Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in New England Science Fiction Association's LiveJournal:

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Thursday, June 19th, 2008
12:28 am [sfrose]	NESFA Press Guests at Boskone 46 We are pleased to announce that Greg and Astrid Bear will be NESFA Press Guests at Boskone 46 in honor of the publication of Call Me Joe (tentative tile), volume one of the short fiction of Poul Anderson, which will make its debut at Boskone. Current Mood: excited (Comment on this)
Friday, April 18th, 2008
6:17 am [liscarey]	Vote for the Fluffy Little Dog! Addy wants a pretty new collar and leash, and she has entered a photo contest to win them. She's currently in second place, with 58 votes. Please help her pull ahead, to be voted April's Sweet Heart and win the collar and leash! Voting is now through the end of April. You can vote for her here: http://agilityq.com/aprilcontest.html Addy thanks you for your support! Current Mood: excited (Comment on this)
Sunday, April 13th, 2008
10:20 am [dalesql]	Lets go fly kites! Hi everyone. The long range forecasts from the weatherguessers for next Saturday are optimistic, so it looks like kite flying is a go. So I hope to see you all next Saturday, April 19th, starting around 10am until we get tired on revere beach. [edit the long link below.] If that link doesn't work, google maps for 209 revere beach blvd, revere, MA 02151. There is the picnic pavilion there as the meeting place, or look for people with kites down on the beach. The closest MBTA station is the one for Wonderland dog racing park on the Blue line. Bring kites, bring windproof clothing, bring your fun self. If it does rain or is too cold, then we postpone one week. Hope to see you there. --Dale ( Hide the LOOOng url ) (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, February 20th, 2008
11:55 am [sfrose]	Awards  Awards given out at boskone 45: Skylark (The E. E. Smith Memorial Award): Charlie Stross (charlesstross) Gaughan (The Jack Gaughan Award for Best Emerging Artist): Shelly Wan FN (The Fellowship of NESFA): Ellen Asher (actually awarded in November 2007, but she was "surprised" with this news at Boskone...) Congratulations all! Current Mood: ecstatic (Comment on this)
Friday, January 11th, 2008
6:06 pm [sfrose]	Boskone LJ The  boskone LJ community has been started. I expect that news, questions, etc, will be posted there.   (Comment on this)
3:52 pm [capybaron]	let the games begin? A recent discussion on the NESFA electronic mailing lists pointed out the lack of traffic on alternate internet forums (fora?) such as this one? Like many others, I have difficulty dealing with the information deluge. That said, what would be appropriate for the LiveJournal site, as opposed to the mailing lists, the nesfa.org website or even the Boskone.org website? Current Mood: quixotic (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, August 20th, 2007
12:14 am [kevin_standlee]	New Hugo Award Web Site [Cross-posted to multiple communities, with apologies to those seeing it many times. Feel free to redistribute this news.] WORLD SCIENCE FICTION SOCIETY Contact: info@TheHugoAwards.org http://www.TheHugoAwards.org/ Release Date: August 20, 2007 NEW WEB SITE TO CELEBRATE SCIENCE FICTION AWARDS Hugo Award the preeminent science fiction award for 54 years The Hugo Awards, one of the highest honors in the field of science fiction and fantasy, have a new official web site at http://www.TheHugoAwards.org. The Hugo Awards honor the best in written and dramatized science fiction and fantasy as well as other categories. This new site serves as the definitive site for information about the Hugo Awards, including historical winner and nominee lists, pictures of past Hugo Award trophies, information on how to nominate and vote for the Awards, and an explanation of the rules and procedures for the Award. ( More About the Hugo Awards ) (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, August 18th, 2007
9:28 pm [gerisullivan]	Open Meeting: The Cookie Report "Would you bring us some sort of cookie product?" debgeisler asked in reply to my email about Sunday's Open Meeting. She and benveniste are hosting what promises to be a bang-up affair and then some. She even dared mention that some store-bought cookies would do, even though the last time I took an assortment of store-bought cookies to a gathering at their house, I left them in a hot car. There was chocolate involved, and it melted the objects into cookie bricks. I tried breaking them back into individual cookies. Mistake. I really should have just thrown them away -- the unappetizing memory of those pathetic mounds of Milanos and splintered masses of Keebler fudge sticks is fine for a life-long laugh, but they didn't qualify as food I can ever imagine serving again. Indeed, I'm embarrassed I tried that trick once. But the opportunity to bake, and a free day to do it in? It's been a long time since I made cookies.... The dough for the ginger creams is chilling. The last sheet of low-fat, chewy, maple-flavored, Irish oatmeal cookies is in the oven. A batch of ginger snaps is on the cooling racks, as is a batch of low-fat, chewy oatmeal raisin'n'cherry cookies. And I still hope to make frosted orange drops. I need something with color to contrast with all these brown cookies! Beside, they're the only cookies of the bunch I've ever made before. I want to walk in with one proven crowd pleaser, much as I think the maple oatmeal cookies will be joining the orange drops in popularity by the end of the day. They're yummy! You will note there's no chocolate involved. I figure it's safer that way. Besides, I understand lauriemann is bringing brownies, and Deb made emergency back-up chocolate chip cookies. 'Cause she's like that, you know. Yep, we're going to starve. Just like we always do. (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, February 18th, 2007
