The idea for the autographing party grew out of a proposal I took to Chicon asking if they might be interested in sponsoring a joint signing for science fiction, fantasy, and romance writers in the Dealers' Room, in support of SFWA's efforts to network with other organizations, RWA efforts to raise money for literacy, and the booksellers at Worldcon. The concom proposed doing an autographing party at the Meet-the-Pros they were planning for Thursday evening, with a raffle for the literacy program. The booksellers in the Dealers' Room will sell the books during the day, prior to the party. The traditional individual signings for authors will also be scheduled as usual.

Worldcon plans to put a list of all authors attending the Meet-the-Pros at their web site, in the registration packet, at the party, and in the Dealers Room. Authors who would like to be on the list, please let me know. My email is asaro@sff.net. Chicon would also appreciate having the names of your publishers, as they are contacting them to see if they would like to sponsor refreshments for the party.

If anyone can donate items for the raffle, please let me know. Donations have included signed books, bound galleys, art prints, gifts, and an author taking a fan to dinner. Other suggestions have been author tuckerizations, and an author raffling off an hour to chat with the winner about the winner's choice of writing subjects. The cost of the raffle tickets will be minimal, as we don't want this to compete with the SFWA auction for the Emergency Medical Fund taking place later during the convention.

We hope this event will help build bridges as part of SFWA's ongoing work with the Authors Coalition, the Authors Groups Summit organized by RWA, and the work of the SFWA Liaison Committee. These various efforts have involved SFWA, RWA, the Authors Guild, the American Society of Journalists and Authors, Sisters in Crime, PAN (the Published Author Network within RWA), Novelists, Inc., Western Writers of America, the Association of Authors Representatives, the Artists Rights Society, the Dramatists Guild, Inc., Garden Writers Association of America, Mystery Writers of America, the Songwriters Guild of America, the National Writers Union, the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, and the Textbook Authors Association. A two-part article is currently planned for the Bulletin to give details on the different efforts.

I would like to thank the many people who helped make the Worldcon event a go: Tom Veal, Chair of the Chicon concom; Paul Levinson, president of SFWA; Jo An Ferguson, president of RWA; Michael Capobianco, past SFWA president and active liaison to both the Authors Coalition and the Author Groups Summit; Larry Smith, Bookseller; Pat Potter, liaison from RWA to PAN; Jennifer Dunne, president of the FF&P chapter of RWA (which hosted SFWAns as speakers at their July conference held in Washington D.C. in response to the SFWA invitation for Worldcon), James Aiello of Laubach Literacy; Steve Carper, Chair of the SFWA Liaison Committee; and all the folks who helped brainstorm ideas within SFWA, the Chicon concom, RWA, FF&P, the SFWA lounge on sff.net, and at the folks at Duckon in Chicago.

Catherine Asaro

Posted July 25, 2000