Bill Wright

Fan
Name:	Bill Wright
Alias(es):
Type:	fan editor, writer, fanzines, conventions, fan
Fandoms:
Communities:	Melbourne Science Fiction Club, Aussiecon
Other:
URL:
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Bill Wright at Continuum 2009 (photo by Cat Sparks)

Bill Wright (17 January 1937 – 16 January 2022) was a long-time fan within the Australian science fiction community, becoming involved in groups, fanzines, and conventions.

Early Life

MSFC editor LynC notes:

Born in 1937 in Sydney, Bill remained on the fringes of fandom (in his own words) till after he turned twenty. In 1958 he joined the Melbourne Science Fiction Club (MSFC), then operating out of a warehouse in Somerset Place. The rest, as they say, is history, although it was another ten years before he became really active.

Science Fiction Involvement

Bill's love for science fiction led to participation in the early Melbourne Science Fiction Club as later recalled by his lifelong friend Dick Jenssen:

Bill and I found each other in the Melbourne Science Fiction Club over six decades ago, and realised that we shared an admiration for Doc Smith’s Lensman series. Remember that in the 1950s science fiction was still a marginal literary genre and was almost confined to the pulps, and in Australia was virtually nonexistent, and we were both still very young in spirit. While our literary tastes have evolved since that time, I know that if pressed to name the ‘best’ SF he has ever read, Bill would always nominate Eando Binder’s Spawn of Eternal Thought, a two-part serial in Astounding Stories, 1932. In that short novel Bill found a hidden theme of incest, which clearly intrigued him, even if his reading was, perhaps, eisegetical. Bill also admired the works of A. E,.van Vogt, in particular The Voyage of the Space Beagle. And, later, was captivated by Roger Zelazny’s Chronicles of Amber.

In 1969 he ran the 8th Australian National Science Fiction Convention in the MSFC club rooms. He was a member of the Australia and New Zealand Amateur Publishing Association from 1969 to 1979 and from 1996 to 2012, and in 1970 became a founding member of the Nova Mob, a Melbourne-based SF literary discussion group that still holds regular monthly meetings. He was secretary of the Australia in 1975 movement formed in the late 1960s to bid for an Australian city to host the 33rd Worldcon in 1975.

Bruce Gillespie summarised some of Bill's activities:

He was a founding member of both ANZAPA and the Nova Mob; HonSec of the Eighth Australian Science Fiction Convention (the eighth Australian Natcon) in 1969; secretary of Aussiecon in 1975; awards administrator for the Australian Science Fiction Foundation; Life Member of the Melbourne Science Fiction Club; founder of Meteor Incorporated; and DUFF delegate in 2013. He received the A. Bertram Chandler Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2017. He is particularly noted for establishing the Norma Hemming Award for Race, Gender, Sexuality, Class and Disability in Australian Speculative Fiction, and organising it for six years. (Thanks to Fancyclopedia 3 for some of this information.)

Merv Binns acknowledged Bill's work for Aussiecon 3:

Norma Hemming wrote a play which was performed at the first Melbourne convention in 1956, Olympicon. Some Melbourne fans including Bill Wright want to produce the play during the 2010 World Con, as a tribute.

Fanzines

• Interstellar Ramjet Scoop, December 2005 to February 2014 (eFanzines)

Death

Bill died on 16 January 2022 in the Alfred Hospital, Melbourne, Australia, on the day before his 85th birthday.