2024 World Fantasy Convention Report
The 50th World Fantasy Convention was held as a hybrid event October 17-20, 2024, with the in-person portion held at the Sheraton Niagara Falls and Niagara Falls Convention Center in Niagara Falls NY. Guests of honor were Scott H. Andrews, Galen Dara, and Heather Graham, with toastmaster Michael Swanwick. P. Djèlí Clark was a special guest, and Life Achievement Awards winners were Ginjer Buchanan and Jo Fletcher. The theme was ‘‘Borders, Boundaries, and Portals.’’
The con reported around 670 total memberships registered for the convention, with 550 warm bodies present. These numbers were up from the 2023 hybrid World Fantasy Convention, which saw 652 total memberships and 400 warm bodies at the con proper. (World Fantasy attendance has yet to reach prepandemic levels; the 2019 convention saw 660 warm bodies out of 762 memberships purchased. The 2021 convention, held when people were just beginning to go to events again, had 470 registered members.)
Con-goers received a large, black canvas, complimentary book bag filled with titles donated by publishers and authors. They also received the full-sized, slick, perfect-bound souvenir book, which featured cover art by artist GoH Dara; the committee list; the World Fantasy Award nominations and honorees; appreciations and bibliographies for the toastmaster, GoHs, special guests, featured guest, and Life Achievement Awards winners; an in memoriam; plus written pieces and a gallery section of work by the guests.
CONVENTION NOTES
Programming began on the morning of Thursday the 17th, with the panel ‘‘AI Audio’’ presented by Shiromi Arserio, Mark Leslie, Diana Pho (moderator), and Robert Morrisey; and a guest spotlight on toastmaster Michael Swanwick, conducted by Marianne Porter. Opening Ceremonies were held at 8:00 that evening.
The program schedule for the convention listed 34 panel discussions covering topics of craft, industry, criticism, and analysis of contemporary genre fiction. ‘‘Is This the Queerest Era of Horror and Fantasy?’’ featured Kerry C. Byrne, Catherine Lundoff, Marisca Pichette, April Steenburgh (m), and Cecilia Tan; ‘‘Non-European Fantasy and Horror’’ featured P. Djèlí Clark, Robert Knowlton, Tobi Ogundiran, Melissa Ren, and David Stokes (moderator); and ‘‘Fantastical Pulp Lives!’’ featured Teel James Glenn (m), Eileen Gunn, Stephen Jones, Sam Robb, and Darrell Schweitzer. Returning on opening Thursday was the ever-popular ‘‘Brandon O’Brien’s Fantastical Speculative Open Mic Night,’’ at which anyone could read their work. There was also a festive and well-attended karaoke night in the Cataract Room, which did double duty as bar and hangout lounge throughout the con.
The schedule also included panels on industry trends and business-oriented topics – such as ‘‘Trad Publishing 101’’ with Jen Albert, Jo Fletcher (m), Heather Graham, Amara Hoshijo, and Diana Pho; and ‘‘Writing Workshops – Do They Work?’’ with Matthew Kressel, Stephanie Morris (m), Sam W. Pisciotta, Emily Skaftun, Rosemary Claire Smith, and James Van Pelt. Several panels contended with the growing role of AI in the creative industries, like the aforementioned ‘‘AI Audio’’, as well as ‘‘AI in Fantasy and Horror Literature’’ with Scot Noel, Leslye Penelope, Joyce Reynolds-Ward, Tim Waggoner (m), and E. Lily Yu; and ‘‘AI in Fantasy Art’’ with Galen Dara, Sara Felix, Michael Kucharski (m), and Ruth Sanderson.
There were over 80 readings, comparable to previous years. This year’s readers included Julie E. Czerneda, Joe Haldeman, Jay Hartlove, Rachael K. Jones, Cleoniki Kesidis, Mary Anne Mohanraj, Tim Waggoner, and a 40th-anniversary reading of Moonheart by Charles de Lint. Programming also included several table talks, literary beers, and guest spotlights.
The main hall, the ‘‘Event Center,’’ housed the art show, dealer’s room, table talks, and autographing. The art show took place in about a quarter of the Event Center space, with 29 artists displaying work for a total of 439 pieces exhibited and 159 pieces sold. ‘‘Wisdom Tree’’ by Vincent Villafranca was voted Best in Show.
The dealer’s room was next to the art show. It wasn’t booming, but enough dealers were present to fill about a quarter of the room, including Amazing Stories, Atthis Arts, Brain Lag, Fairwood Press, Rosarium Press, Stelliform Press, Tachyon Publishers, Locus, and the Niagara Falls Public Library. Foot traffic and sales were slow this year: There were no busy times in the room and sales were super light. Some dealers thought the layout affected the foot traffic.
The mass autograph session was held on Friday October 18, at 8:00 p.m. and featured over 140 individuals. Signers included Ellen Datlow, Charles de Lint, Joe Haldeman, Ai Jiang, Mur Lafferty, Tobi Ogundiran, Sarah Pinsker, Moses Utomi, Martha Wells, A.C. Wise, Tao Wong, and Jason A. Wykoff, among many others.
The Sidewise Awards for Alternate History were not presented at the World Fantasy Convention this year; instead, they were presented this past August at Glasgow Worldcon.
