Please do note that there are no other confirmed cases at WFC, but given the incidence of con crud at a normal convention, it seems prudent to mention this.

For more information about H1N1, visit the Center for Disease Control. The CDC reports that the incubation period from exposure is 1-7 days, with 1-4 being most likely.

Edited to add: Jonathan let us know in comments that though his doctor diagnosed it as H1N1, he did not do clinical tests.  Let’s hope that it is not.

Meanwhile, get well soon, Jonathan.

We’re also doing something new this year and asking members to RSVP before the meeting. This enables us to do two things. 1) We know how much food to order for breakfast. 2) We can send you an email update when we know what room the meeting will be held in.

And just a gentle reminder, we need 31 active members to achieve quorum. Hope to see you there.

• 8:00-8:30am Light continental breakfast
• 8:30-9:30am Business meeting
  (Note: The business meeting  was scheduled so as not to conflict with regular WFC programming.)

Register for the business meeting.

BEST NOVEL
The House of the Stag, Kage Baker (Tor)
The Shadow Year, Jeffrey Ford (Morrow)
The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman (HarperCollins; Bloomsbury)
Pandemonium, Daryl Gregory (Del Rey)
Tender Morsels, Margo Lanagan (Allen & Unwin; Knopf)

BEST NOVELLA
“Uncle Chaim and Aunt Rifke and the Angel”, Peter S. Beagle (Strange Roads)
“If Angels Fight”, Richard Bowes (F&SF 2/08)
“The Overseer”, Albert Cowdrey (F&SF 3/08)
“Odd and the Frost Giants”, Neil Gaiman (Bloomsbury; HarperCollins)
“Good Boy”, Nisi Shawl (Filter House)

BEST SHORT STORY
“Caverns of Mystery”, Kage Baker (Subterranean: Tales of Dark Fantasy)
“26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss”, Kij Johnson (Asimov’s 7/08)
“Pride and Prometheus”, John Kessel (F&SF 1/08)
“Our Man in the Sudan”, Sarah Pinborough (The Second Humdrumming Book of Horror Stories)
“A Buyer’s Guide to Maps of Antarctica”, Catherynne M. Valente (Clarkesworld 5/08)

BEST ANTHOLOGY
The Living Dead, John Joseph Adams, ed. (Night Shade Books)
The Del Rey Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy, Ellen Datlow, ed. (Del Rey)
The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror 2008: Twenty-First Annual Collection, Ellen Datlow, Kelly Link, & Gavin J. Grant, eds. (St. Martin’s)
Paper Cities: An Anthology of Urban Fantasy, Ekaterina Sedia, ed. (Senses Five Press)
Steampunk, Ann & Jeff VanderMeer, eds. (Tachyon Publications)

BEST COLLECTION
Strange Roads, Peter S. Beagle (DreamHaven Books)
The Drowned Life, Jeffrey Ford (HarperPerennial)
Pretty Monsters, Kelly Link (Viking)
Filter House, Nisi Shawl (Aqueduct Press)
Tales from Outer Suburbia, Shaun Tan (Allen & Unwin; Scholastic ‘09)

BEST ARTIST
Kinuko Y. Craft
Janet Chui
Stephan Martinière
John Picacio
Shaun Tan

SPECIAL AWARD, PROFESSIONAL
Kelly Link & Gavin J. Grant (for Small Beer Press and Big Mouth House)
Farah Mendelsohn (for The Rhetorics of Fantasy)
Stephen H. Segal & Ann VanderMeer (for Weird Tales)
Jerad Walters (for A Lovecraft Retrospective: Artists Inspired by H.P. Lovecraft)
Jacob Weisman (for Tachyon Publications)

SPECIAL AWARD, NON-PROFESSIONAL
Edith L. Crowe (for her work with The Mythopoeic Society)
John Klima (for Electric Velocipede)
Elise Matthesen (for setting out to inspire and for serving as inspiration for works of poetry, fantasy, and SF over the last decade through her jewelry-making and her “artist’s challenges.”)
Sean Wallace, Neil Clarke, & Nick Mamatas (for Clarkesworld)
Michael Walsh (for Howard Waldrop collections from Old Earth Books)

About World Fantasy Convention

The World Fantasy Convention is an annual gathering of professionals, collectors and others interested in the field of light and dark fantasy art and literature. The number of attending memberships are limited, and usually sell out in advance of the start of the convention. The World Fantasy Awards are presented during a Sunday afternoon banquet.

Celebrating Edgar Allan Poe’s 200^th birthday, the 2009 World Fantasy Convention will be held Oct. 29-Nov. 1 in San Jose, Calif. For additional information, visit http://www.worldfantasy2009.org/

The SFWA business meeting will be held the morning of Oct. 31 at the Fairmont Hotel, 170 South Market Street in San Jose. A light continental breakfast will be served to SFWA members beginning at 8:00am, with the meeting commencing at 8:30am and running to 9:30am.  The business meeting was scheduled so as not to conflict with regular WFC programming.

“We are very grateful to World Fantasy for reaching out with this offer of aid,” said SFWA Secretary Mary Robinette Kowal. “As one of the most important annual conventions, a large number of our members already planned to attend. This partnership is a win-win for everyone, and allows us to honor the ‘Fantasy’ element of our mission.”

SFWA will not hold a business meeting during the upcoming 67^th World Science Fiction Convention in Montréal, Québec. Massachusetts law—under which SFWA is incorporated—precludes meetings outside of the United States. Normally, the business meeting would be during a North American Science Fiction Convention, but NASFiCs are only scheduled when Worldcon occur outside North America.

About World Fantasy Convention

The World Fantasy Convention is an annual gathering of professionals, collectors and others interested in the field of light and dark fantasy art and literature. The number of attending memberships are limited, and usually sell out in advance of the start of the convention. The World Fantasy Awards are presented during a Sunday afternoon banquet.

Celebrating Edgar Allan Poe’s 200^th birthday, the 2009 World Fantasy Convention will be held Oct. 29-Nov. 1 in San Jose, Calif. For additional information, visit ://www.worldfantasy2009.org/

About SFWA

Founded in 1965 by the late Damon Knight, Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America brings together the most successful and daring writers of speculative fiction throughout the world.

Since its inception, SFWA® has grown in numbers and influence until it is now widely recognized as one of the most effective non-profit writers’ organizations in existence, boasting a membership of approximately 1,500 science fiction and fantasy writers as well as artists, editors and allied professionals.  Each year the organization presents the prestigious Nebula Awards® for the year’s best literary and dramatic works of speculative fiction.

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