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"The Lovers"
50th
Anniversary Celebration: Report and Photos |
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| The 50th
Anniversary
Celebration of the publication of the novella "The Lovers" took place
on
Saturday August 10th, 2002 in Peoria, Illinois at the Peoria Public
Library,
Lakeview Branch. The Friends of Peoria Public Library hosted the
Writers
Live Reception. The celebration had also been organized by Michael
Croteau
en Rick Beaulieu, the webmasters of The Official Philip
José
Farmer Home Page, and by Tracy Knight, author and friend of
the Farmers. |
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---
Friday ---
On Friday
several
people arrived who had to travel from across the United States or from
as far as Bermuda, England and the Netherlands.
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The
festivities started on Friday for those already present. While having
dinner
at the Perkins restaurant Phil and Bette Farmer showed up unexpectedly,
at least for most of the around twenty people at the table.
From left to
right:
Philip
José
Farmer, Roger Crombie (Bermuda) and Zacharias Nuninga (Netherlands)
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| From
left to right: Jason Robert Bell (New York), Dean Marvin
(Florida),
Dan Getz (Nevada) and Rick Beaulieu (Texas) |
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Saturday ---
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| On Saturday
about seventy to eighty people gathered for the celebration, which was
started by Maggie Nelson, Head of Public Relations for the Peoria
Public
Library, who warmly welcomed Philip and Bette Farmer. |
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Rick
Beaulieu presented Phil a nice plaque from the International Philip
José
Farmer Fan Club, which no one knew existed until this day, engraved
with
text and the Virgil Finlay illustration used in the magazine Startling
Stories of August 1952 with the publication of "The
Lovers". The illustration is engraved on bright purple metal,
a color
special to Phil. The plaque has the following text:
1952
-1953 Hugo Award
Most Promising
New Talent
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Thank
you for keeping the promise for the past 50 years, and providing us
with
uncounted hours of Entertainment, Escape & Enlightenment!
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Presented
to Philip José Farmer in recognition of the incredibly rich
imagination
you have allowed us to share. Our dreams are all the better for you
sharing
yours.
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The
International
Philip José Farmer Fan Club August 10, 2002
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Next
came Shannon Robicheaux who had made a drawing of Phil and Bette as The
Lovers, done from a 1954 newspaper clipping. He presented this drawing
to them and explained why he had choosen this particular picture to
illustrate
what The Lovers meant to him. The picture was used on the cover of a
booklet.
Shannon also did a drawing
of a special
PJF book signing session. Fifteen poster sized numbered copies, signed
by Philip and Shannon, were sold at the celebration for $25 each. The
picture
has been used in the center of the booklet. There is also a nude
version of this drawing done by Shannon, which only a few of
us have
seen at the celebration. That drawing was not for sale, alas. |
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Mike
Croteau held a speech about the impact of "The Lovers" fifty years ago.
He memorized many of the published letters from well known writers and
editors in the magazines Startling Stories and Thrilling
Wonder
Stories mentioning the story. The magazines published more
than 200
letters over a period of three years with comment  about
the story, nearly all of them in favor of it.
As a memory
of this celebration Mike Croteau had made a nice booklet,
containing most of the stuff presented to Phil this day: drawings, the
text of the plaque, letters on "The Lovers" reprinted from the
magazines
and most of the letters from the other science fiction authors. This
booklet
was given away to those present after the book signing session. |
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Tracy
Knight concluded the speeches with reading the letters from other
science
fiction authors, sent to Phil congratulating him with this
50th Anniversary
Celebration of "The Lovers".
The letters
came from Gene Wolfe, Jane Yolen, Joe Haldeman, Piers Anthony, Robert
Sheckley,
Bruce Sterling, David Brin, Ed Gorman, Joe L. Hensley, David Drake,
Jean
M. Auel, Julian May, Frederik Pohl, Michael Bishop, Andre Norton, Kim
Stanley
Robinson, Michael Moorcock, James Gunn, Howard V. Hendrix and Kilgore
Trout,
who wrote:
| "I don't
understand
what the big deal is. Years before Farmer sold a sex story to a science
fiction magazine, I was selling science fiction stories to sex
magazines.
So it goes." |
These letters
made it into the special The Lovers booklet. The letters that arrived
too
late to be included were only read during the ceremonies, they were
from
Larry Niven, Michael Swanwick and Gary Wolfe. |
| Philip
José Farmer gave a short speech and showed everyone the
Hugo, a
rather small rocket, he received in 1953 for being the most promising
new
science fiction author.
He then did
a book signing session, which was limited to five books per person. But
it seemed that there were too many people and too many books to sign.
Farmer
had to cut short the signing because it was too tiring for him. Not
everyone
got their books signed, alas.
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I
was lucky enough to get my books signed, five hardcovers: The
Lovers
(Del Rey, 1979), The Adventure
of the Peerless Peer (Aspen
Press, 1974), Venus
on the Half-Shell (Buccaneer,
1996), The
Fabulous Riverboat (Putnam,
1971)
and The Alley God (Sidgwick
& Jackson,
1970). |
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Saturday evening ---
| That Saturday
the festivities were closed with a dinner with Phil and Bette Farmer
and
some of their relatives. More than thirty people dined with them at the
Lariat restaurant and had a nice meal and good talks and laughs. |
| Thanks to
Mike I sat next to Phil, who still did feel tired from the celebration
and the signing in the afternoon. But he came around after some time
and
we, the Farmerians at his table, had a nice conversation with him. |
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From left
to right: Francine and Lee Barrie, Bette Farmer, Dean Marvin, Kelley
Cullers
and Don Mead
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From left
to right: Fernando Maldonado, Dale LaFleur, Rick Beaulieu, and two good
friends of the Farmers Lynn Carl and on the side of his head Jack Cordes
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From left
to right: Dan Getz, Deborah DePree, Craig Kimber and me and Phil from
the
back
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From left
to right: Lisa Croteau, with the two children Kelly and Jordan on her
both
sides, Claire and Paul Spiteri, and their daughter Gina talking to
Sharon
Knight
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| After dinner
was done Maggie Nelson had a little surprise. When the mystery novel and |
| serial
book Naked Came the
Farmer was published,
as a fund raiser for the Peoria Public Library, the library had special
T-shirts made for every author, thirteen T-shirts. Four of them
remained
for different reasons, and these four were put up for auction. They
sold
for $50.00 each, the proceeds of which go to the Library. I have never
had such an expensive T-shirt, but it is a donation to the Peoria
Public
Library, for which Farmer has a warm heart. |
The 'lucky
winners' of the T-shirts are from left to right: Fernando Maldonado,
Rick
Beaulieu, Zacharias Nuninga and Susan Croteau |
| It has been
a wonderful and memorable weekend for me and Frouwke, and for most of
the
other Farmerians too, some of who like me met Farmer for the first time. |
| It was also
nice to meet so many Farmerians and to put a face to names of people I
only knew through the internet and e-mail before, like Mike, Rick,
Roger,
Jonas, Lee, Dan, Dean, Paul, Craig, Tracy, Stevyn and Shannon. |
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All photos
© 2002 by Frouwke Dijkhuizen & Rias Nuninga
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