I'm told that there's a long tradition of fanzines being used as vehicles for shameless self-promotion. I actually tried not to do that with Demeter's Daughter, but I eventually decided that I may as well. It's my fanzine, dammit. It's just this one page, I promise!
I would very much like to go to the Worldcon in Japan this summer. I've done very little travelling, and Japan is somewhere that I've wanted to go to for some time now. I also love the idea of going to conventions in different places and meeting fans from all over the world.
There's one glitch here. I am (as anyone who knows me will know!) perpetually broke. I don't actually have a hope in hell of getting to Japan alone, no matter how hard I tried. I mentioned this to Flick a few months ago in a moment of woefulness. "Why don't you run for JETS?", she asked me. "Oh, I couldn't do that..could I?"
A few weeks later Douglas Spencer, Max, Lillian Edwards and Sue Mason had nominated me, and all of a sudden it was official. And I had a sudden fit of determination-I really want to make a go of this. It would be an amazing experience, something I'll always remember.
But of course, I can't do it unless people vote for me. There is a voting fee (this plus a £1000 donation from Interaction is what's paying for the winner's trip) of £3 minumum, and voting closes the week after the 2007 Eastercon.
There's a printable ballot available here, but ballot forms are likely to be widely available at Picocon (which is probably where you're reading this) or the Tun, or anywhere where you see one of the seven candidates. I've usually got a pile of them with me if I'm at anything vaguely fannish. It's also possible to vote by PayPal, sending the voting fee of £4 (the extra is to cover PayPal's admin costs) to alison@kittywompus.com with a note attached to say who you are voting for and in what order.
Voting is by preferential ballot, and as there are so many candidates for this race your second place vote is likely to matter almost as much as your first place vote-so even if you've promised your vote to someone else, I can still harass you!
If I win, I'll do my best to write my trip report quickly and make it as entertaining and informative as possible. I suspect it would be published in a future issue of this fanzine, and quite possibly made available on my website (www.persephonehazard.co.uk) at some point.
Vote for me. Go on, you know you want to really.