Category: nebula

Award Season FAQ

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It’s award season, with the Hugo Awards now open for nomination, and the Nebula Awards now halfway through its nomination period. I’ve been asked a few times about my own stories, so let me say two things about my stories and the awards:

  1. I don’t promote my own stories during award season. My own philosophy, which I apply solely to myself and my stories, is that if the stories don’t create enough buzz on their own they are not worth nominating. Because of this, I don’t create buzz on their behalf. I realize that some might view this as strange behavior, but it’s how I feel. I will happily sing the praises of other people’s stories that I’ve read. But I want my own stories to be good enough to create their own buzz.
  2. My stories published in 2013 are not eligible for the Nebula awards. I am the Nebula Award commissioner this year and that makes my stories ineligible for that award.

Happy nominating, everyone!

(ETA 1/7: If you are simply looking for what I’ve published, can’t recall a title, or something like that, I do have a bibliography page.)

Nebula Nominations are Open Today for SFWA Members

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Active and associate members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America can begin nominating works for the 2013 Nebula Awards today. The nomination ballots will be open until February 15. To make your nominations, you can use this link:

http://www.sfwa.org/nebula-awards/nominate/

Members will receive an email with your login information, if you don’t already have it.

I don’t ordinarily make these announcements here, but I do so today for 2 reasons:

1. I am the Nebula Award Commissioner for 2013, which means I am in charge of overseeing the process and making sure it runs as smoothly as it can.

2. Because of #1, fiction that I have published in 2013 is not eligible for nomination this year.

I didn’t actually expect any of my stories would be nominated this year, but in the event that they find their way onto a nomination ballot, they will have to be removed.

If you are an active or associate member of SFWA, I urge you to review the Nebula Award rules before making your nominations. A quick review of the rules helps to avoid mistakes and errors on the nomination ballot.  If you have any questions about the Nebula Award nominations this year, you can contact me, in my capacity as Nebula Award Commissioner at nac [at] sfwa [dot] org.

Nebula Award Weekend Day 3: Or, where I gave a Nebula to Geoff Ryman, accepted one for Ken Liu, and got to meet Neil Gaiman

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Yes, it says Day 3. I have temporarily skipped Day 2 in order to get today’s incredible events down on record before sleep wipes the cream away. Day 2 will come later. It is all very “Repent Harlequin!”-esque.

The day began with me heading off to the Hyatt in Crystal City at about 9am and, once there, attempting to find Alethea Kontis to get my badge back from her. She’d asked to borrow it for who knows what nameless purposes and I’d agreed. At any rate, I eventually found her and we then grabbed a quick breakfast in order to energize for the morning.

I ran into Bud Sparhawk while waiting for Alethea. I’d incautiously told him how terrific I think his blog is because the frustrations he expresses there (writerly frustration, mind you) are the very same kind of frustrations that go through my head an I was enormously relieved to know that I wasn’t the only one. I can’t do it justice. Just go over and read his blog yourself.

I know, I know, you want to here about the Nebula part and the Ken Liu part, and the Neil Gaiman part, but you’ll just have to be patient.

The first scheduled event of the morning for me was the SFWA Business Meeting, which, as an active member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of American, I felt obliged to attend. I wanted to get there early to ensure a decent seat. But the room was occupied by another event. Standing outside the room, however, was John Scalzi, and for about 15 minutes, I got to chat with him, just the two of us, and it was very, very cool.

Then there was the SFWA meeting, in which I was made fun of for taking notes, but hey, at least I can now recall what went on in the meeting. That much is probably of little or no interest here. But…

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Nebula award reading

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It looks like a fair amount of my short fiction reading this month will be taken up by Nebula award reading. Voting must take place by the end of the month and I am determined, this year, to have read all of the short fiction on the ballot. When I first glanced at the ballot, I thought I’d read a fair amount of what was one it, but as luck would have it, I really haven’t. I didn’t start my attempt to read one piece of short fiction each day until last September, so most stuff that appeared in the magazines since then, I’ve read. But it gets a lot more sketchy pre-September. I’ve only read one of the short story nominees so far, Adam-Troy Castro’s “Her Husband’s Hands.” I haven’t read any of the novelettes on the ballot, and I’ve read two of the novellas, Kij Johnson’s “The Man Who Bridged the Mist” and Ken Liu’s “The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary.” I also tend to miss stuff in original anthologies. By my count, I have 17 pieces of Nebula-nominated short fiction to read this month.

Thankfully, the good folks at SFWA have made electronic versions of all of these stories (as well as the novels on the ballot) available to members. This morning, I grabbed what I didn’t already have and loaded them up on the Kindle App on my iPad. I plan to work my way through them, beginning with the short stories and working up through the novellas that I haven’t yet read. This is an incredibly convenient way to get these stories read. I love that I can get them all onto my iPad without having to carry around a ton of books and magazines in my backpack.

Of the novels on the final ballot, I’ve only read Jack McDevitt’s Firebird. If I have time, I’d like to read Jo Walton’s Among Others because I’ve heard good things about it.

Next year, I expect I’ll be in somewhat better shape come March, as I have been pretty good at keeping up with the stories being published in the magazines. I still generally don’t pick up the original anthologies that come out, but I still think that will mean less last-minute reading next time around than I have this time.

Congratulations to the Nebula award nominees

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The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America released the Nebula Award ballot for 2011 this morning and skimming through the list, it looks to be a good one. I’ve managed to read much of the nominated short fiction already. I’ve only read one of the novels on the list. In terms of short fiction, it looks to me like the Novella category is the toughest one this year. So much excellent stuff in that category. I’m very much looking forward to attending the award ceremony in May. (It is particularly convenient that it is being held 5 miles from my house and virtually across the street from my office.)

For those who missed the list of nominees, here they are. Congratulations to them all:

Novel

Novella

Novelette

Short Story

Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation

  • Attack the Block, Joe Cornish (writer/director) (Optimum Releasing; Screen Gems)
  • Captain America: The First Avenger, Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely (writers), Joe Johnston (director) (Paramount)
  • Doctor Who: “The Doctor’s Wife,” Neil Gaiman (writer), Richard Clark (director) (BBC Wales)
  • Hugo, John Logan (writer), Martin Scorsese (director) (Paramount)
  • Midnight in Paris, Woody Allen (writer/director) (Sony)
  • Source Code, Ben Ripley (writer), Duncan Jones (director) (Summit)
  • The Adjustment Bureau, George Nolfi (writer/director) (Universal)

 Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and FantasyBook