9:57 pm [onyxhawke]	Head count? Does anyone know what the official (ish) head count was for the con this year? More importantly: Excellent Con! And thanks especially to Jim for putting me on panels with interesting people. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Thursday, February 15th, 2007
5:29 pm [gerisullivan]	My first post from Boskone 44 I've just posted about my arrival at Boskone over at my LiveJournal. Don't know how much I'll keep it up during this very full convention, but I'll try to post pointers here (or there) when I do. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, February 14th, 2007
9:29 am [madfilkentist]	Truck loading? It's 9:30 AM. Do we have a go/no-go decision yet on truck loading for tonight? (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, January 30th, 2007
10:41 pm [debgeisler]	Boskone 44 Hotel Deadline If you're planning to come to Boskone 44 on President's Day Weekend and have not yet booked your room, you have until 5 p.m. February 7 to do so at Boskone's new home, the 6-month-old Westin Boston Waterfront. But why wait 'til the last minute? Here. Click this link: http://www.nesfa.org/boskone/hotel.html Right. Go ahead. Book it. You know you want to. Brand new hotel. Great views of Boston Harbor. The Heavenly Bed. The Heavenly Shower. Emerge physically invigorated, then pop down to Boskone to recharge your sensawunda. It'll be great to see you there. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, January 2nd, 2007
3:38 pm [debgeisler]	Mike Ford Auction & Extravaganza The New England Science Fiction Association P.O. Box 809 Framingham, MA 01701 January 2, 2007 John M. (Mike) Ford was a gentleman. Scholar. Science fiction and fantasy writer (for definitions of both that encompassed comedy, mystery, cyberpunk, and Star Trek novels). Friend. Lover. Voracious reader. Punster. Game designer. Comics creator. Wit. Poet. But mostly, Mike Ford is best remembered as a "damned fine human being." Mike's death September 25, 2006 left a void for many people, and particularly for those of us in the SF&F community. Although Mike made Minneapolis his home, we were delighted to have him join us here in Boston for a number of memorable visits over the years – including one last Boskone in 2006. We will remember him in particular as Guest of Honor at Boskone 34 and as the wonderfully wry, eloquent host of "Ask Dr. Mike" and "Another Part of the Trilogy." In Mike's memory, the New England Science Fiction Association is delighted to announce the Mike Ford Memorial Auction & Extravaganza to be held at Boskone 44, a regional science fiction convention in Boston, on Friday night, February 16, 2007. We are soliciting donations of items to sell during this auction to help keep Mike's memory fresh and meaningful. Books, manuscripts, memorabilia, Tuckerizations, artwork, and other items of interest to science fiction fans will be particularly welcome. As part of the auction, Boskone 44 will feature snippets and vignettes from Mike’s contributions to Boskone and to SF&F, including some of the songs from the two musical cabarets he wrote and we produced: Boskone 34's "Another Part of the Trilogy" and Boskone 43's "Grim's Fairy Cabaret." All proceeds of the auction will be donated to the John M. Ford Memorial Book Endowment, a special fund of the Friends of the Minneapolis Public Library. According to Linda K. Merritt of the Friends of the Minneapolis Public Library, For every $500 dollars deposited in the endowment funds, the Friends purchase a book for the library system annually with the interest earned on the endowment. This really is the gift that keeps on giving. You can specify what genre or library location/branch the books are intended for. Some people just specify "where most needed." We prepare bookplates and have them inserted in each book before they are shelved. Patrons will see Mike's name each time the book is opened! I think it is important for people to know that these funds are 'permanently restricted' to the annual purchase of books. The money will never be diverted to other use. To donate items to the auction or for more information about the auction, please contact FordAuction@nesfa.org, or write to us at Ford Auction Boskone 44 NESFA P.O. Box 809 Framingham, MA 01701 You can find us on the web at www.nesfa.org/boskone. (Comment on this)
Friday, December 29th, 2006
