Fan Guest of Honor
she/her
Geri Sullivan’s first contact with fandom was in July 1979, on her twenty-fifth birthday, when she attended a non-fannish, corporate party and met author Emma Bull, a member of the Minnesota Science Fiction Society (Minn-StF) and Minneapa at the time. It was just a month after Geri graduated from Michigan State University and moved to Minneapolis, and eight years before Emma’s first novel, War for the Oaks, was published. Emma and Geri quickly discovered that they had more in common with each other than with everyone else at the party, and spent the next seven hours in non-stop conversation, ending the evening with a trip to the Uptown Theatre for the midnight showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. It was a memorable birthday, the beginning of a terrific friendship… and the start of a long tenure in science fiction & fantasy fandom.
Geri was soon a member of Minn-StF; over the next few years, Geri attended Minn-StF meetings, attended Minicon, and joined Minneapa, which led to hosting parties, fan lounges, and con suites. She edited and co-edited fanzines such as Idea (winner of several FAAn Awards and 2024 Hugo Finalist) and the last four issues of Lee Hoffman’s Science-Fiction Five-Yearly (2007 Hugo winner). She later produced convention publications for regionals and Worldcons, particularly Minicon, Noreascon 4, and Renovation. Geri was the first Worldcon Hospitality Division Head (ConJosé, 2002) and the first Worldcon Artistic Director (Chicon 7, 2012).
Geri’s favorite convention roles are hoax-based: she’s the post-supporting chair of the Minneapolis in ’73 Worldcon bid and was the chair of the Time Travel Worldcon. Membership in the Minneapolis in ’73 bid is -1¢ – the bid gives each new member a 1973 penny (they say the bid is an idea whose times has come… and gone… and gotten silly.) Meanwhile, the Time Travel Worldcon not only hosted a Thank You party at Minicon 38, it gave Pass-Along Funds to Noreascon 4, Interaction, and L.A.con IV. The entertaining financial report can be found in the Torcon 3 Business Meeting minutes and Fancyclopedia reports on what happened next.
Geri’s been a guest of honor at several regional conventions including Los Angeles’ own regional convention, Loscon, in 1997. She became a Fellow of NESFA in 2008, was the Corflu 50 recipient in 2015, and the Transatlantic Fan Fund (TAFF) delegate in 2019. She is the 1999 Past President of FWA (Fan Writers Association) and won the Lifetime Achievement Award from Corflu in 2022.
Special projects are another of Geri’s faves. They include the Harris Fund to bring Chuck and Sue Harris to America back in 1989, and the Video Archeology Project digitizing material in the Scott Imes Video Library starting in 2015.
Common threads of friendship, fanac, hospitality, and sheer exuberance run through everything Geri does. She believes we get the fandom we create and looks forward to sharing marvelous adventures with all who join the expedition known as the 2026 Worldcon.
