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. ¹ 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.

1. The worst business-of-writing advice I’ve gotten was from OSC because he’s thirty years out from being a beginning writer and a LOT has changed in that time. Plus, he’s a major writer so gets to play by different rules. [↩]

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.

SFWA is creating a new, updated website for the Nebula Awards and is looking for a SFWA member to partner with the professional web designer they’ve hired to do the heavy lifting.

Estimated Time Required: 10-30 hours per month, (Variable depending on time of year. Heaviest commitment: March, April, and May)

Job Description:
1. Advise the Board on the nebulaawards.com web presence, set priorities for nebulaawards.com consistent with the overall goal of promoting the Nebula and Norton Awards, the nominees, the winners, the Awards weekend, SFWA anthologies, and through them all, the genres of science fiction and fantasy. Assist in recruiting, training, and coordinating volunteers as needed.

2. Review existing Nebula-related and other genre promotional material and its organization to remove extraneous and confusing material and create an organizational map that is easily navigable and makes relevant material easily discoverable.

3. Suggest, gather, organize, and provide content to the Nebula webmaster, including interviews, opinion essays, images, and bios/essays from Nebula and Norton Award winners.

4. Serve as liaison between the sfwa.org webmaster, Nebula webmaster, Bulletin and NAR editors, Executive Director, and SFWA members.

5. Create press releases regarding important Nebula website updates and work with media representatives as necessary to publicize the website.

Benefits: Extensive networking, connection with the redesign of a high-profile website suitable for resume mention, and increased visibility in SFWA.

Skills required: A high level of organization, ability to lead a team, editing and document management experience, experience with content management systems, blogs, and making video/audio material web accessible. Any level of SFWA membership

If you are interested, send a brief introductory letter to sfwavolunteer@gmail.com

They just posted the works whose eligibility for next year’s Nebulas expires at the end of January. I noticed that Cat Rambo’s story, “Foam on Water” published in Strange Horizons, has seven recommendations. I loved this and recommended it a while ago.

The story only lacks three recommendations to be on next year’s preliminary ballot.

May I recommend, especially if you are a SFWA member, that you read it?

This takes the Little Mermaid and makes it look like Hans Christian Andersen was writing stories made of cotton candy.

For the past several months, I’ve been helping out by recruiting volunteers for SFWA. As I do, it becomes apparent to me that the organization faces several hurdles.

1. It lacks continuity.
2. There are no clear lines of communication
3. The public interface is out-dated.
4. Volunteers’ time is not efficiently managed.

Here is how I would like to tackle those items.

1. When I was the Secretary of UNIMA-USA (The American branch of the International puppetry organization, which is the oldest continually operating arts organization in the world), I was responsible for updating and maintaining an Officer’s Handbook. This contained, not only the minutes and the bylaws, but also a detailed description of the goal of each committee and the semi-annual reports of the committees.

I would like to implement a similar system for SFWA.

2. At the moment, when a committee is created, it exists as an entity of its own, without reporting to a specific member of the board. The problem with this is that when a committee becomes inactive, it can languish in this condition for months or years without anyone noticing. Several times during the past months, I’ve contacted a committee chair, only to have them say, “Oh. Am I still on that committee?”

I would like to re-evaluate the committee structure, and rebuild it using more vertical lines of communication. This will create more accountability and a smoother line of communication. For your interest, I have done a diagram of the current committee structure and a proposed restructuring.

3. We all know the website is outdated. Rather than using a committee to redesign this, because we all know how successful design by committee is, I would like to see SFWA hire an actual web-designer to do a complete revamping of the system, including adding a forum.

In particular, I want to see redundancies removed. For instance, we have a team of extremely hardworking volunteers who update the Nebula Recommendations. It is all hard-coded with HTML in several different places. This is something that cries out for automation, so that the volunteers merely need to moderate it and check for errors.

4. SFWA uses the principle “Want something done, ask the busy person” so that the brunt of the effort comes down on a few people. I want to implement online volunteer management software, which will track availability, hours, and skills. Let’s stop burning out the volunteers.

About me: I have spent most of the past seventeen years working in the non-profit sector. Volunteers are the backbone of non-profits and I’ve managed them on projects ranging from running a week-long festival to getting envelopes stuffed to making a cyclops head. In addition to being a writer, I’m a small business owner and freelancer. I’ve got the publishing credits to be an active SFWA member, but more importantly, I know how to run a non-profit efficiently.

When we get reviewed in the theater, there’s always a moment of scanning the review looking for the pull quote. We’ve got to have something we can plaster on brochure’s and flyers. It is always tempting to pull something out of context like pulling, “Amazing!” out of “It’s amazing that anyone came back after intermission.” (Completely fictional example.)