11:10 pm [sfrose]	mailing lists problems at lists.nesfa.org There has been an unexpected ISP change to where the NESFA, MCFI, SFLOVERS (smofs, smofcon & timebinders) and other fannish groups (Arisia, Albacon and others) have their mailing lists hosted. See xdaemon's post for more details. DNS changes and propagation is/may be necessary before things start to work again. I'm posting this to my LJ since many people on my flist are on some of these lists. Please excuse the bandwidth if you aren't. In the mean time enjoy the relative quietness. :-) I'll post updates as I know them. Current Mood: grumpy (Comment on this)
Wednesday, November 1st, 2006
12:47 am [gerisullivan]	Delivered! 49 NESFA Press books to John M. Ford Book Endowment Fund Read All You Want; We'll Print More The day after the John M. Ford Memorial Service, eight hardy NESFAns and friends of the club journeyed forth to hand-deliver 49 NESFA Press books to the Minneapolis Public Library. Click on the picture for others commemorating our grand adventure. The books were NESFA's initial contribution to the John M. Ford Book Endowment Fund -- they'll be joined by more books as we publish them in the future! Standing on the corner across the street from the library: Anne KG Murphy, Betsy Lundsten, Davey Snyder, Chip Hitchcock, Dean Gahlon, and Ben Yalow. Photo by Geri Sullivan. (Also posted to nemesis_draco with a pointer from my personal journal, too.) (Comment on this)
Monday, October 30th, 2006
12:38 am [damascene]	That Many Books (Cross-posted to nesfa and nemesis_draco.) That was fun. Brunch happened. Hell's Kitchen breakfasts are just as good as I remembered, and there was fine conversation with kalmn, netmouse, jonsinger, and Chip. Then we all piled into the rental car that already had the big boxes of books in the trunk, and drove to a parking spot about half a block from the Minneapolis Public Library, where we opened the boxes and distributed books into nifty NESFA Press tote bags. We were joined there by gerisullivan, benyalow, and fmsv, so there were eight of us carrying lots of bright blue tote bags with books. The folks at the MPL i-desk weren't exactly expecting us, or at least they didn't know they were, but when Geri explained our mission the desk manager was unreservedly delighted to wheel over an empty cart and have us start handing in bags of books for her to stack on it. And stack on it. And stack on it. We about filled a standard library cart with bright blue tote bags of NESFA Press books, collecting a small crowd of happy observers as well. More explanations were made. Grins all around. Happy people. Geri took photos of us with blue bags, us with blue bags and the cart, the cart filled with blue bags, more blue bags... As soon as she posts those, there'll be a link to wherever they are. We had a look around the new library, too. Large spaces filled with light. Skylights. An atrium, and skybridges crossing to connect the upper floors. Lots and lots of computers for data access. Bookshelves with clear labels on the ends. Not-overfilled shelves; space for acquisitions. We found several NESFA Press books already on the sf shelves, yay! Dean found one of the accesses to the stacks, so we all trooped in to see the huge room of huge shelf units filled with books, the shelf units mounted on grooved tracks with power cables above, and pressing the button on the side of any shelf unit causes the whole assembly to shift over until the aisle is where you need it to be to walk along that shelf unit to find the book you came in for. Books and mechanical toys, all in the same space. Finishing our walkabout, we went our separate ways. The library will make sure the donation is properly cataloged, and JMF Memorial Book Endowment bookplates put in as soon as they have those. NESFA Press will keep sending new books as we publish them. I'm still grinning. [Edited to update an lj username when someone told me what it is.] (Comment on this)
Tuesday, September 26th, 2006
11:58 pm [damascene]	On the Death of a Friend NESFA Clerk Rick Katze asked me for something about Mike Ford to put in the imminent IM, since he was GoH at the Boskone I chaired. Now, there's a part of the job description I wouldn't wish on anyone... This is what I've sent him. John M. Ford, 4/10/57 – 9/24/06 Every book is three books, after all: the one the writer intended, the one the reader expected, and the one that casts its shadow when the first two meet by moonlight. From “Rules of Engagement”, essay in From the End of the Twentieth Century Mike made his first sale at age 19; he’s always been a writer, although never prolific enough to satisfy most of us. Ten novels, no two alike in style or subject, and two collections of mostly short mostly fiction--but finding all of the stories, poems, lyrics, articles, game designs, comics scripts, pastiches*, and who-knows what-all else Mike wrote in the course of thirty years will doubtless some day send some haplessly fortunate scholar down many twisty little electronic passages. I have many of them. They’re almost all excellent, almost every word on every page precisely right. The understated elegance of the writing almost eclipses the breadth of their subjects, until one steps back to recognize the polymath at the keyboard. His work won two World Fantasy Awards, a Philip K. Dick