Misplaced Pages

#144855

25-494: Like other APAs, FAPA is primarily an agency for distributing to its members publications published by its members at their own expense. FAPA has "mailings" every three months. Members are required to be active in some way — writing or publishing — and produce at least eight pages of activity a year. When needed, there are elections (in August) of a secretary-treasurer and official editor. Other officials have included Official Critics,

50-711: A 2015 interview Silverberg said that he did not intend to write any more fiction. Silverberg received a Nebula award in 1986 for the novella Sailing to Byzantium , which takes its name from the poem by William Butler Yeats ; a Hugo in 1987 for the novella Gilgamesh in the Outback , set in the Heroes in Hell universe of Bangsian Fantasy ; a Hugo in 1990 for Enter a Soldier. Later: Enter Another . The Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame inducted Silverberg in 1999, its fourth class of two deceased and two living writers, and

75-557: A BA in English Literature from Columbia University , in 1956. While at Columbia he wrote the juvenile novel Revolt on Alpha C (1955), published by Thomas Y. Crowell with the cover notice: "A gripping story of outer space". He won his first Hugo in 1956 as the "best new writer". In that year Silverberg was the author or co-author of four of the six stories in the August issue of Fantastic , breaking his record set in

100-410: A Laureate Committee, President, Vice-President, and ballot counters. The first two positions were abandoned by the mid-1940s, and in 2009 the positions of President and Vice-President were also eliminated. The President Emeritus is the author Robert Silverberg , who was the last serving President and who has been an active member of FAPA longer than any other current member. When necessary, a teller for

125-433: A huge debt, at the age of 26, for a splendid house that I had bought. There would have been no way to pay the house off by writing science fiction ... so I turned out a slew of quick sex novels. I never concealed the fact that I was doing them; it made no difference at all to me whether people knew or not. It was just a job. And it was, incidentally, a job that I did very well. I think they were outstanding erotic novels." In

150-407: A look at an overpopulated future; and Dying Inside , a tale of a telepath losing his powers. In the August 1967 issue of Galaxy , Silverberg published a 20,000-word novelette called "Hawksbill Station". This story earned Silverberg his first Hugo and Nebula story award nominations. An expanded novel form of Hawksbill Station was published the following year. In 1969 Nightwings was awarded

175-409: A month, and he had over 80 stories published in 1958 alone. In 1959, the market for science fiction slumped due in part to changing tastes among readers, and also due to the bankruptcy of several leading magazines of the era. Silverberg adapted by writing copiously in other fields, from historical non-fiction to crime fiction and softcore pornography . "Bob Silverberg, a giant of science fiction...

200-505: A new religion helps people reach the stars. That was followed by Downward to the Earth , a story containing echoes of material from Joseph Conrad 's work, in which the human former administrator of an alien world returns after the planet's inhabitants have been set free. Other acclaimed works of that time include To Live Again , in which the memories and personalities of the deceased can be transferred to other people; The World Inside ,

225-572: The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America made him its 21st SFWA Grand Master in 2005. Silverberg has been married twice. He and Barbara Brown married in 1956, separated in 1976 and divorced a decade later. Silverberg and science fiction writer Karen Haber married in 1987. They live in the San Francisco Bay Area. Before the age of 30, Silverberg was independently wealthy through his investments, and once owned

250-521: The West Coast in 1972, and he announced his retirement from writing in 1975. In 1980 he returned, however, with Lord Valentine's Castle , a panoramic adventure set on an alien planet, which has become the basis of the Majipoor series —a cycle of stories and novels set on the vast planet Majipoor, a world much larger than Earth and inhabited by no fewer than seven different species of settlers. In

275-573: The Hugo for best novella. Silverberg won a Nebula award in 1970 for the short story " Passengers ", two the following year for his novel A Time of Changes and the short story " Good News from the Vatican ", and yet another in 1975 for his novella Born with the Dead . After suffering through the stresses of a major house fire and a thyroid malfunction, Silverberg moved from his native New York City to

SECTION 10

#1732793969145

300-564: The annual officer elections was appointed by the secretary-treasurer. FAPA's original constitutional limit was 50 members to accommodate publishers using hectographs . There were 21 members listed on the roster of the first mailing in August 1937; it took until the November 1938 mailing to fill the 50-member roster. The membership limit was raised to 65 in 1943 and has remained at that level ever since. The early years of FAPA were stormy with party politics and sociological feuds (as recounted in

325-444: The business in 1882, and Jeremiah Osborne Crowell , who was the sales manager in 1882. During his leadership of Thomas Y. Crowell Co., the company issued a profitable line of reference works and a variety of fictional titles also. He died in 1909 at the age of 73 and was succeeded by his son T. Irving Crowell (who was later succeeded by a third generation Robert L. Crowell ). Crowell published Edward Ingle 's Southern Sidelight;

