Spellbinders

A club in Santa Rosa, CA, which sponsored the Sonoma County, CA series of Octocon conventions and the Hamilton Memorial Award. WorldCat describes them as "a group of science fiction writers and artists". The primary purpose of the club was to give support, encouragement, and advice to developing writers and artists. This included reading other members manuscripts and offering constructive criticism. Early officers included Dorothy McCarty, President, and Lucy B. Buss, newsletter editor.

The club was founded in 1975 after an SF and Fantasy Writers' and Artists' workshop held in Forestville, CA (just outside Santa Rosa). The workshop was successful enough that members created the Spellbinders Club, which initially met twice a month.

They also created a newsletter, Spellbound, whose first issue was published in 1975 and continued until at least 1982. Volume numbers were associated with years, so Vol. 2, #1 was published in Jan/Feb 1976, and Vol. 5, #1 was published in Jan/Feb 1979. There appears to be a gap sometime between Vol. 5 and Vol. 7; Vol. 7, #1 was published in "Spring 1982". A substantial number of issues of their newsletter are held in the Sonoma County Library.

One of the club activities was to write a round-robin story which was then serialized through their newsletter. The first of these stories, The Sword Around the Corner was published in 1976 or '77. The second such story, Rat Trap was published in 1979.

Fl. 1975–79.

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Club

1975—

This is a club page. Please extend it by adding information about when and where the club met, when and by whom it was founded, how long it was active, notable accomplishments, well-known members, clubzines, any conventions it ran, external links to the club's website, other club pages, etc. When there's a floreat (Fl.), this indicates the time or times for which we have found evidence that the club existed. This is probably not going to represent the club's full lifetime, so please update it if you can!