SF Translation Awards Donations Now Tax-Deductible

I don't remember announcing this earlier, but the Science Fiction & Fantasy Translation Awards parent non-profit corporation (of which I am Secretary-Treasurer and thus responsible for all of the filing paperwork) has been granted 501(c)(3) tax-exempt recognition by the IRS. That means that for anyone paying US taxes, donations to fund the awards should be tax-deductible.

( Behind the Scenes )

If you would like to help us with the goal of raising funds to pay for the SF & F Translation Awards, please consider donating to us. All of us working on the Awards are volunteers, and all funds raised go toward the Awards with only a bare minimum of necessary administrative overhead.

OryCon Hotel Feedback

I got a standard "how was your stay" note from Hilton (Doubletree) yesterday regarding my OryCon stay, and I submitted a note explaining that I supsect their breakfast buffet poisoned me. Today I was feeling well enough to come in to the office again, and just as I was pulling in to Campus Drive in San Mateo, I got a call from the Director of Services at the Portland Doubletree. She apologized for my having gotten sick, and while she's had no other reports of similar illnesses, she has reviewed with the restaurant staff the importance of food handling safety and what can go wrong if they don't follow safety guidelines. I admitted that I couldn't be certain it was their restaurant; it was just the most likely culprit given the timings.

We also discussed my microscopic, shower-stall-bathroom-only room. I explained that I'm aware of the peculiar architectural history of the building, in that the original tower was built for a Sheraton and has tiny, cramped rooms, while the second tower was built for Red Lion and has oversize standard rooms. I also said that I understood that OryCon had the hotel booked out and that my arriving on Friday limited their flexibility. I did, however, express my disappointment (or rather, Lisa's) as not getting a room with a bathtub in it. She agreed that as a Gold member, I should have been able to get at least a standard room in the "ex-Red Lion" wing. She laughed when I described rooms such as the one in which we were stored as "contractual obligation rooms," and she understood what I meant about them. She then sent me a message with her contact information and asked me to write to her again the next time I was going to stay in the area so that she could see what she could do to make my stay more pleasant.

I didn't get anything directly out of this, but I did appreciate a hotel manager taking the time to address my concerns. And if it got the restaurant staff to re-focus on food safety, that's a good thing by itself, because in my opinion (and more loudly in Lisa's) this is something that is too often taken for granted until someone gets sick.