Presented at Allegro Hotel, Chicago, Illinois on April 30, 2005

Thursday saw a day-long symposium in conjunction with the Illinois State Bar Association on copyright matters.  On Friday, tours were offered to Argonne National Laboratory & Fermilab and a complete day of on-site panels took place as well.  Due to the size of the Borders which was hosting the mass autographing, the event was spread out over two sessions on Friday and Sunday to give all the authors a chance to participate. At the Friday night reception, a phone call was placed to Jack Williamson on the occasion of his 97^th birthday.  There were more panels, as well as the Business Meeting, on Saturday.  Neil Gaiman served as Toastmaster and there was no keynote speech. When Anne McCaffrey was announced as the Grand Master at the banquet, her son and grandchildren greeted the announcement by creating a “thread fall” for her with Silly string.  All the original members of SFWA were brought up to sing “Happy birthday” on the fortieth anniversary of the organization and cut into a cake. The banquet centerpieces, dragon puppets, were auctioned off with the $1100 in proceeds going to the Emergency Medical Fund.