Making Of The Trek Conventions: Or, How To Throw A Party For 12,000 Of Your Most Intimate Friends by Joan Winston. And she edited Star Toons — Trek cartoons…

Two more well-known fans listed among those “starring” in Trekkies 2 are Ben Yalow and Leslie Fish.

The Trekkies 2 site has an image of her at a Shore Leave in Baltimore.