In the writing arena, I quote reviews and mentions here, and yeah, usually focus on the juicy stuff. For instance,

Gardner Dozois talked about his picks for the Nebula short story categories, saying:

My vote would go to Andy Duncan’s “Unique Chicken Goes in Reverse,” … My next choice, I guess, would be “For Solo Cello, op. 12,” by Mary Robinette Kowal … followed by “Titanium Mike Saves the Day,” by David D. Levine…

Woot! Gardner Dozois puts me in the number two position! Except… if you read the whole quote.

This is the weakest of the categories.

My vote would go to Andy Duncan’s “Unique Chicken Goes in Reverse,” although it’s not even really a fantasy let alone SF–what it is is an Andy Duncan story, who’s a genre to himself, much like Howard Waldrop. Since Duncan is popular with the membership, it might have a chance, although it did appear in an expensive hardcover anthology from a small press.

Not much else here I’m really enthusiastic about. My next choice, I guess, would be “For Solo Cello, op. 12,” by Mary Robinette Kowal, which is SF (but which is probably unlikely to win), followed by …

Ow. Gardner Dozois says, “Not really enthusiastic!” and “Unlikely to win!”

Ah, context… Think I can put that on a poster?

Rich Horton has commented on the preliminary Nebula ballot. Including this, about the short story selection.

Given the stories listed, my choices come down to “Always” and “For Solo Cello, Op. 12″, both of which are in my SF Best of the Year. I think those two stories are outstanding (and I’m delighted to see Kowal’s story on the ballot — I had thought myself pretty brilliant for plucking it from an Australian magazine myself!) The other stories are all OK, but none strike me as really award-worthy.

Excuse me, but I need to go lie down. Smelling salts, anyone?

Here it is folks, the official preliminary Nebula Ballot. Next step. The members of SFWA will pick their top five favorites in each category.

Short Stories — 7
Unique Chicken Goes In Reverse - Duncan, Andy (Eclipse 1: New Science Fiction And Fantasy, Jonathan Strahan, Ed., Night Shade Books, Oct07)
Titanium Mike Saves the Day - Levine, David D. (F&SF, Apr07)
Captive Girl - Pelland, Jennifer (Helix: A Speculative Fiction Quarterly, WS & LWE, Ed., Oct06 (Fall06 issue — #2))
Always - Fowler, Karen Joy (Asimov’s, May07 (apr/may07 issue))
For Solo Cello, op. 12 - Kowal, Mary Robinette (Cosmos, Mar07 (Feb/Mar07))
The Padre, the Rabbi, and the Devil His Own Self - Fletcher, Melanie (Helix: A Speculative Fiction Quarterly, WS & LWE, Ed., Oct06 (Fall06 issue — #2))
The Story of Love - Nazarian, Vera (Salt of the Air, Prime Books, Sep06)

Continue reading Official Preliminary Nebula Ballot

A draft of the preliminary Nebula ballot is up for review in the SFWA members area. For Solo Cello, op. 12 is on there with six other stories. I literally squealed. Not just a squee, a full-out squeal of delight.

Once they post the official preliminary ballot, I’ll share it here, because a couple of my favorites have made it as well. I’m tremendously excited for the authors and want to see them make it to the final ballot.

I am so, very, very excited and pleased today.

All the good SFWA boys and girls seem to have dutifully posted about the pending close of the Nebula preliminary ballot on December 31. On the off-chance that you are a SFWA active member and haven’t recommended any fiction yet, I would like to recommend a simple strategy.

My opinion on the Nebulas is that one of the primary benefits comes from the ballot itself. Simply put, any story that makes it on the ballot will automatically get a much wider readership as people review stories for voting. So, when I’m recommending stories, I’m choosing stories that I think people ought to read, whether or not I think the story is ultimately likely to win the award.

Getting on the ballot is a boost to writer because it does raise their profile, and thus, people are more likely to notice their other work later. It might not be a conscious thing, but you see someone on the Nebula ballot and next time, by golly, you’ll see their name and think, “I’ve heard of her.”

So here are writers who I want to support and think that you should read their stories.

Novelettes
Andrea Kail: The Sun God at Dawn, Rising from a Lotus Blossom (Writers of the Future Volume 23) This is a brilliantly done epistolary tale told in a series of letters from Tutankahmen to Abraham Lincoln. Trust me, it makes perfect, chilling sense when you read it. Beautifully and heart-breakingly done.
It also has eight recommendations and its eligibility ends in March. Go! Recommend it! Do you really want to see it not make the ballot because you didn’t take the twenty minutes it will take to read this gorgeous story? I didn’t think so.

Ted Kosmatka: The Prophet of Flores (Asimov’s, Sep07) Holy cow! This is a freaky blend of SF and alternate history. The deep-story to this one? Intelligent design is real. The earth is only 5800 years old and carbon-dating proves it. And then someone finds a fossil that turns everything upside down. Seven recommendations thus far, but this one has eligibility until September, so I’m not quite as frantic about it making the ballot. But, you’ll be missing out if you don’t read it.

