TransAtlantic Fan Fund Free Ebooks

TAWF Times Two: The 1962 Trip Reports

Walt and Madeleine Willis

ISBN 978-1-913451-90-5

The Tenth Anniversary Willis Fund (TAWF) was organized to bring Walt Willis – this time with his wife Madeleine – to the 1962 Chicago Worldcon, ten years after the fan initiative that brought Walt alone to the 1952 Worldcon also held in Chicago. Both wrote trip reports: Walt’s was serialized in various fanzines and eventually collected as Twice Upon a Time in the monumental Warhoon #28 (1980) edited by Richard Bergeron. Madeleine’s instalments of The DisTAWF Side appeared in The SpeleoBem edited by Bruce Pelz, and have never until now been collected.

For this ebook, Rob Hansen has digitized Madeleine’s chapters, expanded them with comments and corrections from others (plus an unpublished letter from Walt and another from Madeleine) and written a new Foreword covering both reports. David Langford had the easier task of extracting Twice Upon a Time from Warhoon #28, unscrambling dates, correcting typos and restoring a fragment of lost text. Scans of all the original fanzine appearances at Fanac.org were a great help to both of us.

Released as an Ansible Editions ebook for the TAFF site on 1 December 2022; updated in January 2023 with Walt’s newly discovered Epilogue (published before any of the serial instalments) and other additional material. Cover photo of the Willises in 1957 from the collection of Norman Shorrock, probably taken by Peter West. Over 89,000 words.

“They complement each other very nicely. If ever these Trip Reports come out as an entity – they should be produced together.” – Ethel Lindsay in Haverings #21 (March 1966)

1962 was unusual in that were three UK fan fund delegates at that year’s Worldcon, whose paths also crossed elsewhere in the USA. The third was the 1962 TAFF winner Ethel Lindsay, whose The Lindsay Report (1963; TAFF ebook 2022) offers another view of shared events and experiences.