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SFWA Releases Nebula Suggested Reading List

Click here to get to the Suggested reading List; lots of good stuff on there.
Click here to get to the Suggested reading List; lots of good stuff on there.
This has been in discussion for a while now; I’m glad we’ve finally moved ahead on the project of making the Nebula Suggested Reading List public. The intent is to build awareness of the awards, help drive participation by members, and help the genre by providing a solid list of notable material from the year. Authors do not need to be SFWA members to make their work eligible.

Here’s the official press release about it:

As part of its mission to serve professional genre writers, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America is pleased to announce that for the first time they’ll be making the Nebula Suggested Reading List public. The list is compiled from the suggestions of SFWA members and is available on the SFWA website at http://www.sfwa.org/forum/index.php?app=readinglist. All SFWA members are eligible to add items to the list throughout the year, providing a list of notable speculative novels, novellas, novelettes, short stories, and dramatic works from the year. Inclusion on the list is not an endorsement by SFWA.

From November 15 through February 15, 2016, Active and Associate members will be able to make actual Nebula nominations as well as nominations for the Bradbury and Andre Norton Award. The votes will be tallied and the final ballot will be released on or before February 20 for voting on by the membership. Winners will be announced at the Nebula Awards Weekend, to be held May 12 -15 at the Palmer House in Chicago. The banquet and awards ceremony will take place the evening of May 14. Other awards presented at the weekend include the Grand Master Award, the Kevin O’Donnell Jr. Service to SFWA Award, and the Solstice Award.

Nebula Commissioner Terra LeMay says “Even before I became the Nebula Awards Commissioner, I’ve always thought the Suggested Reading List was one of the best resources I’ve ever encountered for finding the most exciting new science fiction and fantasy works each year. It is a great privilege to have helped bring this list out to the public where any reader may benefit from it.”

SFWA President Cat Rambo notes, “Every year there’s plenty of terrific stuff to read. I hope that providing a list that draws upon the wide spectrum of tastes represented in the SFWA’s membership of professional writers helps up the discoverability of great writing that should be considered for awards. For me the Nebula Awards remain the most meaningful in the field, chosen by writers working in the genre, who understand and appreciate craft and who possess an understanding of the works that have shaped our field. SFWA has had a productive year in 2015, and it’s a pleasure to share yet another result of our members working together.”

For more information please email pr@sfwa.org.

Recent high notes for SFWA include the Accessibility Checklist being made available to the public, an event Lee Martindale blogged eloquently about. Several conventions have expressed interest in the checklist already and we’ve gotten some useful feedback on how to update them to make them even more useful.

Stick with us; there’s even more cool stuff coming in 2016.

49 Responses

  1. Although some folks are worried about any ranked list turning into a slate, I think those fears are overblown. I’m doing my own non-profit recommendation site, http://www.rocketstackrank.com, and I got a little of that at the start, but people got used to it. It helps that we’ve got more than one ranking, I suppose.

    A trick I used at Microsoft and Amazon to get a bit more control over lists is to use the law of large numbers. Take the square root of the total number of votes. Anything with fewer votes than that goes into two buckets: “one vote” and “more than one vote.” Then rank the rest using their actual vote totals. This handles the fact that there isn’t much real difference between things with small numbers of votes–random chance dominates.

    Reply

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What SFWA Offers Me

Cat Rambo and Connie Willis
Here I am with one of my personal heroes, Connie Willis. In Chez Rambo, we have a frequent saying: What would Connie do? And I note that she’s a SFWA member.
One of the questions that’s come up repeatedly as a result of the recent vote to admit indie and small press published members: why join at all?

I joined as soon as I was qualified because Ann Crispin told me to, and she was a smart lady. And here’s a list of the things SFWA has provided me. I am a professional writer. I make a modest amount off writing and teaching, and have a spouse who takes care of a lot of the bills plus the health care. My hope is to continue to grow my writing income. With that in mind, here’s what I get for my dues.

