Not that the events of 9/11/01 were not earth shattering, but, by God, some of us need a break from the overwhelming events. I posted this to give myself that break. Please enjoy a moment to relax and think about other things.

Last nite the Phila. SF Society (of which I am still the Prez), had the great pleasure of hosting the GREAT SF writer Samuel (Chip) Delany. This man was both the first bestselling African-American SF writer, and the first openly gay bestselling SF writer. He, frankly, is unimpressed with either of these accomplishments. He was also a marvelous speaker, talking to us about the way language creates reality, how you have to learn how to read SF, and the vanishing of midlist and bestselling works from publishing due to a "blockbuster" mentality on the part of the publishing houses (partly due to fewer publishers... in 1980, there were over 50 genre publishers in NY... with larger companies buying smaller, that number is now down to 5! ) He was a great speaker, both thoughtful and amusing. We had a lot of fun.

Next month, on Oct 12th, our speaker will be David Gerrold (yep, that David Gerrold... the one who wrote "The Trouble With Tribbles" ). I have been a Gerrold fan since I was a wee bairn, and I am SO PSYCHED!

If any of you live in the area around Philly, and want to get more info, please email me, or check out our website at www.psfs.org. We'd love to see you there.



Hugh


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"We have engaged the Borg... ceremony at noon, reception following."

[This message has been edited by Hugh Casey (edited 09-15-2001).]