Answering More Questions About the SFWA Qualifying Process

Short version: I’ve withdrawn my story from the Nebula ballot. Many congratulations to Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam, whose excellent story The Orangery replaces it on the ballot.

Long version: One of the best parts of being SFWA President or Vice President is that you get to be one of the people calling the Nebula nominees to tell them what’s up. This is a lot of fun because giving people good news is almost always a terrific experience. I’ve ever gotten to call former students on occasion, and thought my heart would burst from joy, because that is a terrific feeling.

This year I woke on February 16, the day we would be making the calls, to find a message from our Nebula Awards Commissioner asking me to give her a call. I did, and she presented me with news that both delighted and horrified me, that my novelette, “Red in Tooth and Cog,” was on the ballot.

Delighted, because I like that story, and think it’s a good one. A number of people whose opinion I value highly have expressed praise for it, and it’s also something that represents a victory for me. I was grimly determined to be published in the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction ““ it was a publication that represented an enormous milestone to me ““ and that acceptance was my 44th submission to the magazine over the course of 12 years. It wasn’t that the other stories were bad ones. One of them, “Five Ways to Fall in Love on Planet Porcelain,” even went on to become a Nebula nominee in 2013.

And horrified, because I don’t want things to look like the Nebulas are motivated by concerns other than literary excellence, and it seemed to me that this could look like that since I have engendered a little popularity while President, mainly because I am so goddamn personable. And I was sure there would be a certain amount of grumbling about it. So before we moved forward, I had to decide whether or not to withdraw it

I made some coffee, went for a walk, and spent a good bit of time thinking about it, talking to my spouse and my best friend, as well as a number of other SFWA folk. I was aware that there was precedent for either decision. In the end, I thought that to withdraw it would be a disservice to the members who liked it and wanted to see it on the ballot. If I wasn’t satisfied that it’s a good story, if I hadn’t previously had a story on a ballot when not involved with the SFWA Board, then I might’ve made a different decision and there are undoubtedly parallel universes where our ballot was different. But if I was appearing on the ballot just because of the Presidency, the time for that would have been last year, when my first novel came out. I think. Maybe. Who knows? Maybe in another universe it did.

However, back in this universe, apparently the fact that in the course of editing the 8,000 word story, what emerged was actually short story rather than novelette length, had managed to escape us all over the course of the past year, and so my happiness at finally getting a chance to tell everyone, huzzah, came to an end a bit precipitously. You’ll forgive any rawness to my tone; I think it’s natural.

This presented me with a new dilemma. I could allow it to be moved to the short story category, which would have bumped off not one, but three stories, which had tied for that slot. But that seemed pretty unfair, and made three people pay for the screw-up, instead of just one. So, I’m withdrawing the story. Kudos to the wonderful reading still on the ballot — there is a ton of great stuff on there and you should read it all.

Should the length issue have gotten caught before now? You bet. But if it had to happen on my watch, I am relieved that it happened to me rather than someone else. Is it a solid gut punch? Sure. But there have been others in my life and this is hardly the worst. I still get to go to the Nebulas and enjoy them as one of the ringmasters of that circus. So…wah! Very sad in some ways, but so it goes. Sometimes one puts one’s big girl pants on and soldiers forward without too much entitled whining.

I will, though, try to squeeze a few drop of lemonade from this lemon. If you like what I’m doing, and if you want me to keep persevering, there’s several ways of encouraging me. You can:

• Make a pledge on Patreon. A flash reading is going up tomorrow and a new story is going up Wednesday.
• Buy the steampunk StoryBundle I just curated
• Buy another of my books, such as my new collection, Neither Here Nor There or steampunk stories Altered America. If you liked Red in Tooth and Cog, you may enjoy my collection of SF, Near + Far.
• Check out my online school, The Rambo Academy for Wayward Writers, and spread the word of it.
• If you liked my story “Left Behind,” it’s on the Locus ballot. If you wrote in “Red in Tooth & Cog,” do make sure you stick it in the story category. 😉

Here is a link to the story.

