Categories include novels and short fiction, artwork, dramatic presentations, and various professional and fandom activities.
[7] S. M. Stirling's 2008 alternate history novel In the Courts of the Crimson Kings begins with a prologue set at this convention, in which a group of the science fiction authors in attendance watch a television broadcast of an American space probe as it lands on an inhabited Mars.
Those present include Frederik and Carol Pohl, Poul Anderson, H. Beam Piper, Guest of Honor Theodore Sturgeon, Jack Williamson, Robert and Virginia Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, Larry Niven, Isaac Asimov, L. Sprague and Catherine Crook de Camp, John W. Campbell, Frank Herbert, and Leigh Brackett.
(In actual history the completed book, Stranger in a Strange Land, won the Hugo Award for Best Novel at the convention.)
During his Guest of Honor speech, Theodore Sturgeon expressed regret that Hugo Award winner Robert A. Heinlein could not attend.