What SFWA offers me:

  • The Grievance Committee. I’ve benefited from mentioning its name in the past when trying to shake payment from a magazine publisher, for example.
  • The Emergency Medical Fund, which I personally haven’t had occasion to use, but am happy to know exists.
    Similarly, the Legal Fund.
  • The SFWA suite at conventions, both for food and drink as well as for the chance to hang with other members and enjoy their conversation. I was delighted to have a chance to sit for an hour and talk with Jacqueline Lichtenburg and Jean Lorrah at Worldcon, for example.
  • Knowledge resources on the website, such as the document on formatting manuscripts or Myrtle the Manuscript.
  • Knowledge resources in the Bulletin, such as recent pieces on what conventions might be useful to me, how teaching and writing intersect, and how to write (and publish) serial fiction.
  • A chance to participate in book festivals and other events, such as the Baltimore Book Festival or the ALA.
  • The PNW SFWA Reading series, at which I’ve been both reader and frequent attendant.
  • Opportunities to publicize books through the SFWA web site, Youtube stream, and Twitter stream.
  • A sense of tradition, of belonging to an institution founded by and which has included (and continues to include) so many of my early influences and heroes in its ranks.
  • The Nebulas and the East Coast Mill and Swill.
  • Free fiction! Both the Nebula Voter packet and what gets uploaded to the boards.
  • New friends who are writers, and plenty of them. I’ve deepened earlier friendships with others and even seen some of my students enter SFWA, which delights me.
  • A opportunity for meaningful, interesting, and informative volunteer work. I’ve served on the Nebula Short Fiction and Norton juries, worked with the Copyright Committee, written for the Bulletin and the SFWA blog, sat at the SFWA table at conventions, helped moderate the discussion boards, and now serve on the SFWA Board. All of that has been rewarding and engaging.

Speaking of that last item, that’s another big plus for me of SFWA: a community that I see evolving on the discussion boards on a daily basis. I see members doing all of the following:

  • Celebrating each other’s victories and small joys
  • Promoting each other and organizational efforts
  • Teaming up on promotional efforts
  • Sharing knowledge, encouragement, and advice
  • Grieving when a member dies and supporting other members through illness or loss
  • Being silly together at some moments and serious at others
  • Discussing the issues affecting writers, the industry, and SFWA overall

So there’s my two cents worth. To my mind and as someone who’s been writing professionally (fiction and freelance) for a decade, SFWA offers me quite a bit. People are welcome to quote this post elsewhere as long as they include attribution.

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What SFWA Membership Offers You

Photo of Cat Rambo with Dark Vader and stormtrooper
A chance to hang out with interesting people is one perk of SFWA membership.
I’m in the process of assembling a SFWA resource that lists what, exactly, SFWA provides its members, which to my mind is a pretty substantial list. I tried to break it down according to the SFWA Mission, “SFWA informs, supports, promotes, defends and advocates for its members.” That’s a broad umbrella but the organization’s been around for fifty years, and it lives up to that mission.

It seemed to me it’d be useful to have something that people can point to. I’ve added a couple of things suggested on the SFWA discussion forums, but I know I’m overlooking some. If you have suggestions, glad to hear them.

What SFWA Membership Offers

Informs you by:

  • Hosting the website and discussion forums
  • Distributing the Forum, SFWA’s members-only publication
  • Publishing The Bulletin, SFWA’s public publication
  • Providing model contracts and other useful information on the SFWA blog
  • Providing sample contracts for SFWA qualifying and other markets in the members-only section of the website
  • Maintaining the SFWA Member directory
  • Supplying a wealth of reading in the SFWA Fiction forums, as well as some guidance from fellow members in the Nebula Recommended Reading List.

Supports you by:

  • Administering the The Emergency Medical Fund
  • Providing networking opportunities, like the annual NY reception, events at conventions, and the Nebula Weekend
  • Working to support diversity and anti-harassment efforts
  • Supplying and stocking the SWFA suite at Worldcon
  • Providing a SFWA table or booth at events like the Baltimore Booth Festival where members can distribute promotional material, sell and sign books, and participate in programming
  • Letting you recommend, nominate, and vote for the Nebula and Norton Awards
  • Providing a community of fellow professional genre writers
  • Presenting an opportunity for interesting and useful volunteer work

Promotes you by:

Defends you by:

Advocates for you by:

  • Making recommendations to government on copyright and other publishing issues
  • Providing a presence at STEM events
  • Raising the profile of the genre with the yearly Nebula, Norton, Solstice, and Grandmaster Awards

...

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