Baltimore Science Fiction Society
The BSFS, a club in Baltimore, Maryland, was founded on January 5, 1963, in the back of a Trailways bus by six people (one of whom was Jack Chalker) returning from a meeting of the Baltiwash club WSFA. It began running Balticon in 1967, but the club died on October 12, 1968. It is associated with BWAWA and WSFA.
Balticon continued, and after Balticon 8, Sue Wheeler, Martin Deutsch and others re-founded BSFS in 1974 with mostly new members. It was incorporated in Maryland and granted tax-exempt status and thereafter ran Balticon.
There was a previous club in the Baltimore area in the early 1950s: the Baltimore Science Fiction Forum, and there was also the Baltimore SFL in the area in the 1930s, which lasted into the early ’40s.
Clubhouse
Starting in late 1991, the club acquired the BSFS Clubhouse (sometimes referred to as the BSFS Building, in a nod to State of Maryland Department of Assessments and Taxation vs. the Baltimore Science Fiction Society, located at 3310 E. Baltimore St., Baltimore, Maryland. It has been rebuilt over the years by a team led by Martin Deutsch and Dale Arnold, most recently with a second-floor mezzanine, accessed by an industrial lift, that nearly doubled the available shelf space for the library.
As of 2024, the club library had 18,225 unique items shelved in the BSFS Building and 133 storage boxes. Sue Wheeler heads the library committee. In addition, BSFS maintains a Little Free Library, available 24/7/365 in front of the building for the community's use (Charter #155682).
Awards
BSFS gives these awards annually at Balticon:
Links
- Website.
- History.
- “Balticon: As fans beam down, Baltimore Science Fiction Society celebrates 50 years.”
| Club | 1963— |
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