#nesfa

It’s that time again: Boskone 63 will be taking place next weekend, February 13th to 15th, in Boston Massachusetts at the Westin Boston Seaport Distict!! This will be my third year running joining Boskone in the dealer’s room, and I couldn’t be more excited, especially because the artist guest-of-honor is Charles Urbach, whose work I’ve loved since I was hanging out annual in the Gencon art show starting 20+ years ago. Greg Cox, Stefan Rudnicki, and many other awesome folks will also be there – and I hope you’ll be there as well!

[NESFA website link]

The purpose of this contest is to encourage amateur and semi-professional writers to reach the next level of proficiency. We will look for engaging openings, good character development, well structured plotting, powerful imagery, witty or humorous language, unique word or phrasing choices, and convincing endings. This contest is intended for beginning writers. If you have received more than $1000 for your writing from any source, on the date you submit your story, and/or have published, in any paying publication, a novel or multiple shorter works adding up to more than 40,000 words you are no longer eligible. If you are unsure, send us your publication history.

The deadline for submissions is September 30, 2019. All submissions must be made via email to [email protected] in flat text, rich text, PDF, or any format readable by MS Word, Open Office, or LibreOffice. Please include your submission as an attachment rather than in the body of the email. Story pages should be numbered, with the page number and the title of the story at the top of each page.

A qualifying story must have strong science fiction or fantasy elements and must be shorter than 7,500 words. Stories must be original works of fiction, submitted by their authors. No reprints, fan fiction, or poetry please.

Attn: followers who are aspiring to be publishable.

We’re coming up on Duck Prints Press’s next vending appearance – we’ll be back at the Westin Boston Seaport District, this time in the vendors room for Boskone on February 9th through 11th! Boskone is the flagship convention for the New England Science Fiction Association (NESFA), and special guests at this year’s convention include Ben Aaronovitch, Emily Hurst Pritchett, and John Scalzi. There’ll also be over 30 vendors, an author’s alley, an art show, and of course scads of cool panels!

One of the authors we work with, Tris Lawrence, will also be in attendance, participating in panels and signing books. You can check out her schedule here.

February 15, 1987:

27 years ago today (though the 15th was a Sunday that year), in the Sheraton Boston, as a purposefully mislabeled piece of Boskone programming ("WSFS BUSINESS MEETING, VERY BORING, PLEASE GO AWAY"), I got hitched. (For the second time. The first wedding was a private affair in LA, the week before. The necessary paperwork and blood tests had been done in California, and due to cross-border legalities, once we had the wedding license we Got Official immediately, then headed off for the full dress wedding in Boston. This means that Peter and I have two wedding anniversaries, which is a fun way to confuse people.)

The attendees in Boston were a hundred or so friends and colleagues, fellow writers and fellow fans -- a broad sampling of the cream of US SF and fantasy fandom and prodom, all people we were and are privileged to know and who we wanted with us on The (formal) Day. I shudder to think what would have happened to the speculative fiction field at large if someone had dropped a bomb on that room...

The wedding party from left to right: Kurt Siegel, George Brickner* (aka Dupa the Parrot, gone now and much missed...), Ramona Sepulveda, Beth Meacham, me, Peter, Todd McCaffrey (intrepid Best Man), Theresa Renner**, David Gerrold (equally intrepid Giver Away of Brides), and Wilma Fisher*&**.

After this there was a wedding breakfast. And then I was scheduled to do a panel called "Harlots in Hell", and there wasn't time to change, so I went and did it in my wedding dress. (And got accused, as I had been on the way down to the wedding, of having "a great hall costume".)

What a day...

Thanks again to NESFA for the eager cooperation and the happy memories. (Not least of which was being serenaded by the NESFA Kazoo Choir at the reception.) :)

*Fellow sysop of HOM-9, the SF and Fantasy Forum on CompuServe