Tom Smith
(June 23, ???? – )
Fan, and filk singer-songwriter from Ann Arbor, MI, Tom Smith got his start in the filk music community in 1985. He is a fourteen-time winner of the Pegasus Award for excellence in filking, including awards for his "A Boy and His Frog," "307 Ale," and "The Return of the King (Uh-huh)".
He was Music GoH at Sasquan, the 2015 Worldcon.
His nickname, "The World's Fastest Filker", comes from numerous instances of "instafilk", i.e., quickly-written or improvised songs. He has improvised entire concert sets, and his album Badgers and Gophers and Squirrels Oh My: The 24-Hour Project, inspired by Scott McCloud's 24-Hour Comics Day, features seventeen songs written in twenty-four hours. In May 2006, he released the album The Last Hero On Earth, a comic opera which has twenty songs, all written in one day, to the same plot.
Since 2020, he has run an invitational Facebook group, Tom Smith's Fandom Safe Zone, for “discussion of all things fannish,” which had 870 members as of January 2021.
Awards, Honors and GoHships:
- 1990 -- Consonance 1990
- 1991 -- Pegasus Award
- 1992 -- Philcon 1992, ConChord 8, FilKONtario 2
- 1994 -- VIbraphone, Philcon 1994
- 1995 -- Balticon 29
- 1996 -- Toastmaster at Musicon 5
- 1997 -- Conestoga '97, Boskone 34 (Featured Filker)
- 1998 -- Swilcon '98
- 1999 -- OVFF 15
- 2000 -- MisCon 14: They're Here
- 2001 -- GAFilk 2001, Archon 25, Millennicon Liftoff, 2001: A ConTraption for the New Millennium
- 2002 -- Consonance 2002
- 2004 -- Arisia '04
- 2005 -- OryCon 27, Ad Astra XXIV, InConJunction XXV, ConClave XXX, Marcon 40, Filk Hall of Fame
- 2006 -- MarsCon 2006, MidSouthCon 24, InConJunction XXVI, Toastmaster at WindyCon 33
- 2007 -- FenCon IV
- 2008 -- Capricon 28, GAFilk 10, Millennicon 22, Toastmaster at Contata 5 and InConJunction XXIX
- 2009 -- WindyCon 36, MC at LibertyCon 22, toastmaster at Chattacon XXXIV
- 2010 -- Conflikt 3
- 2011 -- ChambanaCon 41, Toastmaster at Contata 6
- 2012 -- Epic ConFusion
- 2013 -- Conjecture 2013 / ConChord 25, FenCon X
- 2014 -- Chessiecon 2014
- 2015 -- Sasquan, Chessiecon 2015 (Special Guest)
- 2017 -- The Continuum
- 2019 -- Westercon 72, Heliosphere 2019,
Chessiecon 2019 (Special Guest) - 2020 -- toastmaster at OVFF 36, Chessiecon 2020 Music GoH
- 2021 -- Astronomicon 13, toastmaster at OVFF 37
- 2023 -- Windycon 49 (Special Guest)
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