PulpFest 2012 is now accepting registrations for our August convention. From our Registration page, you’ll be able to download our member and dealer registration forms, including ones that you can fill in and print from your own computer. You can pay for memberships and dealer tables through our Paypal Order page. You’ll also be able to book a room at the Hyatt Regency Columbus at the convention rate of $109 plus tax by visiting our special link to the hotel.

On our Programming page you’ll find our tentative schedule for the 2012 convention when we’ll be celebrating the centennial of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Mars and the 80th anniversary of Robert E. Howard’s Conan of Cimmeria. You can read more about MIke Resnick, our award-winning guest of honor by turning to the GOH–Mike Resnick page. If you’d like to relive the first three PulpFests, you’ll find reviews, our blogs from previous years, and more. We even have a primer on pulp history!

All this can be found by clicking the buttons along the left side of our home page. And don’t forget, now’s the time to make your nominations for the 2012 Rusty Hevelin Service Award. Please send the name of the person that you’d like to nominate and a short paragraph describing your reasons for your nomination to Mike Chomko, 2217 W. Fairview St., Allentown, PA  18104-6542 or to mike@pulpfest.com. The deadline for nominations is April 30, 2012.

We look forward to seeing you over the weekend of August 9-12.

The Munsey Award is a prestigious award given each year at PulpFest to the person deemed most worthy by the majority of his or her peers. It recognizes the efforts and ongoing involvement of the recipient in the improvement, elevation, and continuance of keeping the pulps  alive and well for this generation and future generations.

As a result of the recent death of one of the organizers and stalwarts of the hobby, PulpFest has decided that henceforth the Munsey will be called The Rusty Hevelin Service Award,  or, in short, The Rusty. Hopefully, this will be accepted as a tribute to a man who was influential in making  PulpFest and its predecessors as successful as they are today.

The first annual Rusty Hevelin Service Award will be presented at PulpFest 2012. Nominations for the award are now being accepted. All members of the pulp community, whether they plan to attend PulpFest 2012 or not, are welcome to nominate a deserving person for this year’s Rusty.

David Saunders, the son of the legendary pulp artist Norman Saunders, has created a limited-edition print to serve as The Rusty. David’s work, pictured above, is a refreshing homage to classic pulp art that honors the entire pulp community and their common love of the purple prose of the bloody pulps.

If you have someone in mind that you feel worthy to receive this year’s Rusty, please let us know. All members of the pulp community, excepting past winners of the Munsey or Lamont awards, are eligible for this prestigious prize. Please send the person’s name and a brief paragraph describing why you feel that person should be honored to Mike Chomko, 2217 W. Fairview Street, Allentown, PA 18104-6542 or to mike@pulpfest.com. The deadline for nominations is April 30, 2012. The recipient of the Rusty will be selected by a panel of judges consisting of recognized experts in the field of pulp literature. The award will be presented on Saturday evening, August 11th during the convention’s evening programming.

Over the next few weeks, the PulpFest website will go through its annual overhaul. We’ll not only be updating many of the pages, but we’ll also be making several very exciting announcements (including our guest of honor). Additionally, we’ll be adding a link to the Hyatt Regency Columbus to allow you to book a room at the special convention rate.

The best way to keep abreast of changes to the website is through our email list in the little gray box to the right of our top post. It’s fast and easy to do. So join right now and be among the first to learn all there is to know about PulpFest 2012.

And don’t forget about our facebook site. You can "like" us at http://www.facebook.com/PulpFest.

The PulpFest organizing committee is delighted to announce that next year’s convention will be held at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in downtown Columbus, Ohio—a bigger and better venue for a con that has been growing by ten percent per year since its start in 2009. PulpFest 2012 will begin on Thursday evening, August 9th, and run through Sunday, August 12th.

PulpFest chairman Jack Cullers has spent the last three months scouting hotels to find one better equipped to host our steadily growing conference. The committee investigated the possibility of moving to other cities, including Akron, Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Pittsburgh, before electing to remain in Columbus, from which PulpFest has drawn a substantial number of new members to our community.

Size, location, affordability, and availability are just a few of the many factors that must be taken into consideration when selecting a venue. After careful consideration, we settled on the Hyatt Regency because it not only meets our current needs but is large enough to accommodate our continued growth.   (more…)