350-399: The field that gave him his start, paying far more attention to depth of character development and social background than he had in the past and mixing in elements of the modernist literature he had studied at Columbia. Silverberg continued to write rapidly— Algis Budrys reported in 1965 that he wrote and sold at least 50,000 words ("call it the equivalent of a commercial novel") weekly —but

375-534: The former mansion of New York City Mayor Fiorello La Guardia . Hugo Awards Locus Award Nebula Awards Thomas Y. Crowell Thomas Young Crowell (1836–1915) was an American bookbinder and publisher, the founder of New York City book publishing company Thomas Y. Crowell Co. Crowell operated the bindery of Benjamin Bradley, deceased 1862, and acquired it in 1870. He started publishing in 1876. He had at least two sons: T. Irving Crowell, who joined

400-501: The late Jack Speer 's pioneering fan history, Up to Now ). In 1947, Speer reformed the constitution, and the Insurgents quashed the last inactive OE, Elmer Perdue. Since then official troubles have mostly not disturbed FAPA, and red tape has been held to a minimum. The constitution was again revised in 1958 (also by Speer) to incorporate amendments, bylaws, and practices adopted since 1947. Another major revision occurred in 2001 under

425-486: The mid-1960s, many writers in science fiction were moving away from the adventure, hard science fiction and space opera themes that often characterized the early years of the genre, and writing stories with greater literary ambitions, psychological sophistication and experimental methods (see New Wave science fiction ). Frederik Pohl , then editing three science fiction magazines, offered Silverberg creative freedom in writing for them. Thus inspired, Silverberg returned to

450-546: The novels Downward to the Earth (1970), The World Inside (1971), Dying Inside (1972), and Lord Valentine's Castle (1980; the first of the Majipoor series). Silverberg has attended every Hugo Award ceremony since the inaugural event in 1953. Silverberg was born on January 15, 1935, to Jewish parents in Brooklyn , New York. A voracious reader since childhood, he began submitting stories to science fiction magazines during his early teenage years. He received

475-514: The novels he wrote in this period are considered superior to his earlier work; Budrys in 1968 wrote of his surprise that "Silverberg is now writing deeply detailed, highly educated, beautifully figured books" like Thorns and The Masks of Time . Perhaps the first book to indicate the new Silverberg was To Open the Sky , a fixup of stories published by Pohl in Galaxy Magazine , in which

500-484: The number of members has also shrunk as existing members died or otherwise dropped off the roster. As of August 2019, there were 17 active participants. FAPA continues to operate in the 21st Century as a connection to fandom's past, and a way for fans to timebind with those who came before. Find the Facebook Group called "FAPA - SF Fandom's Oldest Apa" for contact and membership information. Notable members over

525-458: The oversight of Robert Lichtman (Secretary-Treasurer since 1986 and still holding that office), clarifying and conforming constitutional requirements with actual practice. During the 1950s and 1960s FAPA was so popular and membership so sought after that the waiting list grew to monumental proportions, for a period of time exceeding the number of membership slots on the FAPA roster. A waiting list fee

SECTION 20

#1732793969145

550-499: The previous issue. For the next four years, by his own count, he wrote a million words a year, mostly for magazines and Ace Doubles . He used his own name as well as a range of pseudonyms during this era, and often worked in collaboration with Randall Garrett , who was a neighbor at the time. (The Silverberg/Garrett collaborations too were published under a variety of pseudonyms, the best-known being Robert Randall.) From 1956 to 1959, Silverberg routinely averaged five published stories

575-406: The years have included: Robert Silverberg Robert Silverberg (born January 15, 1935) is a prolific American science fiction author and editor. He is a multiple winner of both Hugo and Nebula Awards , a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame , and a Grand Master of SF since 2004. Especially noted Silverberg works include the novella Nightwings (1969) and

600-402: Was doing two [books] a month for one publisher, another for a second publisher, and the equivalent of another book for a magazine... He was writing a quarter of a million words a month" under many different pseudonyms including about 200 erotic novels published as Don Elliott. In a 2000 interview, Silverberg explained that the erotic fiction "... was undertaken at a time when I was saddled with

625-479: Was instituted to cover the cost of sending the Fantasy Amateur to so many fans awaiting membership, and a requirement that waiting listers periodically acknowledge receipt of the Fantasy Amateur was begun in order to weed out those who lost interest during the long wait. By the '70s the waiting list became much smaller, and in more recent years (since the mid 1990s) has disappeared altogether. Additionally,

#144855