British Fantasy Society

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British Fantasy Society logo (circa 2008)

The British Fantasy Society (BFS) began in 1971 as the British Weird Fantasy Society, an offshoot of the British Science Fiction Association. The society is dedicated to promoting the best in the fantasy, science fiction and horror genres.

In 2000, the BFS won the Special Award: Non-Professional at the World Fantasy Awards. The society also has its own awards, the annual British Fantasy Awards, created in 1971 at the suggestion of its president, the author Ramsey Campbell. It held its first convention in 1975.

The current British Fantasy Society has no direct connection with the earlier science fiction group using the same name from 1942 to 1946.

1 Publications
- 1.1 Dark Horizons
2 Members
3 External links
4 References

[edit] Publications

The BFS currently publishes three magazines. Prism, published four times a year, features news, reviews and columns. Dark Horizons, published twice a year, features fiction, non-fiction and poetry, and has enjoyed the patronage of many established authors, artists, critics and journalists. New Horizons, to be issued twice a year from 2008, publishes fiction and articles, but not poetry.

The society continues to produce a remarkable series of publications, including numbered chapbooks of works by William Hope Hodgson, Michael Moorcock, Ramsey Campbell, Peter Tremayne, August Derleth, and M. R. James. Magazines previously published include Winter Chills (later re-named Chills), edited by Peter Coleborn, and Mystique: Tales Of Wonder, edited by Mike Chinn. Both these magazines were independent publications, but linked to the BFS, and in the case of Mystique, absorbed into Dark Horizons after a few issues. Paperback titles include some authored by Clive Barker, Mythmaker for the Millennium by Suzanne J Barbieri, and Annabel Says, a modern ghost story by Simon Clark and Stephen Laws. In 2007 it published HP Lovecraft in Britain: a Monograph, written by Stephen Jones and illustrated by Les Edwards.

[edit] Dark Horizons

Dark Horizons, the journal of the British Fantasy Society, has been published since 1971. Its contents and subject matter have varied, according to the tastes of the editors and the contents of the other magazines being published by the BFS at the same time, but generally include some combination of fantasy, science-fiction and horror-related fiction, articles, poetry and artwork.

Its editors have included:

Rosemary Pardoe, issues 1-4, 1971-72
Adrian Cole, issues ?-6, 1973-?
Adrian Cole and David A Sutton, issues 7-?
Stephen Jones
Mike Chinn and John Merritt, issues 19–22, 1979–1981
David A Sutton, issues 23–29, 1981-?
David J. Howe
Peter Coleborn, Mike Chinn and Phil Williams, issue 37, 1998
Peter Coleborn and Mike Chinn, issue 38, 1999
Debbie Bennett, issues 39–46, 2001-2004
Marie O'Regan, issue 47, 2005
Marie O'Regan and Jenny Barber, issues 48-49, 2005-2006
Peter Coleborn and Jan Edwards, issues 50–52, 2006–2008
Stephen Theaker, issues 53–present, 2008-present

[edit] Members

Another notable member of the British Fantasy Society is the author Stephen Gallagher.

[edit] External links

[edit] References

Peter Roberts, "British Fantasy Society", The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, ed. by John Clute and Peter Nicholls (New York: St Martin's Press, 1995), p. 159
David A Sutton, “When Dark Horizons Turned Magenta”, Dark Horizons 50 (2007), pp. 4–5
Debbie Bennett, “21st Century Horizons”, Dark Horizons 50 (2007), p. 72
Mike Chinn, “From Dinosaurs to Disks: Fifty Issues of Dark Horizons”, Dark Horizons 50 (2007), pp. 88–89, 2007