At this year’s Nebula Banquet, a special presentation honoring Frank M. Robinson was to have been scheduled; Frank himself was unable to attend and, due to mis-communication an an unfortunate turn of events, the presentation was left out of the evening’s program.
Here is the official announcement from SFWA President Steven Gould:
We had a stunningly run Nebula Award Weekend with only the most minor technical hangups and wonderful participation by members and industry luminaries. Contrasted against this wonderful weekend was an error at the award ceremony that is particularly painful. Due to a combination of unintentional missteps, the presentation of the Special Honoree award to Frank M. Robinson was left off the ceremony list given to our Toastmaster.
While Frank, for health reasons, was not able to attend, the organization has never before failed to present an award in absentia. Frank had prepared a statement to be read by the presenter, past SFWA president Robin Wayne Bailey who flew in specifically to honor Frank. I want to deeply apologize to Frank who has been a long-time friend and mentor, and to my friend Robin who traveled to the event at great personal inconvenience.
The board of directors of the organization deeply regret that this happened and have voted to pay expenses for Frank and Robin to travel to our 50th Anniversary Nebula Weekend, should this be possible, where we will do the presentation we should’ve done last night.
Frank has a long and storied history with the pulps, pretty much starting his career off as an office boy and working side-by-side with Ray Palmer and Howard Browne at Amazing Stories. He even “managed to steal the entire run of Sidney Gernsback’s bound copies of Amazing.”
Visit Frank’s website, marvel at his collection and learn why one of the authors behind The Towering Inferno is so highly regarded by the industry.
