Con report: PulpFest 50

This past Aug. 4-7, 2022, PulpFest 50 was held in Pittsburgh. While it celebrated “50 years,” this is because they start the count with the first Pulpcon in 1972, which PulpFest replaced.

For years I have known about this convention, but was never able to attend. This time I was able to. Hopefully it won’t be my last. In addition, FarmerCon XVII was held in conjuntion with it.

A part of PulpFest is the program book The Pulpster. I have already reviewed #31, which was tied to this PulpFest. Also, for FarmerCon, the folks at Meteor House put out a program booklet, which I got a copy of. It has several short articles and a tradition of FarmerCon is folks signing each others programs, which I think is a nice one.

Overall this was a great event. There were many dealers and attendees. There were a few I wish where there. And for me it great that I was finally able to meet many people face-to-face for the first time whom I’ve only known via email or Facebook interactions. Since I flew, I couldn’t get the number of books and items that I’d like, but I did get a few nice items, which will be reviewed here at some point.

The 2022 Munsey Award, which is presented to an individual or institution that has bettered the pulp community, was given to Rick Lai, who is known for his scholarship into character chronologies, as well as his fiction. This is well deserved. I have reviewed several of his works here, and will be coming out with more soon.

As I came in very late on Thursday, I missed all the programming that day. But I was able to partake of things on Friday and Saturday. And I had to leave early Sunday morning to catch my flight. The dealer room opened at 10 a.m., with talks starting around 1 p.m. Several of the talks tied to articles in The Pulpster. I sat in on several of them and all were pretty good. Hopefully I’ll be able to write up something for The Pulpster, and as a longtime trainer and presenter, doing a presentation would be nice as well.

If you’ve never taken the time to attend PulpFest, I encourage everyone to do so. The date and theme of the next PulpFest is set: Aug. 3-6, 2023, at the same hotel in Pittsburgh. The theme of next year will be “Chilling Sports,” tying to 100 years of Weird Tales and Sports Story Magazine. The PulpFest website is already updated with this information.