Looking back at Norwescon 2

By maydela | November 8, 2010

In my last post, I talked about how the committee that organizes Norwescon has grown, but I failed to mention attendance. The first Norwescon had an estimated attendance of 415, the second 725 – almost double! Last year, Norwescon 33 had an estimated attendance of 3,349 and we almost ran out of badge blanks. Currently, 110% of our room block is reserved, so if you are planning to attend, now would be a great time to register. A full weekend membership is only $45 if you buy it before December 31st. Visit our membership page for more information.

The Chair for Norwescon 2 was once again Gregory Bennett. I’m afraid I don’t have anything new to say about him. I think a good way to get more information about the beginning of Norwescon would be to do interviews with the people who started it. If you have any questions you think I should ask, please let me know in the comments!

The Guest of Honor was Philip José Farmer. He died in 2009 after a prolific writing career of over 60 years. He wrote under a number of pseudonyms, as well as under his own name. He is best known for both the Riverworld and World of Tiers series. Farmer often worked with religious themes, and he is also regarded as breaking the taboo on sexual themes in science fiction.

The Fan Guest of Honor was Loren MacGregor, who was born and raised in Seattle and currently lives in Eugene, Oregon. He wrote The Net for the Ace Science Fiction Specials series. He also edited and contributed to a number of zines* and other fan publications in the ’70s and is currently active on a number of internet forums.

The Toast Master was Elizabeth A Lynn. She mostly wrote fantasy works, and is credited for being one of the first authors to write sympathetic gay and lesbian characters. She lives in San Francisco. Her latest published works are Dragon’s Winter (1999) and Dragon’s Treasure (2004), the first two books of a trilogy. Dragon’s Winter got some bad reviews, so I wonder if that means that the trilogy will never be finished. Then again, the gap between those first two books was almost as long.

*Older zines are really hard to research online. If anyone has an idea how to find more information on zines from the ’70s and ’80s, I would really appreciate it.