Carnegie Mellon Science Fiction Society
CMUSFS (also sometimes CMUSFA) was a club at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh which was formed in 1966. Linda Eyster, an SF reader, happened to start a conversation with Suzanne Tompkins while watching The Man from Uncle. Tompkins also turned out to be a reader and they soon decided to try to find others by creating a club. With a third reader, Adrienne Fein they posted signs around campus. The three of them later called themselves the Founding Mothers of CMUSFS.
The club's initial focus was mostly literary (though they always watched Star Trek). They did not attract many members, however Linda stumbled on the existence of conventions and the fact the the 1967 Worldcon (Nycon II) would be only a few hours' drive away in New York City. Linda and Suzanne decided to go and returned enthused about fandom. They started Granfalloon and took their second issue with them to their second convention, Marcon III in Columbus in March, 1969.
They decided to expand their club by looking for members off-campus, especially at other universities int he Pittsburg area. This worked and the club started to grow. Since it was no longer a CMU organization, it changed its name to the Western Pennsylvania Science Fiction Association (WPSFA).
See Western Pennsylvania Science Fiction Association for subsequent events.
| Club | 1966— |
| 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! |
