THE BRING BRUCE BAYSIDE FAN FUND

The beautiful 40-page compendium features some of Bruce Gillespie’s best personal, stfnal and fannish writings, and is profusely illustrated and impeccably printed. While the leather-bound version is not yet available to the general public, you can order the lovely one we have for $10 (cheap).

Send your orders to either Joyce Katz, Robert Lichtman or Mark Plummer & Claire Brialey, (see below for contact info) and it will be mailed out from Australia as quickly as we can bully Bruce into posting it.

How to order from the Fund administrators:
Australia: $10 (incl. postage) to Bill Wright, Unit 4, 1 Park Street, St Kilda West VIC 3182.
USA: $10 (incl. airmail postage) to Robert Lichtman, 11037 Broadway Terrace, Oakland CA 94611-1948, USA.
UK: 5 pounds (incl. airmail postage) to Mark Plummer and Claire Brialey, 59 Shirley Rd, Croydon, Surrey CR0 7ES, UK.

BBB Fund -- Gillespie package delivered and brought back safely

Hello, everybody:

Thanks to all those who contributed to the BBB Fund and welcomed me to America. But that flight back was a horror (14 hours in a plane without an empty seat) and I was very glad to see Elaine at the gate at Tullamarine this morning at 9.30.

Impossible to summarise any impressions at the moment, except that the whole trip was amazing and satisfying to me. Whether you got your value from the delivered Gillespie bundle is up to you to decide. I put faces to many people who were good friends in print, and swore undying affection to many great friends I thought I knew already.

Thanks in particular for Janice Murray and Alan Rosenthal (and Bob and Bonnie) for putting up with me in Seattle, and similar privileges from Art Widner (and Olivia) in Gualala, Charles Brown in San Francisco, and the Newton family, and Lee and Barry Gold, in Los Angeles -- and to Bob Speray, Marci Malinowycz, and Billy Pettit for driving me through parts of the great North American continent. Thanks also, for many other great road expeditions, to Janice Murray, Alan Rosenthal, Marty Cantor, and Lee and Barry Gold, and others I might have forgotten to mention.

Triumphs include being elected President of the Fan Writers of America 2004, being shown the Sea Ranch Chapel at Gualala (surely the world's most beautiful small building) by Art Widner, crossing the Mojave Desert with Billy Pettit to sit in the same room as Joyce and Arnie Katz, winning $14 on my only slot machine game at Las Vegas, being introduced to the Japanese Garden at the Huntingdon Museum by Marty Cantor, being allowed to touch choice items in the Robert Lichtman fanzine collection, sampling a good number of America's restaurant cuisines, and being supported way past the call of fannish duty by the great Peter Weston.

It was all Marty Cantor's fault -- or was it Joyce and Arnie Katz's suggestion in the first place (at the 2004 Corflu)? Fannish history is already debating this matter. The kindly presence of Joyce and Arnie hovered over all proceedings, but their efforts for the fund were only made complete when finally we met. Bob Lichtman put in a great effort, both as a friend and the person who made sure sure that I survived America financially. I was always conscious of the mighty effort Bill Wright put into the Fund. Thanks to Bruce Townley for buying a con membership -- I never did get to take you to dinner, Bruce. Thanks to Art Widner for buying my other con membership -- and Art wouldn't let me take him to dinner. Thanks to Irwin for The Incompleat Bruce Gillespie, of which I could sell only one copy in America. There are plenty of copies left.

Apologies to all who will only get their thank yous in the Trip Report.

I took some crappy photos myself, but I do need contributions of good photos of Corflu and Potlatch, and indeed, any good photos anybody took of any part of the expedition. I don't even have any good photos of Janice and Alan.

Much love from
Bruce Gillespie
13 March 2005

Bruce Gillespie joined fandom early in 1968 and began publishing his best known fanzine, SF Commentary, at the beginning of 1969. The first eighteen issues appeared in its first two years. In 1972 he won his first of many Ditmar (Australian SF achievement) awards and received his first Hugo nomination for SF Commentary.

Bruce spent four months in North America in 1973, attending Torcon (the 31st worldcon) where Australia won the right to hold the 33rd world science fiction convention in Melbourne in 1975. Then he went across to Britain for all of January 1974. On his return to Australia he met his life mate Elaine Cochrane (they were married in 1979) and established himself as a freelance editor. In 1975 he formed Norstrilia Press with Carey Handfield and, later, Rob Gerrand. Their first book was Philip K. Dick: Electric Shepherd. He coordinated the very successful writers workshop conducted at the 1975 Aussiecon by professional guest of honour Ursula K Le Guin, where he wrote short stories of his own.

He was chosen as Fan Guest of Honour at Aussiecon III, the 57th world SF convention held in Melbourne in 1999.

His fanzines include The Metaphysical Review (which draws unwelcome attention from weirdos who think it has something to do with metaphysics) and The Great Cosmic Donut of Life. He is co-editor of the intercontinental fanzine Steam Engine Time, which burst on to the SF horizon in the year 2000.

Whilst he has had some short stories published, Bruce has never written a novel because, as he explains, "I could never think of an idea that might stretch to 60,000 words."

Bruce is a long term member of Acnestis (the British literary apa) and ANZAPA (the Australia and New Zealand Amateur Press Association).