Swancon 22

Two A4 sheets folded down the middle to make effectively 6 inside A5 pages plus cover and back page. The one I am looking at is buff, but there is another one in the pile that is blue so the colour may be fairly random. There is an insert fold-a-lope with a membership form on it. Most of content transcribed by Elaine Walker, but not likely to match all formatting.

Front Cover

The Festival of the Imagination

24 – 27 January 1997
Metro Inn, South Perth

Image that looks like a temple with the Roman letters XXII effectively holding the roof up
Progress Report 3 – September 1996

Page 1

Useful Information

When: January 24th-27th, 1997
Who:
Guest of Honour
Howard Waldrom
Local Guest
Stephen Dedman
Fan Guest
David Cake
Invited Guests
Terry Dowling; Grant Stone; Sean Williams; Lucy Sussex; Julian Warner

Contact details left out because almost certainly out of date by now

Where
The Metro Inn
61 Canning Highway
South Perth 6151

Room Rates	Normal	Skyshow evening
Standard	$78	$78
Riverview	$92	$130
Skyline	$99	$160

We have the entire 2nd floor of the hotel (all $78), so please ask for the Swancon rate.

How Much
Supporting Membership $20
Full Membership*
$60 until 1st Oct
$65 1st Oct – 1st Dec
(Please make cheques or money orders payable to Swancon)
*There is a $5 discount on full membership with a purchase from A Touch of Strange bookshop in Subiaco, or from Valhalla, Wellington St Perth [Ed. Neither of these exist any longer]

Page 2

Warm ‘n fuzzies

Welcome.

They tell me it’s my turn to welcome you to a Progress Report. Welcome. We, your Committee, have worked hard to get the Con this far, and will continue to work hard until February next year.

There’s been some criticism that our publicity has been “subtle”. Rest assured from now on The Festival of the Imagination 1997 will begin taking on a higher profile. Our invited Guest list is growing, the first hints of the Souvenir Book sound like something not to be missed, and, modesty aside, the programme will be something else too.

Social events are being planned, gaming, many regular items and more. As I write, it is less than five months to the Con, and we intend to keep you informed right up until then. So please, enjoy this Progress Report, take another copy from Valhalla, A Touch of Strange or anywhere else you find one, and give it to a friend.

Thank you for your support so far.

David Yeates
Co-convenor

Bad news

Our thoughts go out to Ellen Datlow in this Progress Report. She is presently in a New York hospital recovering from a serious illness. Ellen, Guest in 1995, became a friend to many during her stay, and our best wishes for a full and speedy recovery go out to you.

Good news

Congratulations are in order for the Australian in ’99 Worldcon bid who won with 808 votes, 650 votes ahead of Zagreb. For more info try their web page: not included because almost certainly not there any more

Page 3

Events

Gaming

The last few years it appears that gaming has been the poor cousin at SwanCons. This year we hope to change that! We have Magic the Gathering™, Vampire: The Eternal Struggle and Illuminati: The New World Order tournaments planned. Any volunteers to organise these will be greatly appreciated. Also we have a Dungeons & Dragons tournament, RailBaron tournament and a Battletech tournament in the offering (again any volunteers to help organise these will be greatly appreciated).

We are also looking for freeforms, at least three but the more the better! Anybody interested in serving on the Gaming committee is welcome, the meetings are held on the second last Tuesday of the month, the next meeting being on the 24th of September, 7:30. Address not included Any questions can be directed to Peter Kelly.

Programming, video, etc

Well, someone was supposed to be giving me lots of Really Interesting News™ about these events at the con. But, as they are busy organising the con, it didn’t quite happen. The committee would like people to know that suggestions for items they would like to see are always welcome. For those of you with gaming ideas, talk to Peter. Or, if you have programming ideas, David is the person to talk to.

Argh, I have so little space, I couldn’t mention most of the things I’ve heard about, and there are many more. Let’s start with Neverwhere, “Physicist Free world building”, Banana Splits, some funny stuff, most of the usual stuff, “Gaming: fun or addiction?”, bits of American stuff, bits of British stuff, and on and on til you wish you had time to sleep. There will be much to keep your interest, and there will be more information in later PRs (and of course, at the con itself).

Anna.

You want to help your environment right? And you want to save money for the con, so that they can spend it on other, more hoopy things than posting you a progress report? But you still want to know what’s happening? Then recieving your PR electronically is the answer.

To do so, contact shay@nolongerworkingemailaddress for more details.

