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JOHN DOUGLAS
MEETING SUMMARY:
Meeting Date: May 10, 2003.
Meeting Site: Bergen Highlands United Methodist Church, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.
Official Attendance: 36.
Meeting Program: Talk by Science Fiction Editor.
Notes:
Ace Books Editor Ginjer Buchanan (our guest's wife) attended.
Meeting Memories:
Newsletter Account:
The following account is reprinted with permission from THE STARSHIP EXPRESS Copyright 2003 Philip J De Parto:
The May meeting of the Science Fiction Association of Bergen County was held on Saturday, May 10, 2003 at the Bergen Highlands United Methodist Church in Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.
Pre meeting activities consisted of anime and other videos, as well as a discussion of movie and television adaptations.
Turnout was light for our Anime Associates. A short THOSE OBNOXIOUS ALIENS movie, ALWAYS MY DARLING, was substituted for the originally scheduled feature because several in the audience had already seen the other flick. The evening's facilitator was Charles Garofalo, who also screened a few old obscure American cartoons to round out the program.
Vincent Carlucci led the discussion of adaptations of comics into movies and television which began at 6:30 PM. The event started out with only a few people present, but kept growing as club members kept drifting in over the next 1-1/2 hours. The back and forth was lively.
The main event was a talk and question and answer session with CHRONICLE news editor John Douglas. The first part of his presentation was biographical, covering how he became interested in science fiction, discovering his first science fiction convention, moving to New York from Canada, and tracing his career at a succession of editorial positions at a number of science fiction publishers.
Mr Douglas discovered science fiction through the works of Andre Norton when he was 15 or 16. He discovered science fiction fandom in 1969 when some college friends invited him to join them in their trip to the Lunacon science fiction convention in New York. It was at Lunacon that he met editor David Hartwell who was giving away science fiction books and decided that this was a good guy to get to know.
He graduated college, met his wife, Ginjer Buchanan, moved to New York and worked at a record store for several years. He was approaching 30 when he decided it was time to get a real job. He knew a number of people in the field by this time and landed an entry level job at Pocket Books where he worked on several genres including the launch of the new Timescape imprint for their science fiction line.
This was followed by stints at Avon and then at HarperCollins. Among the books he was proud of acquiring over the years was John Ford's THE DRAGON WAITING. Among the books he regretted passing on was Douglas Adans' THE HITCHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY.
He explained his rationale in passing on Adams. Humor is a hard sell in general, especially in science fiction. This is even more so when you are trying to translate a British book into American. Many of the references go completely over the heads of yankees and cited several examples of this. Furthermore, when the book was submitted, no one mentioned that a radio serialization and a theatrical version were in preparation..
This served as a springboard to a long series of digressions on the popularity of the Harry Potter books. Everything from the writing to the marketing was discussed. This in turn led to a discussion of YA fantasy and science fiction in general.
When Rupert Murdoch added HarperCollins to his publishing empire, Douglas was let go. Mr Douglas decided he could do just as well by freelancing as he could by seeking another editorial position. While freelancing, he was contacted by Warren Lapine, who had purchased SCIENCE FICTION CHRONICLE from Andrew Porter. Mr Porter and Mr Lapine were soon having more than their share of disagreements about the direction of the magazine and agreed to part ways. Mr Douglas agreed to come aboard as News Editor.
It was an informative and fun meeting, and the input of Ace Books' Ginjer Buchanan was an added bonus.