If you are looking for information on how to join the World Science Fiction Society, see the Membership/How to Join page. You join WSFS by joining the current World Science Fiction Convention. See the list of Forthcoming Conventions at right for a list of all conventions sanctioned by WSFS (only Worldcons include WSFS membership) or see the Worldcon web site for links to future Worldcons. There are no membership forms on this web site. You must contact the individual Worldcon or NASFIC you want to join to obtain your membership from that convention.

Although both Worldcon and NASFiC are conventions sanctioned by WSFS, only Worldcon includes a WSFS membership. Joining NASFiC does not include a WSFS membership and does not convey the right to nominate and vote on the Hugo Awards or to participate in the selection of future Worldcon sites.

Purposes:

The World Science Fiction Society (WSFS) is an unincorporated literary society whose purposes, according to its rules, are as follows: to choose the recipients of the annual Hugo Awards (Science Fiction Achievement Awards), to choose the locations and Committees for the annual World Science Fiction Conventions (the Worldcons), to attend those Worldcons, and to choose the locations and Committees for the occasional North American Science Fiction Conventions (the NASFiCs). (A NASFiC is held in North America in any year when the Worldcon is outside of North America.)

Organization:

There is no WSFS Board of Directors or Chair/President/CEO of WSFS. Almost all of the activities of the Society are performed by the selected convention committees, which are independent groups. Membership in the Society is defined as all persons for whom membership dues have been paid to the current Worldcon committee. The convention committees are selected up to two years in advance and you may wish to contact them as listed on this site for further information.

All of the groups organizing WSFS-sanctioned conventions (Worldcon and NASFiC) and operating the various WSFS web sites are volunteers. There is no central office or paid staff operating any of these sites or conventions.