While I think this is an unlikely scenario, I want to make this statement before the Nebula nominating period begins on November 15th. Because my involvement in the Nebula voting system is pretty intensive right now, I will decline any nominations of any of my fiction this year.

The system is new and I have to be able to oversee the volunteer team without introducing a conflict of interest.

• 11:36 I’m heading to the airport to go to the Nebulas. #
• 13:30 Wacky. I used the new paperless boarding pass on my cellphone and it worked. It’s like living in the future. #
• 14:30 On my plane to LA via Cleveland. The paperless boarding pass was stunningly easy to use. I felt very SF and sophisticated. Toys! #
• 16:49 Heading to L.A. now. It’s a fine, fine opportunity to nap. Too bad I’ll be working instead. #
• 21:54 Just touched down in L.A. I napped AND got my work done. Yes, this was a long flight. #

I had dinner with Doselle Young and Shana Cohen tonight at a very nice restaurant. It’s so nice to go out with other foodies.  I’m now ensconced in a truly gorgeous hotel room and about to collapse in bed. After I finish two or three more things…

I’m sorry you’re getting  a lot of twitter summaries this week. I’m slammed trying to get two shows up before I leave town for the Nebulas on Thursday.  And yet, I dropped everything to take Maggie to the vet today.

• 12:49 Worried about Maggie. Rob and I realized that neither of us saw her eat yesterday. She has no interest in food today. Not even the treats. #
• 13:22 Just loaded an unprotesting Maggie into the cat carrier. The vet has an opening today. She’s drinking water at least, so that’s good. #
• 13:33 We’re in the cab and there’s NOTHING wrong with her vocal cords. Man, that’s a lot of volume from such a small cat #
• 14:35 Maggie and I are on the way home. She weighs 5 lbs 10 oz, which is way too light. They are doing bloodwork. #

The vet gave Maggie an appetite stimulant and pumped her full of fluids.  The suspicion is that it’s kidney trouble which isn’t uncommon in older cats.

About an hour after I got home, she nibbled on some tuna which was an enormous relief.

An enormous and short-lived relief.  When I got home tonight, Rob told me that Maggie has developed diarrhea in addition to vomiting.  The poor thing is curled up on a heating pad and looks just miserable.

Hey! Good news, the hotel has dropped the room rates for the Nebulas. Check it out.

The Luxe Hotel has offered to reduce room rates for those who are attending the Nebula Awards. Prices have dropped to $189.00 for Superior Rooms, $209.00 for Deluxe Kings, and $229.00 for Junior Exec Kings.

In order to let visitors take advantage of these new rates, we will hold off on raising the Nebula Weekend Registration costs for another few weeks. The deadline for reduced registration fees is now April 3. The final deadline for all registrations is still April 15.

Online registration forms can be found here.

We hope to see you all at the Nebulas.

via Reduced Hotel Rates for the Nebula Awards | The Nebula Awards.

A quick reminder that the price for attending the Nebula Awards Weekend goes up on March 15th. The current price for the full weekend is $135, after that date, it will be $150. Banquet-only prices will also rise from $80 to $100.

http://www.nebulaawards.com/index.php/nebulaweekend is where all the information on the weekend can be found, including hotels, our Keynote Speaker Chuck Lorre, Toastmistress Janis Ian, Grand Master Award recipient Harry Harrison and much more.

Should be a fun weekend.

SFWA is proud to announce the nominees for the 2009 Nebula Awards. The awards will be presented at the 2009 Nebula Awards® Weekend, April 24-26,2009 in Los Angeles, California. For more information on the awards and the Nebulas Weekend, please visit the Nebula Awards website.

Novels

Little Brother – Cory Doctorow (Tor, Apr08)

Powers - Ursula K. Le Guin (Harcourt, Sep07)

Cauldron - Jack McDevitt (Ace, Nov07)

Brasyl - Ian McDonald (Pyr, May07)

Making Money – Sir Terry Pratchett (Harper, Sep07)

Superpowers – David J. Schwartz (Three Rivers Press, Jun08)

Novellas

“The Spacetime Pool” – Catherine Asaro (Analog, Mar08)

“Dark Heaven” – Gregory Benford (Alien Crimes, ed. Mike Resnick, SFBC, Jan07)

“Dangerous Space” – Kelley Eskridge (Dangerous Space, Aqueduct Press, Jun07)

“The Political Prisoner” – Charles Coleman Finlay (F&SF, Aug08)

“The Duke in His Castle” – Vera Nazarian (Norilana Books, Jun08)

Novelettes

“If Angels Fight” – Richard Bowes (F&SF, Feb08)