The only way to guarantee yourself a copy of the convention souvenir book is to buy at least a supporting membership by 10th January 1997. There should be limited numbers available at the door but you could miss out on a chapter of an unpublished Howard Waldrop novel, R.A. Lafferty’s “Interurban Queen”, something by Sean Williams plus much more.

Page 4

Guests

Just a few brief bios about some of the guests. Much has already been said about the fabulously wonderful Howard Waldrop, so we thought that for this PR, we’d talk about someone else (or rather, three someone elses). Next issue, we’ll talk again about Howard, and we will probably have some stuff about Sean Williams and Lucy Sussex as well.

Terry Dowling

Terry Dowling must be Australia’s most awarded writer, with eight Ditmars for fiction and one William J Atheling for criticism sitting on his mantlepiece. He has had five books published, which include three volumes of his renowned Tom Rynosseros saga, and co-edited Mortal Fire (1994) with Van Ikin (a long-time friend from days at Sydney University) and The Essential Ellison with Gil Lamont and the late Richard Delap. One of his most recent stories, “Scaring the Train” appeared in The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror for 1995. Terry Dowling has also played guitar and sung on Mr Squiggle and Friends.

Grant Stone

If the entire SF community in WA could be put into one person, then that person is Grant Stone. His radio show, The Fastest Than Light Radio Show is in its 16th year, there is almost nothing Grant can’t find (a recent example: Grant could not locate a copy of the 1976 World SF Convention Book, however he produced a Progress Report instead). A Librarian at Murdoch University since 1974, with his almost equally famous chequebook he has been the guiding force in the continued expansion of the incredible SF collection at Murdoch. Twice Fan Guest of Honour at National SF Conventions, Grant Stone was presented with the A. Bertram Chandler Award in recognition of his efforts to SF in Australia at the most recent National Convention in Perth, April 1996.

Danny Heap

If, tomorrow, Danny was declared the Greatest Person on the Earth, this would come as no surprise to many. No other Victorian is as welcome in Perth. Fan Guest at the 1994 WA SF convention, Danny has a second home here in Perth. Termed a Special Guest, not only because he is special, but in recognition of Danny’s contribution to the “human” side of Australia’s SF community. Heck, he’s a great guy, simple as that, and always welcome here.

Page 5

Short Story Competition

At SwanCon XXII, we are celebrating the short story as an art form. So we would like to see many, many people joining with us in this celebration. In other words, we want you to write something. This “something” needs to satisfy certain criteria, which are listed below. Beyond that, (almost) anything goes. So get writing!

Rules

Submissions should be based around a science fiction, fantasy and/or horror theme, and be no longer than 6,000 words.
Submissions must be original,and written for this competition.
Only Western Australian residents or Swancon XXII members are eligible to submit an entry.
Stories should be submitted in manuscript format (double spaced typed or legibly handwritten, no fancy stuff, and include author’s name, title of story and page number at the top of every page).
Please include a covering letter including your name, address and phone number.
Only one submission per contributor.
Submissions will only be returned if a stamped, self-addressed envelope is included.
Entries should be postmarked by Friday, 22nd of December. The address they should be sent to is:
SwanCon 22 Short Story Competition
PO Box XXX Nedlands WA 6009.
Prizes will be announced in the next Progress Report.
Winners will be announced at the Festival and notified by mail.

There was a box giving a URL for the convention, which is no longer there, but there was the impression that this was a new type of thing

Page 6
This had the membership listing which will not be reproduced for privacy issues, and also my fingers’ sake.

This progress report brought to you by Anna, Shay, and Russell.Thanks go to all those whose submissions were in on time
Special thanks go to Jem, for the cover artwork..

Back Page
The back page contained the postal information and the Committee information. Contact details left out since likely to be way way out of date.

Committee

Russell B Farr
Secretary, PR, Guest liaison

Avril Garner
Social Programming

Peter Kelly
Gaming, Freeforms

Rohan Wallace
Treasurer, Fundraising

David Yeates
Programming, Video

Associates of the Committeee

Jonathan Strahan, Simon Oxwell, Anna Hepworth, John Samuel, Shay Telfer, Daniel Oi, Dave Cake, Elaine Kemp, Robin Pen, Martin J. Livings.

Swancon 22 – the Festival of the Imagination is an official project of the Western Australian Science Fiction Foundation Inc. and runs under its directives. WASFF is a non-profit incorporated organisation.

The next progress report will be published in November.

SWANCON 22