AWARDS BANQUET
The World Fantasy Awards were held on Sunday, October 20, at 1:00 p.m. Approximately 90 people attended the banquet, with a larger crowd coming in for the awards after the dinner was finished.
The guests of honor were introduced and spoke to different areas of speculative fiction. Heather Graham warmly described the welcome she received at her first World Fantasy convention. Scott H. Andrews stressed the need for genre publishing to increase the financial accessibility of its editorial positions, especially in the short fiction market. Galen Dara acknowledged science fiction and fantasy as major forces that encourage humanity to imagine different global possibilities in times of crisis.
Special guest P. Djèlí Clark thanked the convention staff for their efforts and organization, and expressed the need for the convention to expand its efforts to include creators and fans of color. ‘‘Work must continue in earnest and with vigilance… if we are to survive,’’ he said. He noted the awards have introduced some welcome changes, like replacing the ‘‘creepy’’ bust of H.P. Lovecraft with the newer tree design, and stressed the importance of trying out and learning from different movements towards greater inclusiveness.
Gordon Van Gelder presented the Lifetime Achievement Awards to Ginjer Buchanan and Jo Fletcher. In her acceptance speech, Buchanan drew on the film Everything Everywhere All at Once, imagining different life paths and parallel universes, including one in which she never became an editor at Ace. But she concluded that the best path – which brought her to many continents, new friends, and late husband John R. Douglas – was this one.
Jo Fletcher thanked the judges and convention voters, as well as many editors and mentors in the field, and spoke of the friendliness and constructive nature of the community. ‘‘When I knew nothing, you shared with me your knowledge, your love of the genre… . We help each other; we mentor each other, even if we don’t know we’re doing it.’’ Both Buchanan and Fletcher spoke warmly of their friendship with each other and the support they had found in each other throughout the years.
Toastmaster Michael Swanwick honored the year’s judges, comparing the act of judging the year’s best works to standing in front of a ‘‘fire hose’’: Douglas A. Anderson, Stephanie Feldman, Thomas Olde Heuvelt, Pat Murphy, and Dr. Angela Slatter.
The first World Fantasy Award of the evening, Special Award, Non-Professional, went to Lynne M. Thomas & Michael Damian Thomas for Uncanny magazine. The award was accepted on their behalf by A. T. Greenblatt, who read their speech thanking their staff members and reader community, symbolized by the Space Unicorn mascot. They also thanked their late daughter for the love and inspiration she brought to their lives. ‘‘The Space Unicorn was always Caitlin.’’
The Special Award, Professional went to Locus’s own editor-in-chief Liza Groen Trombi for her work on the magazine. ‘‘We’re a small staff but a large community,’’ she said, and was thankful for the award as a ‘‘vote of confidence’’ for coverage of the genre community and publishing. She thanked the Locus staff and all the people who are part of the magazine, and dedicated the award to her mother, who passed on a love of books and reading.
Audrey Benjaminsen won the award for Best Artist. Dara read a speech on Benjaminsen’s behalf: ‘‘In this fast-paced world, I hope to contribute something helpful, slower, and more romantic in the hopes of seeing our lives more enriched with some of [these] qualities.’’
Best Collection went to No One Will Come Back for Us and Other Stories by Premee Mohamed. Mohamed, not present, accepted the award through her editor, Michael Kelly. She thanked her editors and team for their work in the difficult task of bringing short fiction to the world.
Best Anthology went to The Book of Witches, edited by Jonathan Strahan (another Locus figure!). Strahan, not present, was ‘‘jumping up and down celebrating on the other side of the world’’ while Gary K. Wolfe delivered his acceptance speech, thanking Strahan’s contributors and team at Harper Voyager.
The award for Best Short Fiction was presented to Nghi Vo for ‘‘Silk and Cotton and Linen and Blood’’. Vo was not present, but the award was accepted on her behalf by Scott H. Andrews.
The World Fantasy Award for novella went to ‘‘Half the House Is Haunted’’ by Josh Malerman. The award was accepted on Malerman’s behalf by Graham, who read his acceptance speech. Malerman commended the Dracula’s Castle haunted house experience in host city Niagara Falls, and reminded the audience to stay positive: ‘‘if half the house is haunted, half the house is not.’’
The Best Novel Award went to The Reformatory by Tananarive Due. Due delivered her speech virtually. ‘‘The Reformatory took me seven years to write, longer than any of my other novels,’’ she said. She spoke about how the story was inspired by her great uncle Robert Stevens’s death at the Dozier School for Boys, and how the elements of a ghost story let her create a novel that would provide hope amidst the ‘‘horror of history.’’ She credited her team at Saga, and her father and late mother for their support.
The next World Fantasy Convention is scheduled to be held at the DoubleTree by Hilton Brighton Metropole in Brighton UK, from October 30 – November 2, 2025. The themes will be ‘‘Lyrical Fantasy’’ and ‘‘50 Years of British Fantasy and Horror’’. Guests of honor and special guests have yet to be announced. For more: <worldfantasy2025.co.uk>.
– Maya St. Clair
A selection of photos from the convention follows.
Photographers: Francesca Myman and Liza Groen Trombi
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