Award, a Rhysling Award, multiple gaming design awards, and various Nebula, Locus, and other nominations. I have a manuscript copy of the first six chapters of the novel he won’t ever finish now. It’s a honking great pile of pages, for what would’ve been an enormous book (or maybe two), and it’s catch-your-breath-try-to-keep-up Mike at his best. I wish... ...there would be another conversation. I had uncommon luck as a Boskone chair: the favorite author I wanted most to invite not only accepted my GoH invitation, he turned out to be a friend I simply hadn’t met until we talked that first time. Phone conversations with Mike could last hours, and were always some combination of shared lives, insights, and jokes, and riding a roller coaster--as the hood ornament. Wandering a museum gallery or exhibit with him was always great fun, likewise sharing impressions of a movie or play we’d both seen. I learned the practical meaning of “erudite” from Mike, and the practical meaning of “gracious” every time he helped me keep up. (Also the practical meaning of “self-deprecating”: Mike would be appalled on reading this piece. He actually blushed on reading Diane Duane’s GoH appreciation story in the Boskone 34 program book; I saw it.) ...there could’ve been more time. Mike almost didn’t make it to the 1999 World Fantasy Con for which he was toastmaster. Then a year after that he had a kidney transplant, and oh! so much improved! Not without setbacks, and grotesquely awful wonderful noir jokes about medicine and being Borg, and real conversations about Living As A Deliberate Act, but being in a state of relatively consistent health made a huge difference, not least in all our assumptions. We all felt as if there was time, now. Maybe that feeling was the gift. Davey Snyder, FN Chair, Boskone 34, February 1997 *(I hope DreamHaven still means to publish that Assembling-of-the-Fellowship á la P.G. Wodehouse (with Bertie and Jeeves, of course) that Mike read at last year’s World Fantasy Con. It’ll serve you all right.) (10 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, August 25th, 2006
8:09 pm [dalesql]	Seating for the smoking lounge. I was in the clubhouse wednesday, where a couple folks showed up over the course of the evening. But the city was considerately waiting till we were there before pulling up and noisely drilling holes in the sidewalk. The holes were for mounting a couple of what looked like cast iron benches. One is down by the bus stop, and the other is up in front of the stained glass place. How nice of the city to provide seats for the nesfa tobacco incineration zone. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, June 28th, 2006
11:31 pm [gerisullivan]	A new approach to time travel Donato Giancola's "Construct of Time" graces clubhouse door Thanks to the silk panel debgeisler and I printed on the club's HP 5500 large format printer this past weekend, Time now moves There and Back Again every time someone enters or leaves the NESFA clubhouse through the main front door. Donato's art really makes the front entry to the clubhouse pop! And, as Donato pointed out, it looks as if the robot is reaching for the doorknob. Serendipity strikes; we win. The robot didn't have surgery on his left leg -- that's just a bit of duct tape covering a small ding in the glass. I cleaned a considerable amount of grime from the glass, including scraping off what looked like a light haze of grey spray paint -- primer, perhaps? Deb figured out the no-sew engineering that we used to finish the edges of the door panel, fusing a layer of interfacing to the back to increase the opaqueness of the silk without totally blocking the light. The silk is marvelous, and marvelously expensive. Deb's ordered a roll of polyester sold primarily for making flags and banners. We plan to play with that to make fabric banners that will drape in front of the curtains in the front windows. (They'll need to go over the bookcases then over the curtain rods. Fabric will do that without crumpling the way paper would.) In time, we'll learn just how long the color holds up. The door is recessed, therefore partially protected from light. But we really don't know; we'll see. And then we'll print a new one. A roll of the fabric will print at least 15 banners, and I have a design in mind that would yield 30 or more. Big fun! And the banner looks far better in person than these photos suggest. (Click on the picture to see it larger, and to look at two other pictures I snapped.) (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, June 5th, 2006
3:33 pm [sfrose]	It was Twenty Years Ago this month Pam Fremon compiled a dramatic script from the NESFA Business meeting minutes of November 1985-June 1986 depicting the deconstruction and construction of the NESFA Clubhouse. It was recited at yesterday's NESFA Business Meeting. Mark Olson also brought in a slide show showing many photos during that time period and after. We hope to also get that up on the website RSN. The photos featured lauriemann, nesfan, sfrose, gayellen, and others without livejournal accounts. Current Mood: nostalgic Current Music: Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (2 Comments |Comment on this)