How do you build a community? As science fiction gained prominence in the pulps, fans formed clubs to share their love of science fiction, politics, and visions of the future. But what about the writers? It wasn’t until the ’60s, at the dawn of the New Wave, that legendary author and editor Damon Knight thought it was time for science fiction writers to form their own club. Here’s more from the Science Fiction Writers of America:
(SFWA founder and legendary author/editor Knight recalled): “First, I think there was an attempt in New York in the late ’50s to form an organization for science fiction writers — Jim Blish was one of the people behind it, and they held a series of big meetings and discussed the matter thoroughly, passed a charter and elected officers, and then the officers went home and that was the end of the thing. The same thing happened in Los Angeles when a similar attempt was made there. I attended one of those meetings in New York and was terribly frustrated because I saw that they were doing it wrong, but there was nothing I could do about it because I was a pretty small writer at the time. But I told myself that if I ever became a major writer, I would do something about it.”
In the third edition of the bulletinJames Blish gives a slightly different account: “…Fred Pohl, Lester del Rey and I tried to put together a ‘Hugo for professionals’; it failed mainly because Fred suddenly became editor-in-chief of galaxy and no longer felt it appropriate to be associated with such a project, and Les – who was quite ill at the time – and I could not carry it alone.” The first effort on the West Coast was called the Science Fantasy Writers of America, and actually had a number of meetings in the early fifties, but ultimately fizzled out. In the mid-sixties, AE van Vogt attempted to form a “SFWPA,” but this was abandoned as the SFWA gained momentum.
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