World Fantasy Convention

Convention
Name:	World Fantasy Convention
Dates:	1975-ongoing
Frequency:	Yearly around Halloween
Location:	Varies
Type:	fan run
Focus:	Fantasy
Organization:	World Fantasy Board
Founder:	T.E.D. Klein, Kirby McCauley and several others .
Founding Date:	1975
URL:	http://www.worldfantasy.org/
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World Fantasy Convention was first held in 1975, and has been held yearly since. In the words of the convention's website:

(The convention is) an annual gathering and reunion of professionals, collectors, and others interested in the field of light and dark fantasy art and literature. The convention is generally held on one of the two weekends bracketing Halloween, with some light early-bird programming usually beginning Thursday evening and the convention generally concluding Sunday afternoon, usually shortly after the World Fantasy Award Banquet. The awards banquet is a culminating highlight of the convention, offering awards ranging from lifetime achievement, to various aspects of art and literature. Additional highlights include an autograph reception, and often some sort of reception honoring the arts. Individual conventions often use programming and special events to highlight the themes of the convention and local flavor.

The convention is run in a similar way to the Worldcon science fiction conventions; a different convention committee is selected by the World Fantasy Convention Board each year and holds the convention according to the Board's requirements. Features of the convention include the Art Show, dealers tables, autograph sessions, readings, panels and two Board meetings, to review bids and choose the next convention committee. There is also the annual banquet, hosting the World Fantasy Awards ceremony.

The convention was organised by Kirby McCauley, Donald Grant, Charles Collins and others as a response to the perceived snubbing fantasy and horror literature received by the World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon), as well as the lack of a separate convention for fantasy fans. In the first flyer outlining plans for the convention, McCauley explained:

For altogether too many years, devotees of fantasy and supernatural horror have had to gather within other forums, chiefly that of science fiction. And, while works of fantasy do win the Hugo or Nebula awards from time to time, it comes rather as a reminder that we're deal­ing with two different genres. The two genres sometimes do overlap, and they do have things in common, but a key appraisal is that, had they lived, it is unlikely that H.P. Lovecraft or Robert E. Howard would ever have won either a Hugo or a Nebula. And the same fate seems to be evolving for certain more contemporary major writers whose work is broadly classified as science fiction but which nevertheless remains something else. That something else can be broadly labeled as fantasy, and the time is at hand to recognize it as a separate entity. For those who love this unique field, 1975 is the time to gather together and honor its creators.

 

1975

Program, page 1

Program, page 2

Location: Providence, Rhode Island

Dates: October 31-November 2, 1975

Theme: “The Lovecraft Circle”

• Guest of Honor: Robert Bloch
• Toastmaster: Gahan Wilson
• Chair: Kirby McCauley

Program

Daily events:

• Huckster/dealer room
• Art show "of superior quality"
• Special exhibition of original Lovecraft materials

Friday Oct 31

• "Meet The Authors" Party, including Manly Wade Wellman, Donald Sidney-Fryer and Ramsey Campbell. Included readings by Joseph Payne Brennan, Wellman and Campbell, various poems (Howard, Smith, etc) read by Ugo Toppo and Sidney-Fryer and a reading of Ray Bradbury's "October Game" by Jay Gregory.
• Autographing Party for Gahan Wilson
• Auction.
• Party Room
• Midnight film - "Die, Monster, Die!", based on Lovecraft's "The Colour Out Of Space", followed by a one-hour television film of Robert Bloch's "Waxworks".

Saturday, Nov 1

• A bus tour of "Lovecraft's Providence", with commentary by Professor Harry Beckwith.
• Panel discussions:
  • "Investigating Lovecraft" with panellists Barton St. Arnaud, T.E.D. Klein, Dirk Mosig, George Wetzel and Tom Collins.
  • "Fantasy and Horror: Present and Future" with panellists Robert Bloch, Gahan Wilson and Donald A. Wollheim.
  • "New Voices in Fantasy" with panellists Ramsey Campbell, Karl Edward Wagner, C.L. Grant and David Drake.
  • "Epic Fantasy" with panellists Fritz Leiber, L. Sprague de Camp, Lester del Ray and Andrew J. Offutt.
  • "Writing Supernatural Tales: The Whys Explored" with panellists Robert Bloch, Gahan Wilson, Manly Wade Wellman, Frank Belknap Long and Joseph Payne Brennan.
• Fantasy Program: readings from Lovecraft by Fritz Leiber, Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene by Donald Sidney-Fryer and Gahan Wilson read from his own work. Plus a one-act play from the repertoire of the Grand-Guignol Theater of Paris.
• Autographing party for Andrew J. Offutt.

