Art Widner was one of the founding members of The Stranger Club, the pioneers of Boston fandom, and chaired Boskone I and Boskone II (1941 and 1942), the first two Boston SF conventions. In 1941 he organized a car pool from the East Coast to Denvention I, an adventurous undertaking in those days. He has published over 160 fanzines, the longest running of which was YHOS (1940-45 and 1979-2001). He helped to published The Stranger Club fanzine Fanfare. He helped found the N3F.
He invented one of the first science fiction board games, Interplanetary. It was never published commercially, but handmade versions were played at Boskone III and many later conventions. A member of First Fandom and the First Fandom Hall of Fame, he was honored with the Big Heart Award in 1989, was the 1991 DUFF delegate and served a term as president of Fan Writers of America in 2000. Along with the other members of The Stranger Club, he was Fan Guest of Honor at Noreascon 3. He was nominated for the 1946 Best Fan Writer Retro Hugo at L.A.con III in 1996.
