We’re about sixty days away from the start of PulpFest 2026! On Thursday, July 30, be one of the hundreds of pop-culture fans rushing into our dealers’ room at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Pittsburgh – Cranberry, just north of Pittsburgh in Mars, Pennsylvania. Click the link marked “registration” on our website to learn how to join this summer’s annual get-together for popular fiction and art fans.
If you’re planning to register for PulpFest 2026, remember that you can also submit material to this year’s auction. As long as you let us know what you intend to submit by 11:59 pm on Sunday, June 28, 2025 — plus photographs and descriptions of your submissions — your items will be eligible for online bidding. Click here to learn more, or write to Mike Chomko at mike@pulpfest.com with your questions.
Another fast-approaching deadline is your nominations for the 2026 Munsey Award or Rusty Award. We must receive your nominations by 11:59 pm on Sunday, June 7.
To nominate a person or organization for either or both of these prestigious awards, please state your reasons in a few sentences. Send your nomination to PulpFest marketing and programming director Mike Chomko at mike@pulpfest.com. You can also reach Mike at 2217 W. Fairview Street, Allentown, PA 18104-6542. For further guidelines about Munsey nominations, please click here.
PulpFest 2026 will be celebrating the centennials of Amazing Stories and Ghost Stories, plus a great deal more, at this year’s convention. Hugo Gernsback’s groundbreaking science-fiction pulp and Bernarr Macfadden’s purportedly “true” magazine concerning the spirit world both debuted one hundred years ago.
And don’t forget that your PulpFest 2026 membership also makes you a member of Doc Con 2026, FarmerCon XXI, and The Shadow Con 2026. That’s four conventions for one price! You can’t beat that deal. We have programming lined up for each convention.
And for fans of the Master of Adventure, Edgar Rice Burroughs, we’ll be hosting an art show on Friday and Saturday afternoon. It will be hosted by Henry G Franke III — the editor of The Burroughs Bulletin and The Gridley Wave monthly newsletter. Henry and award-winning artist Mark Wheatley will also be discussing Burroughs artist Robert Kennedy Abbett as part of our programming line-up at this year’s convention.
The general public is welcome to attend our programming events free of charge. To learn more about our programming, please click the 2026 Schedule link on our homepage.
In the weeks ahead, we’ll be posting here about our dealers, our terrific programming, our Pulpster program book, the writers and artists who will be appearing at PulpFest, and much more. You can keep abreast of these updates by bookmarking our homepage or liking us on Facebook. You can also follow us on X/Twitter or Instagram. Don’t forget to sign up for the PulpFest e-letter — focusing on the “behind-the-scenes” planning for this summer’s convention — by clicking here. Just give us your name and email address and click the “submit” button. While you’re at it, you may as well subscribe to our YouTube channel and enjoy the great videos that Craig McDonald has been creating over the last few years.
You can join PulpFest 2026 by clicking the register link on the PulpFest website. If you want to sell at the convention, we are running very low on tables. There are just a few island tables available, costing $110 per table. Please click the “register” link on our website to learn how to join the convention as a dealer.
If you need lodging, we urge you to book your room at the DoubleTree as soon as possible. The hotel has been selling out well in advance for the last few years. Click the book a room link on our website to place your reservation, or visit our registration page for alternate directions. Most of the remaining rooms feature single, king-size beds.
If you’re looking for a roommate for your DoubleTree stay, please email convention chairman Jack Cullers at jack@pulpfest.com. He may be able to put you in touch with someone.
Join us at PulpFest 2026 for our celebration of the centennials of Amazing Stories and Ghost Stories, plus a great deal more. You’ll have an Amazing time!
PulpFest is the convention for fans of popular culture and genre fiction, both old and new. It celebrates the many ways that pulp magazines have inspired creators over the years.
So what’s your taste? Heroic warriors and omnipotent sorcerers? Mysteries that leave you breathless? Adventures inside the earth or beyond the farthest star? Finding true love when least expected? All have their roots in pulp fiction.
Our lead image was adapted by William Lampkin from Robert Gibson Jones’ cover art for the May 1951 issue of Amazing Stories, illustrating a scene from Howard Browne’s (as Lawrence Chandler) novella “Planet of No Return.” We’ll be celebrating the centennial of Amazing Stories at this year’s PulpFest.
The Munsey Award was created in 2009 by award-winning artist and pulp art historian David Saunders. Dan Zimmer of The Illustrated Press and publisher of Illustration Magazine produced a limited, signed, and numbered edition of the award. The Munsey is named after Frank A. Munsey, the publisher of the first pulp magazine.
Frank R. Paul, the “grandfather of science-fiction art,” painted the cover for the program book of the 13th World Science Fiction Convention — Clevention — held on September 2 – 5, 1955 at the Manger Hotel in Cleveland, Ohio. Although the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Pittsburgh – Cranberry is not quite as futuristic as Paul’s illustration — excerpted for our featured image — the hotel was completely renovated in 2016.
Our featured image is a photograph of our dealers’ room at PulpFest 2025. It was taken by PulpFest advertising director, William Lampkin. Bill also manages our website and edits The Pulpster.
Leslie Silberberg is a writer and popular culture enthusiast who began posting on our website in 2022. She enjoys the science fiction pulps, particularly the work of such leading female writers as Leigh Brackett, Claire Winger Harris, Zenna Henderson, Judith Merril, C. L. Moore, Margaret St. Clair, Wilmar H. Shiras, Francis Stevens, and Leslie F. Stone. Many thanks to Ms. Silberberg for her contributions to pulpfest.com.
