Short Takes (Editorial, NYRSF 327)

Work has been heavy the last few weeks, which made the Thanksgiving break more necessary, more relaxation-centered, and hence a bit less NYRSFtastic than it might otherwise have been, which once again means we’re behind schedule. And the vicissitudes of the full-fledged Holiday Season mean that the December issue will also be a few days late; sorry about that.

November did bring us, as expected, to the Saratoga Springs World Fantasy Convention. We had a great time, and to the best of my knowledge the convention mostly ran pretty smoothly. The one glaring exception—that the convention was woefully underprepared to accommodate attendees with mobility problems—was shameful; conventions need to do better, starting years ago. You can read about the specific problems this time in Mari Ness’s excellent essay on the subject <mariness.livejournal.com/1207009.html>. As she indicates, the problems facing conventions of all sizes range far beyond her own challenges.

I am pleased that the World Fantasy Convention finally announced the retirement of the H.P. Lovecraft bust that has served as the physical embodiment of the World Fantasy Award. I’ve already explained in some detail why I thought the statuette—grotesque and odd and wonderful all admixed—was no longer serving the Award well, obscuring the honor the Award is supposed to convey to its recipients. I’m glad the WFC was able to acknowledge the problem and move forward. Failure without learning is a double tragedy.

Changing topics: Our print-on-demand service, Lulu.com, believes they have figured out why the print quality on the last couple of volumes has been so bad. You may recall that they were so terrible that I took them off the market, and I know that some of you have been eager for their return. We are awaiting arrival of proof copies of the new versions, and I will make sure the word goes out as soon as the problem is solved.

On the matter of the NYRSF community, if you enjoy our endeavors, please let other people know! If one of our online articles catches your fancy, share it with your tweeps and facebookworms and tumblebuggies and whatever the heck people on Ello are called. Word of mouth is still the best tool ever invented for sharing good things.

Also, we are running a little shorter on contributions than we might like. If you want to send us stuff—reviews, articles, short notes, even Read Thises (Remember those? We love those!)—drop me a line posthaste. It’s a great gig, and the cannibalism rumors are significant overstatements.

See you next time, and thanks as always for your continued support.

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—Kevin J. Maroney
and the editors