Festival of the Imagination 1996 – April 1995 Newsletter

Here’s the (presumably final) progress report for Festival of the Imagination 1996. It’s two yellow A4 sheets folded to A5 and staple-stitched. It starts, unsurprisingly, with a front cover:


FESTIVAL OF THE IMAGINATION 1996
Australia’s National Science Fiction Literature Conference and the Australasian Science Fiction Media Convention


BRUCE STERLING
NEIL GAIMAN
-AND- ROBIN PEN


King’s Perth Hotel
Easter Long Weekend 1996
Thursday April 4th – Monday April 8th
Perth Western Australia

APRIL 1996 NEWSLETTER
GPO BOX GXXX PERTH WA XXXX

Despite this thing labelling itself the April 1996 newsletter, it is in fact the April 1995 newsletter. A clue is that it still lists Bruce Sterling as a guest.
Inside cover is “THE FACTS”, listing guests, membership rates, venue, etc. The top two thirds of page 3 is:


THE FESTIVAL


Symposium, n. 1. Ancient Greek drinking party, convivial meeting for drinking, conversation, and intellectual entertainment. 2. Meeting or conference for discussion of some subject.
The Reader’s Digest Great Encyclopaedic Dictionary, 1965

The Festival of the Imagination 1996 is the banner under which two major events will be running homogenously over the Easter long weekend; the National Science Fiction Literature Conference and the Australasian Science Fiction Media Convention.

It blurbles on for a while. The bottom third of page 3 is:


SWANCON’s 21st


Festival of the Imagination 1996 is also Swancon 21.
Thus in 1996 Swancon will be in its twenty first year.
Swancon is WA’s regional science fiction convention and is the longest running annual SF convention event in the Southern Hemisphere.

As you can imagine, this gives cause to celebrate.

And so a major event at The Festival of the Imagination 96 will be Swancon’s twenty-first birthday celebration.

Come along and be a participant in this significant land-mark that began back in 1976 in someone’s lounge-room and has steadily progressed to national status.

Be there to savour the history and its contemporary significance.

But most importantly, be there to join in the party and see who will blow out the candles.

Page 4 is THE GUESTS, blurbing Bruce Sterling, Neil Gaiman and Robin Pen.

Page 5 is THE PHILOSOPHY and THE HOTEL AND PERTH.

Page 6 is PROMOTIONS and COMPETITIONs: a short story competition (5000 words or less) and an art competition.

Page 7 is AWARDS, covering ‘The Australian Science Fiction “Ditmar” Awards’ and ‘The Australian Science Fiction Media Awards’.

The back cover has an Arthur C Clarke quote and THE ACCREDITATIONS.

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