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TAFF Trip Report Anthology
Second EditionDavid Langford (editor)
ISBN 978-1-916508-36-1
This 2025 revision of the original 2017 ebook brings together segments of abandoned, undersized or as yet unfinished TransAtlantic Fan Fund trip reports, plus other related material. The TAFF winners represented are Wally Weber (1963), Terry Carr (1965), Elliot K. Shorter (1970), Peter Weston (1974), Roy Tackett (1976), Terry Hughes (1979), Stu Shiffman (1981), Avedon Carol (1983), Patrick and Teresa Nielsen Hayden (1985), Greg Pickersgill (1986), Lilian Edwards and Christina Lake (1988), Robert Lichtman (1989), Pam Wells (1991), Jeanne Bowman (1992), Abigail Frost (1993), Dan Steffan (1995), Ulrika O’Brien (1998), Maureen Kincaid Speller (1998), Randy Byers (2003), Steve Green (2009), Anne and Brian Gray (2010), Curt Phillips (2014), John Purcell (2017), Michael Lowrey (2020) and Sandra Bond (2023).
Second-edition updates comprise the removal of now-redundant sample chapters by Jeanne Gomoll (1987 – full report published 2020), John Coxon (2011 – full report published 2020), Jim Mowatt (2013 – full report published 2018); a newly unearthed chapter on Greg Pickersgill; further instalments by Randy Byers, sadly no longer with us; and post-2017 chapters by John Purcell, Michael Lowrey and Sandra Bond.
Published as an Ansible Editions ebook for the TAFF site on 1 April 2025, with a cover design incorporating the TAFF eastbound and westbound logos designed by Anne Stokes in 2006. 139,500 words.
A companion anthology of GUFF report fragments was released in March 2025. For completists, the original 2017 TAFF report anthology remains available.
- Details of all past TAFF races and voting can be found here.
From the Introduction
A long-standing tradition of TAFF is that returned winners administer the fund until replaced by their successor from the same side of the Atlantic and if possible write a substantial trip report, both for sale in aid of the fund and for the entertainment and edification of fandom. This tradition goes back to before TAFF itself began. A special fund was organized to bring Walt Willis from Ireland to the USA and the World SF Convention in 1952 (an initiative which led directly to the founding of TAFF), and his report The Harp Stateside is regarded as a classic of fan writing.
Many TAFF winners since then have likewise published full-length trip reports. Two were unable to make the journey and had nothing to report on. Some were waylaid by the horrors of real life and failed even to begin a report; some published instalments in fanzines but didn’t finish. This ebook collects the reports that at the time of publication remain incomplete, or consist of notes for an intended full report, or are so brief that they couldn’t plausibly be published as a standalone fanzine in the tradition of The Harp Stateside. Nevertheless there’s a lot of fine fan writing here.
David Langford
March 2025