Today’s been crazy. Tonight I’m working my way through some Tillamook chocoloate peanut butter ice cream, Black Jack, and a few levels of Skyrim.

Back when I was VP of SFWA, Executive Director Kate Baker told me she had a dream. “I want to make the Nebula conference -the- premier conference for professional F&SF writers,” she said. “Something that no one wants to miss. A conference so good that if someone has budget for only one convention each year, that’s the one they know they’ll get the most value out of.”

It seemed like a pretty good goal to me. After all, the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America is over fifty years old, has close to 2000 members, including some pretty impressive names, has and continues to do major work in the field protecting professional F&SF writers, and gives out one set of the industry’s major awards as well as the recognition of the SFWA Grand Mastership.

It’s five years later, and in my opinion, Kate’s done what she set out to do. She didn’t do it alone, of course. She had the help of a whole lot of amazing SFWA staff and volunteers, including the amazing Terra LeMay and Steven H Silver. Mary Robinette Kowal got turned loose on programming the last couple of years and has been doing a stellar job. And others have made their mark with additions, such as the Nebula Award Alternate Universe Acceptance speeches or the mentoring program led by Sarah Pinsker or (I’d like to think) two I’ve contributed: the volunteer appreciation breakfast as well as the spouses and partners reception that have been regular features (and I hope will continue to do so!) Or the Book Depot, because I don’t know of ANY other con that takes as much care to make sure that its authors — including the indies — can sign and sell their books there. And there’s a fancy Nebula website, which remains a work in progress as more and more gets added to it, preserving the history of the Awards.

We’ve only got a small fraction of the schedule so far, with plenty of new stuff getting added every day, but here’s some highlights.

• Panels about interesting things that may lead to story ideas, like the Future of Death, Realistic Military in Fiction, and Megatrends in the Near Future.
• That mentoring program has grown every year, and now we do it at WorldCon as well. People new to the Nebulas can go knowing they’ll have someone there to explain stuff and fill them in on the etiquette of things as well as provide a friendly face and introduce them to people.
• Interesting, innovative programming that comes in a variety of forms, including the Ignite talks and office hours, stuff that ranges all over the place and includes things like deep dives into Facebook advertising or what life aboard a space station is like.
• A chance to explore some new areas of fiction, such as one of the several Interactive Fiction or Writing for Hollywood panels.
• Plenty of panels aimed at indies and hybrids like myself, including the Self-Publishing Committee Town Hall, which should have plenty of crunchy info about recent and upcoming self-publishing events.
• Panels that talk about practical things, such as combining parenthood and writing, productivity tools, or make-up basics for writers about to make media appearances.
• The yearly What Teens Are Looking For in YA is a great panel that features actual teens talking about what they like to read and how they discover it, which is always informative. I think this is the 5th year (?) for this panel.
• Memorials to a few of our lost greats, such as Ursula K. Le Guin and Vonda N. McIntyre. SFWA’s got a lot of history, and the Nebulas give us a chance to celebrate some of the folks we’ve lost each year.

I don’t mean to imply that the old version of the Nebulas was not what they promised to be. They were a chance to mingle and meet, but programming was usually slim and single track at best, and sometimes the topics were very broad indeed. They didn’t feel like a professional conference so much as a party. That’s fun, but it doesn’t give members stuff they actually need to be successful at what they do.

So…well done, Kate. You deserve a lot of applause for the effort you’ve led and you did exactly what you said you would do. The Nebulas now also stay within their budget, which is impressive, and has made enormous strides towards paying for itself, an important thing at a time when we see SFWA’s budget changing and adapting to the new publishing landscape.

It’s my last Nebula weekend as SFWA president, so I’ll be flitting around with a lot of relief on my face. Please say hi, but more importantly, please tell Kate and her team how much you’re enjoying the conference. I’m really going to miss working with this group of fabulous, amazing, talented people.