Sunday, Nov 2

• Panel discussion:
  • "Lovecraft the Man" with panellists Frank Belknap Long, L. Sprague de Camp, Willis Conover, Fritz Leiber and Harry Beckwith.
• Banquet: Guest of Honour and Toastmaster speeches, and the First World Fantasy Awards presentation.

The attendees were limited to 500 in number, with 200 for the awards banquet.

Con Reports/Photos

• The First World Fantasycon, A Pictorial Sketch by Eric Carlson (1976) - convention photographs
• 1st World Fantasy Convention by Hunding - Flikr (via Wayback Aug 20/24) - convention photographs
• Panel Recordings at The Internet Archive

...Friday evening was chaotic and the meet-the-authors affair readings started late, but the 200 or so people clumped 6-10 per table were in a mellow mood drinking, talking, and looking at name tags. The affair began with a fine poetry reading by Joseph Payne Brennan, followed by Ramsay Campbell and Manly Wade Willman reading short pieces of their own fiction with extraordinary effect. Donald Sidney-Fryer and Ugo Toppo gave spirited recitals of poems by Howard, Smith and others, and Jay Gregory read Ray Bradbury's quite appropriate "October Game." The fifteen or more authors present, ranging from people like Many to people like, well, me, were introduced; during the autographing party for Gahan Wilson which followed, there was a lot of table hopping and friendly conversation...

...
...Free bus tours of Providence were conducted by Professor Harry Beckwith on Saturday covering points of interest from Lovecraft's life and writings. The first of the day's five panels was on investigating Lovecraft. Barton St. Armand, Tom Collins, Dirk Mosig, T.E.D. Klein, and George Wetzel discussed the difficulties of finding Lovecraftiania in obscure journals, various interpretations of HPL's symbols - e.g. sea/blood/corruption - and the problems of attitude toward "truths" about Lovecraft and his work...
...Gahan Wilson, Robert Bloch and Donald Wollheim followed with a discussion on the economic aspects of fantasy and horror.
...
...The third panel, "New Voices", attracted a surprising 150 people despite the fact it was held over lunch time. Ramsey Campbell moderated, accompanied by Karl Edward Wagner - astoned by fluent - C.L. Grant, and myself. Charlie Grant's interest in writing fantasy was found to be fairly recent but his grandmother had scared the crap out of him with Scot folktales...
...
...L. Sprague de Camp, Fritz Leiber, Lester del Rey (now editing fantasy for Ballantine), andy offutt (whos Cormac mac Art novel is a very good and serious book, not a rip-off pastiche), and Lin Carter made up the epic fantasy panel. There was more presentation than discussion, typified by de Camp's six-page talk on barbarian/civilized warfare being a cultural conflict in which neither side views the other as human. Del Rey stated that there was a good market for heroic fantasy that did not simply rehash Howard; and those he specifically excepted the Carter-deCamp Conan pastiches from his condemnation, it wasn't the sort of thing that good breeding allowed to be extensively discussed...
...

The day's last panel was made up of old pros--Robert Bloch, Manly, Joseph Payne Brennan, Frank Belknap Long, and Gahan Wilson discussion the whys of writing fantasy. it was an enjoyable group, perhaps hitting its high point when Bloch recounted the number of people who had told him they feared taking showers after Psycho, and how glad he was that he had not set that scene with the victim on the commode!...

 

1976

Theme: Unknown Worlds

• Guests of Honor: C. L. Moore, Michael Moorcock
• Toastmaster: Gahan Wilson
• Magister: Thom Anderson

1977

Theme: Clark Ashton Smith

• Guest of Honor: Richard Matheson
• Toastmaster: Gahan Wilson
• Chairman: Dennis Rickard

1978

Theme: Robert E. Howard

• Guest of Honor: Fritz Leiber
• Guest Artist: Alicia Austin
• Toastmaster (Scheduled): Gahan Wilson; Toastmaster (Actual): Andy Offutt
• Chairman: Michael Templin

1979

Theme: Reunion

• Guests of Honor: Stephen King, Frank Belknap Long
• Guest Artist: Michael Whelan
• Toastmaster: Charles L. Grant
• Chairman: Bob Booth

Subpages for World Fantasy Convention:

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