2012
Atticus Gannaway
Atticus Gannaway discovered Oz as a young reader and joined the Oz Club in 1988. His Oz interests and contributions grew up with him. As a budding young writer, he penned original Oz novels and short stories. Atticus contributed fiction to the Club’s Oziana, and reviews and convention reports to The Baum Bugle and The Oz Gazette. At summer conventions he served as a judge for the research tables. By 2002 his novel The Silver Sorceress of Oz was in print through the Emerald City Press.
Outside the realm of fiction, Atticus’s writing has proven invaluable to the Oz Club. He served as the editor-in-chief of The Baum Bugle from 2001 to 2004—the youngest person ever to hold that title—overseeing work on many important articles. He remains the review editor of the Bugle and served on the 2012 search committee for a new editor-in-chief. Atticus devotes much time to original research on topics of interest to him. His three-year project indexing comments from online Oz forums—nearly one million words—now provides online readers with categorized observations about Oz books. Atticus’s research into the life of Frank Kramer provided a wealth of previously unknown information about the Oz illustrator; it filled 30 pages of the Spring 2011 Bugle.
At conventions he’s shared ongoing research into publishers Sumner C. Britton and Frank K. Reilly, provided dramatic readings of Baum’s writing, appeared in plays, shared information about Oz film projects, and spoken about the Baum book Sky Island. Currently a member of the IWOC Board of Directors, Atticus championed the use of social media to bring the Club to new audiences, utilizing Facebook and Twitter on the Club’s behalf.
When the 2012 L. Frank Baum Memorial Award for “outstanding contributions to the saga of Oz” was presented to Atticus, 15 past award recipients were attending or represented by a family member to participate. The announcement of his name brought a standing ovation.