“Dark Rooms” – Lisa Goldstein (Asimov’s, Oct/Nov 07)

“Pride and Prometheus” – John Kessel (F&SF, Jan08)

“Night Wind” – Mary Rosenblum (Lace and Blade, ed. Deborah J. Ross, Norilana Books, Feb08)

“Baby Doll” – Johanna Sinisalo (The SFWA European Hall of Fame, ed. James Morrow & Kathryn Morrow, Tor, Jun07 )

“Kaleidoscope” – K.D. Wentworth (F&SF, May07)

Short Stories

“The Button Bin” – Mike Allen (Helix: A Speculative Fiction Quarterly, Oct07)

“The Dreaming Wind” – Jeffrey Ford (The Coyote Road: Trickster Tales, ed. Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling, Viking, Jul07)

“Trophy Wives” – Nina Kiriki Hoffman (Fellowship Fantastic, ed. Greenberg and Hughes, DAW Books, Jan08)

“26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss”- Kij Johnson (Asimov’s, Jul08)

“The Tomb Wife”- Gwyneth Jones (F&SF, Aug07)

“Don’t Stop” – James Patrick Kelly (Asimov’s, Jun07)

Scripts

The Dark Knight – Jonathan Nolan, Christopher Nolan, David S.Goyer  (Warner Bros., Jul08)

“WALL-E” Screenplay – Andrew Stanton, Jim Reardon, Original story by Andrew Stanton, Pete Docter (Walt Disney June 2008)

The Shrine – Brad Wright (Stargate Atlantis, Aug08)

Norton

Graceling - Kristin Cashore (Harcourt, Oct08)

Lamplighter - D.M. Cornish (Monster Blood Tattoo, Book 2, Putnam Juvenile,May08)

Savvy - Ingrid Law (Dial, May08)

The Adoration of Jenna Fox – Mary E. Pearson (Henry Holt and Company, Apr08)

Flora’s Dare: How a Girl of Spirit Gambles All to Expand Her Vocabulary, Confront a Bouncing Boy Terror, and Try to Save Califa from a Shaky Doom (Despite Being Confined to Her Room) -  Ysabeau S. Wilce (Harcourt, Sep08)

via 2009 Nebula Award® Ballot | The Nebula Awards.

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You can register for the Nebula Weekend online now.  Besides one of the industry’s best ways to mingle with top notch SF writers, editors and agents, this year’s weekend also includes some key notables, like, um Joss Whedon, who will be there in person.

LOS ANGELES—Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America will descend on Los Angeles, Calif., with an all-star lineup slated for the 2009 Nebula Awards® Weekend April 24-26.

Harry Harrison will be honored as the next Damon Knight Grand Master, while M.J. Engh will be honored as Author Emerita. Joss Whedon will receive the Ray Bradbury Award. Singer/songwriter Janis Ian will be on hand to serve as toastmistress. Award-winning creator, executive producer and writer Chuck Lorre will give the keynote address.

You can register for the weekend via The Nebula Awards.

I’ve really been enjoying the series of interviews at the Nebula Awards site. Today’s is with Adam Rex, author and illustrator of Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich and The True Meaning of Smekday. During the interview, Charles Tan commented that he enjoyed the puppet video on Mr. Rex’s site. Naturally, I had to click through and now I will share this delight with you.

One of the things I’ve been enjoying at the new Nebula site are the guest bloggers. This week’s is Aliette de Bodard with an excellent post called, A Basic Introduction to Maya Mythology.

Similar to my previous article on Aztec mythology, this article is intended as an introduction into some basic ideas of Maya religion and mythology. I’ve appended a list of the sources I used at the end, should you be interested in finding out more.

Unlike their Aztec neighbours, the Mayas were hardly newcomers to Mesoamerica. Maya presence in Guatemala and the Yucatan peninsula dates back to at least 1000 BC, and the last Maya kingdoms conquered by the Spanish were Tayasal and Zacpeten in 1697. Today, there are about six million Mayas in Central America–some of whom still live according to ancient traditions.

It’s well worth reading, plus has a great source list at the end.

Michael Capobianco finishes his last day as SFWA’s president today by announcing that his pet project, the Nebula Awards website is open for beta testing.

I only have a half-hour or so to go as President, and, as my last official act, I’d like to make the official announcement that the Nebula Awards website, nebulaawards.com, is now open and ready for beta testing. Everything is more or less in place, and the content management system ExpressionEngine is handling everything very well. There will be a few tweaks, updates, and additions over the next few days, but the basic set-up is there and ready to go.

