As mentioned in this article, James Gunn received SFWA’s Grand Master award at the Nebula Banquet. During the presentation, Thomas Seay read a letter of congratulations from the two Congressmen representing the University of Kansas, where Gunn is a professor emeritus. That letter is below.
Seay is a former student of Gunn’s who currently works for Representative Nancy Boyda.
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12 May 2007
Dear Professor Gunn:
Please accept our warmest congratulations on your receipt of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America’s Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award.
This high honor recognizes your distinguished contributions to the speculative fiction field throughout your six-decade-long career. As a writer, you have examined the human condition in dozens of acclaimed books and more than a hundred short stories. As an editor, you have chronicled the rise of speculative fiction and have collected many of the genre’s greatest works for a mass audience. As a scholar, you have helped to establish the critical study of speculative fiction and have explored the interrelations of science, technology, literature, and society. And as an educator, you have sparked a love for the literature of change in generations of students.
We are pleased to see your accomplishments receive this well-deserved recognition, and we wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors.
With warm regards,
Nancy Boyda, Member of Congress
Dennis Moore, Member of Congress
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The reading of this letter preceded appreciations by Kij Johnson and John Kessel, as well as President Robin Wayne Bailey’s reading of a letter from Bradley Denton.