Livia Llewellyn: The Four Hundred Thousand I don’t know how to describe this one without giving away the creepy turns this chilling SF story takes. To grossly over-simplify it, this is about the right to choose. But, look, there’s a link so you can go read it. And do.

Jennifer Pelland: Mercytanks The person who pointed this one out to me said that it was the first time they’d really seen far-future done well. And how.

Short Stories:
Richard Bowes has two I liked: A Tale for the Short Days (Coyote Road, Trickster Tale) and King of the Big Night Hours(Subterranean, Sep07). The thing that he does, particularly with the King of the Big Night Hours, is tell a story that seems so absolutely, totally grounded in reality that it makes you wonder why you haven’t noticed any magic happening in your life. I mean, these seem like they are things that actually happened.

Vylar Kaftan: Kill Me Extremely evocative SF. The story is deceptively simple. A professional masochist has a device which records her thoughts so that she can be killed and brought back. But there’s a price; there’s always a price.

Andrea Kail: Soft Like a Rabbit I read this the first time as I was typesetting Fantasy. It stopped me cold. I forgot what I was supposed to be doing and just read the story. When I finished I couldn’t understand why I’d never read anything of Andrea Kail’s before. She’s a power-house and tells economical and wrenching stories. Have tissues standing by when you read this.

Nancy Kress: End Game I listened to this one at Escape Pod. Again, SF. Have you ever wished you could just concentrate on one thing at a time? Listen to this and rethink your wish.

David D. Levine: Titanium Mike Saves the Day This is probably the first light-hearted one I’ve mentioned. People always need tall tales; why should outerspace be any different? A fine example of yarn-spinning.

Lisa Mantchev: Six Scents Six tales in one. I could sum this up as tales of famous fictional women and their favorite perfumes, but really, it would not do justice to the brutally clever writing here. For example: “Men find it hard to fall in love with a dead girl. They tell her it’s a turn-off that they take her hand at the movies and a finger lands in the popcorn.”

Joy Marchard: Pallas at Noon lives in the uncanny place between things that could actually happen and the magic that lies just on the other side of that. I don’t even know how to describe this story, but definitely find a copy of Interfictions and read this. It will make you weep and feel hope and despair all at the same time.

Holly Phillips: The Oracle Spoke is quite possibly my favorite story this year. It’s the one that I desperately wish I had written. Please read it.

Cat Rambo: Foam on the Water You think Hans Christian Andersen’s Little Mermaid has a chilling ending? Ha! He could have taken lessons from Cat Rambo’s story.

I’m not doing mini-reviews of the novels, because I know you won’t have time to read any between now and then. But here are some that I think you should read after the first of the year.

Chris Barzak, One for Sorrow; Tobias Buckell, Ragamuffin; Jay Lake, Mainspring; Ekaterina Sedia, The Secret History of Moscow.

And finally, I will finish with a totally shameless self-pimp.

Look! For Solo Cello, op. 12 has six whole Nebula recommendations. This is makes me squee with girlish pleasure.

All right folks, there’s still reading to do. Go forth recommend stories! (And I hereby open this up for shameless promotion. Got a story you want read? Link away!)

We now have twenty new volunteers to help out with SFWA. Huzzah! A hearty thank you to:
Beth Bernobich, Leah Bobbet, Scott Danielson, David de Beer, Aliette de Bodard, Guy Anthony De Marco, Rachel Dryden, Nancy Fulda, Dave Goldman, Chris Hansen, Jed Hartman, Jim Johnson, Neal Levin, Jeremy Lewis, Joseph McDermott, Cat Rambo, Scott Roberts, Peg Robinson, Meg Stout and Carrie Vaughn

I’m starting to get volunteers paired with tasks.

For instance, I asked one of our graphic design volunteers if he wanted to whip up a t-shirt in response to something Jim Hines said. I quote from his comments.

I asked earlier about reasons for joining and staying with SFWA. The best answer I’ve seen all day was posted in the newsgroups tonight.

While talking about SFWA’s PR today in the newsgroup, I made the following comment:

“I’m not trying to say we need a bunch of SFWA cheerleaders running around sprinkling happy dust and farting rainbows at people…”

Within a few hours, we had Nebula-winning authors volunteering to chair the Farting Rainbow committee. And then this link:
http://www.zazzle.com/sfwa_farting_rainbow_t_shirt-235210275612449275.

Why stick with SFWA? Because it’s full of delightfully insane authors who do things like this.

Please note that all proceeds go to the Emergency Medical Fund.

See how much fun volunteers can have? All of this new support makes me fart rainbows of joy.