The Program Booklet shown above (cover art by Keith Howell) includes three "con reports," which were submitted before the event (neat trick that) as well as a sneak preview of two parodies of Phil's Riverworld series that might be printed in a future issue of Farmerphile.
The first Farmer Awards were given out; Michael Croteau won Top Farmerphile (here "farmerphile" is an adjective not a noun). Bette Farmer won Top Farmerphile Contributor (noun). George Scheetz won Top Retroactive Farmerphile (adjective again). Win Eckert won the Wold Newton Award and Phil Farmer was awarded the Maker of Universes Lifetime Acheivment Award.
The Program Booklet shown above (cover art by Shannon Robicheaux) includes letters from some friends of Phil's who could not make it to Farmercon II. Names you might recognize such as; Phileas Fogg, Kilgore Trout, Ralph von Wau Wau, Roger Two Hawks, Paul Janus Finnegan, and many others. It also contains a short story by Christopher Paul Carey, titled "A Kick in the Side" which takes place during the events of Phil's novel FLIGHT TO OPAR.
Philip José Farmer was the principle speaker, there is an article in the program about him by Bruce Sterling, a reprint of O'Brien and Obrenov and a full page ad from TOR.
Contains the story "Evil, Be My Good", which was later printed in THE ULTIMATE FRANKENSTEIN.
Phil was the Science Fiction Guest of Honor at this convention. There is a profile of Phil by Robert Weinberg which talks about his career and calls him a "Maker of Universes". He also talks about introducing Phil to the editors who wanted to produce the Riverworld shared-world anthologies, but only if he could contribute a Riverworld story himself.
Phil was one of the guests at this convention near St. Louis.
Philip José Farmer was the guest of honor, there is a bio of him in the program by Frederick Pohl.
This round-robin novel was written as project for The Peoria Public Library, which got all the proceeds from the book. The book was launched at a book signing with most of the 13 authors present on the evening of May 15th, 1998, the same night as the final episode of Seinfeld! This did cut down the attendance some, but the library did eventually sell all it's copies of the book.
While the exhibit of Farmer memorabilia at the library lasted the whole month of June, it was on the 2nd that Phil came and gave a talk and signed copies of his Peoria based mystery novel, NOTHING BURNS IN HELL. The second page of the Newsletter also talks his forthcoming Tarzan novel and the latest edition of the Riverworld books.
Harlan Ellison presented Phil with the 2001 Nebula Grand Master Award. Harlan and Gary K. Wolf both wrote tributes to Phil which appeared in the Summer 2001 issue of The Bulletin No. 150, which covered the Nebula Awards.
Web Page
The Peoria Public Library, with some help from the (then) Unofficial PJF Home Page, hosted an event celebrating Phil's winning the 2001 Nebula Grand Master Award.
Web Page
The Peoria Public Library, and the Official PJF Home Page, hosted an event celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Philip José Farmer debut science fiction story, The Lovers.
It began with Paul Spiteri planning a trip to the US from England which included a stop in Peoria to see Phil. He suggested that, similar to the events in 2001 and 2002, we have a few more people come to Peoria and have a get together with Phil and Bette Farmer. The regular contributors behind Farmerphile were invited; Michael Croteau, Chris Carey, Win Eckert, Danny Adams, Keith Howell, Charles Berlin and Jason Robert Bell (the last two being the only ones who could not attend). Bette then invited some local, or at least in-state, friends to come and before we knew it we had 30 people at dinner Saturday night and showing up at Phil's house on Saturday.
Just like Farmercon I, this "convention" began with Paul Spiteri and his family visiting from England. This time around we tried to invite everyone who had contributed to Farmerphile. Unfortunately, because we didn't start organizing this event and sending out invitations until June, many were unable to attend. Those Farmerphile contributors who could make it were; Paul Spiteri, Michael Croteau, Chris Carey, Win Eckert, Rick Beaulieau, Shannon Robicheaux, Chuck Loridans, Dennis Power, Gary K. Wolfe, Tracy Knight and none other than Joe R. Lansdale. We also expanded the guest list this year to include the members of the Wold Newton Society who happend to be in St. Louis (only three hours from Peoria) doing panels at Archon; Henry Covert, Rick Lai, John Small and, fittingly enough, there were some "crossovers" between the Farmerphile and Wold Newton groups; Win Eckert, Chuck Loridans and Dennis Power were doubly invited.