It is so nice to see such a professional site promoting the genre. Kudos to Michael Capobianco, David De Beer (editor) and Tony Geer (website designer).

Stop by the new Nebula Awards website and check it out.

Some time ago, I read Andrea Kail’s Soft, like a Rabbit in Fantasy Magazine and loved it. At the moment it has eight, count them, 8, recommendations for a Nebula. Its eligibility expires at the end of this month. If you are an active SFWA member, I highly recommend reading this story in the next couple of days.

The interactive Nebula Award Report is up and running again, so there’s no excuse.

I managed to miss both of the panels yesterday and think I have a taste of what the next year will be. Why? Because I was in meetings rather than at the panels. Strangely fun meetings, I’ll grant, but nonetheless.

The Nebula weekend is largely unstructured, providing the members a chance to hobnob with each other. Frequently I found myself chatting with someone and then realizing that they were either a) famous or b) I knew them online or c) I wish I had known them all my life. Noticeably more people were here on day two and the demographic evened out considerably in terms of age. SFWA is still very, very, very white and it would be good to see it become more diverse, y’know? We people our SF and fantasy with dozens of different species, for crying out loud, and somehow can’t manage to integrate in real life. Gotta improve that. I’m looking forward to WisCon because it’s got panels looking at these issues.

But that’s not what I was planning on chatting about this morning. You’re here to hear about the banquet, right? The food wasn’t bad and — these things are important too — the table arrangements were lovely. Watching these writers receive their awards moved me more than I expected. Particularly people like Michael Chabon, who spoke so eloquently about the field and the wonder of SF that I actually got a little weepy. I felt like, yeah, that’s why I write and read this stuff, too.

Oh, and everyone dressed. Men in tuxedos, ladies in evening wear and all of them belonging in the tribe of SF. Heaven.

This is my first Nebula Weekend, so I don’t have anything else to compare it to except other cons. After checking in, I found my way to where they were handing out free books. I mean, hey, books, you know? Gotta keep your priorities straight. Every member got two heeping grocery bags of hardbacks. Good titles, too, like Michael Chabon’s latest, Gentlemen of the Road.

From there, I headed to the hospitality room. Important note: Texans know how to lay out a spread. Homemade cookies, people.

I spent a while hanging out there meeting new people and started to notice an interesting thing. The demographic of people who attend the Nebula Weekend seems to consist of people in their late forties and up. Yesterday, the only people my age or younger that I saw were nominees. Granted, due to the membership requirements, the organization will self-select to an older crowd because one needs time to establish a writing career. Still. It seems disproportionate. I understand more people are arriving today, so I’ll take note at the business meeting and the banquet tonight.

At three I headed to the panel on Publishing Contracts by Sean P. Fodera. This was an excellent, excellent discussion. I took notes, but I need to make them into something that people besides me can read before I post them. His closing remark was that in doctors, lawyers… all of these people need to do continuing education to stay abreast of what’s going on in their field. That they need to continually practice in order to maintain their license. People with artistic licenses think that they don’t have to do so, but it’s just as important for us if we want to be professionals. I am in total agreement with this. I wish the panel had not been so sparsely attended. It was the only panel yesterday and had only 22 attendees. Yes. I counted.

The mass autographing session made an easy way to greet people, but, again, felt very sparsely attended. This might be because half the attendees were sitting down to sign things. I’d really like to see more general public at an event like that.

Dinner, I spent with David Levine and Kate Yule. We went out for Indian food, which was not bad, considering that we are in Texas.

I hung out in the hospitality room afterwards until my sleep deprivation forced me to retreat to my room. Mmm… sleep. Broken by a wake-up call at 5:30 am. A wakeup call which I did not request. I was annoyed, but not as annoyed as whoever didn’t get their call.

Looking forward to today.

I was getting into Austin at noon Friday for the SFWA Nebula Award weekend, but I’ve had to rebook my ticket. I need to get some things done for the show I’m working on and really, really need the morning to get it done. Alas. So, if you are going to Austin, I’ll see you laaaate Friday night or on Saturday.

I do love my job, but there are days when I wish the hours were shorter.

Edited to add: After spending an hour on the phone, I discovered that, even though I can see a flight that is only $50 more expensive than mine, it would cost $435 more than my original ticket to change my flight. Can’t do that. Gah! Need more hours in the day.

The 2007 SFWA(R) Final Nebula Awards(R) Ballot is up. I figure that everyone and their uncle is posting the whole list so I’m just linking to it. “For Solo Cello” didn’t make the cut. Sadness.

BUT Titanium Mike by David Levine did, which has me very pleased because I liked that story a great deal.