Page Created: 04/01/14. Last Updated: 10/01/14.
SHEILA WILLIAMS
Sheila Williams has worked at ASIMOV'S SCIENCE FICTION Magazine for over 30 years, twice winning the Hugo Award as Best Short Form Editor. She has also edited or co-edited numerous anthologies of stories originally appearing in the magazine. She has also been a Managing Editor for ANALOG SCIENCE FICTION & SCIENCE FACT.
Links:
Asimov's Science Fiction
..........Official Site: http://www.asimovs.com/2014_04-05/index.shtml
..........Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asimov's_Science_Fiction
Sheila Williams
..........Geekmom.com Interview: http://geekmom.com/2014/02/sheila-williams/
..........Odyssey Workshop Interview: http://odysseyworkshop.wordpress.com/2012/12/13/interview-sheila-williams/
..........Twitter: https://twitter.com/SheilaWilliam10
..........Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheila_Williams
MEETING SUMMARY
Meeting Date: September 13, 2014.
Meeting Site: Bergen Highlands United Methodist Church. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.
Official Attendance: 29.
Meeting Program: Talk by Isaac Asimov's SF Magazine Editor.
Notes:
There was no room for an account of the meeting in the October 2014 Newsletter.
The September 13, 2014 General Meeting of the Science Fiction Association of Bergen County was held at the Bergen Highlands United Methodist Church in Upper Saddle River, New Jersey. Sheila Williams, editor of ASIMOV'S SCIENCE FICTION, was our speaker.
The Ice Nine pre meeting discussion was a very lively one, though the conversation wandered far afield from science ficiton at times. Roy Greenberg, Jim Spinosa, Pamela Webber and Barry Weinberger were the most active conversationalists. The viewing of episodes of ORGUSS 02 was well received by the smaller Animation Associates crowd.
Sheila Williams has been at ASIMOV'S SCIENCE FICTION for 30 years, twice winning teh Hugo Award as best short fiction editor. She has also edited or co-edited a number of reprint anthologies of stories to first appear in ASIMOV'S, and has been Executive Editor for ANALOG SCIENCE FICTION / SCIENCE FACT.
Our guest is a second-generation fan whose father hooked her on the field with bedtime sories about Edgar Rice Burroughs' Mars at age 5. By the time she was 14, Ms Williams had decided taht she wanted to be a science fiction editor, or at least the person who brought coffee to a science fiction editor as she doubted she would ever be able to be one herself.
After graduating from Elmira College in upstate New York, Sheila Williams moved to Manhattan. She crashed in a friend's dorm room at Columbia University and attended meetings of the Columbia Science Fiction Society. The group received a letter from Shawna Mc Carthy at ASIMOV'S asking if anyone might be interested in reading slush for the magazine. Our speaker held a low-paying job at the time, but she could not give it up to work for free. However, the correspondence and followup impressed Shawna enough to recommend Ms Williams for a position as an assistant in the subsidiary rights department. The job was tedious (letters had to be perfect, no corrections or white-outs/ it might take 8 tries to get it right), but her foot was in the door. It wasn't too long before an editorial assistant position opened up at ASIMOV'S, The first issue to identify Ms Williams as a staff member was the January 1983 issue, but our guest was actually working for the publication for a few months before that.
To Be Continued
Newsletter Account:
The following account is reprinted with permission from THE STARSHIP EXPRESS Copyright 2014 Philip J De Parto: