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Post WorldCon: Happy Daze

It’s the day after the last day of Chicon 7, and I have caught up a little on sleep. I had one of the best times I’ve ever had at a convention, and the book launch party went (IMO) swimmingly. Lots of people showed up, people really loved the jewelry and the stickers, and everyone seems to think the book design almost as cool as I do.

Some people who helped make it the most awesome of cons were: Al Bogdan, who’s provided some lovely party pics; the enigmatic Folly Blaine/Christy Johnson, who is always good con company; Randy Henderson, who pitched in when needed and also kept everyone from taking things too seriously; Stina Leicht, whose book And Blue Skies From Pain was also being promoted at the party and who was an excellent co-host as well as providing a vicarious experience of being on the ballot 😉 ; Vicki Saunders, who trekked and fiddled and above all, kept me from stressing (too much); Dallas Taylor, bartender extraordinaire and always, always, always Tod McCoy for being one of the prime instigators of all this madness.

Various highlights:

  1. Watching the Hugo Awards from the bar with Folly Blaine, Gio Clairval, and Tod McCoy and supplying what John Scalzi was saying since we didn’t have any sound.
  2. Lovely lunch with Kay Kenyon and all too brief Louise Marley time.
  3. Several people thanking me for personalized rejections from Fantasy, and one young man saying that rejection was one of the reasons why he was still writing.
  4. As always, meeting many people I knew from correspondence or social networking and getting a chance to put faces and voices to the icons and screen names. Two I was particularly excited to meet were Gio Clairval and Jay Caselberg.
  5. Getting to squee like a fangirl upon meeting Sharon Shinn.
  6. A stint at the SFWA table and getting to stroke Catherine Lundoff’s lovely book cover for Silver Moon, which is a kickass novel about menopausal women turning into werewolves, which I’m downloading onto my Kindle asap.
  7. The Broud Universe Rapidfire Reading, which was jampacked with great stuff, including a closing filk song, which was about the nicest way to end a reading that I’ve seen or heard in a long time.
  8. Getting to see Rachel Swirsky in full and beautiful glitter.
  9. A lot more which is still full of happy, giddy blur, so if I’m overlooking you, it is because my memory is still aswirl. 😉

2 Responses

  1. Your party was a highlight of my con! Got to get your books. Won a necklace-which made my little girl very happy when she saw it. Met some of my favorite writers as they came through. You, Vicky, Stina and Dallas were such great people to meet – and Dallas was about the best mixologist ever. Thanks for a great time!

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From WIP - Queen of the Fireflies

Photo of trees in Leeper Park, South Bend, Indiana. Was fiddling this for a writing retreat I’m doing in September. This is from the beginning.

June, 1976, Indiana

On Indiana summer evenings, the fireflies begin their dance as dusk creeps over the landscape, reducing green to gray and black and brown. Their lights are yellow as sunlight or neon; they blink among the hedges and maneuver a few inches above the tall grass. There are five varieties of fireflies native to the Northern Indiana region. Each signals prospective mates with specific timing, and no four second interval firefly would approach a six second interval one.

On the same summer evenings, the mosquitoes whine, though only the female ones, hovering before landing on unsuspecting arms and ankles, draining as much as they can before either taking off, heavy and bloated with their sanguine plunder, or else are splattered and exploded by their victim when he or she notices not the sting of the needlelike proboscis being inserted, but the tickle of their feet among the fine, downy hair arms.

Other creatures come out later: soft-nosed rabbits and the tiny bats that flitter around lampposts, devouring the night insects swarming there. Possums drag their heavy bodies along, investigating garbage cans and quarreling with the raccoons come to plunder. There are even rats, in some places along the St. Joseph River, water rats that move through the green-brown water, searching among the slimy weeds that coat the bottom. But the fireflies are already there: they have marked the coming of the night, lighting as though protesting the approaching darkness.

Michigan Street crosses down from the state of Michigan, comes through Northern Indiana and splits one of its larger cities, South Bend, like a splayed bird. Corn fields and alfalfa lie further out but here the street slashes the city’s belly, unfolds layers like the dark verge of Notre Dame University, the struggling downtown, the unsavory brew further south of town as you headed down to the smaller towns: Lakeville, Lapaz, Plymouth. Far to the south it reaches Kokomo, later Indianapolis, then the nether region of the state, which hosted the revival of the Ku Klux Klan in the twenties.

Enjoy this sample of Cat’s writing and want more of it on a weekly basis, along with insights into process, recipes, photos of Taco Cat, chances to ask Cat (or Taco) questions, discounts on and news of new classes, and more? Support her on Patreon.

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Round-up of Awards Posts by F&SF Writers, Editors, and Publishers for 2020

It’s that time again! Once again I have created this post for consolidating fantasy and science fiction award eligibility round-ups. If you are an F&SF writer, editor, podcast, or publisher working in comics, fiction or games, I hope you’ll let people know what you have that they should be reading. People on my Discord server have already been gently prodded about this.

Past things I have written about why writers should do this include On Awards: To Be Pushy Or Not To Be Pushy (2014), The Spontaneous Knotting of an Agitated Awards Process (2015), and To Eligibility Post or Not to Eligibility Post? (2016).

Here are the previous such posts from 2017, 2018, 2019

Here are the guidelines that save us both work. It’s best if you e-mail me to add your name and link. I need to know your name, what categories you fit in, and the single URL that lets people find the works. Fair warning: If I have to click through multiple links in order to figure out your name and which category you should be put in, it will slow me down and make me cranky.

I strongly suggest that you do this in a blog post rather than on social media, for multiple reasons, including: it’s hard for people to find stuff on social media sometimes; not everyone has a social media account; it affects search engine optimization; and the fact that it’ll be easier for you to find it yourself later on. I can and do point at Twitter or FB posts if that’s all that people have, but I think they are shortchanging themselves when they do it.

If you tweet yours and tag me, there’s a good chance I’ll miss it somehow. Feel free to remind me in e-mail so I don’t miss it a second time.

A.C. Wise maintains a similar list here.

Here are the SFWA recommended reading lists. These lists are the suggestions made by members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and represent pieces they found particularly read-worthy over the course of the year. Appearance on the list is NOT the same thing as a Nebula nomination.

Novel
Novella
Novelette
Short Story
Games
Bradbury Award
Norton (Young adult/middle grade novels)

Here is the Coyotl Award Recommended List.
Here is the Hugo Award Nominees Wiki
Astounding Award Eligibility

Writers:

  1. Eisuke Aikawa
  2. Phoenix Alexander
  3. B. Morris Allen
  4. Mike Allen
  5. G.V. Anderson
  6. Jason R. Baltazar
  7. Patrick Barb
  8. Devin Barlow
  9. Yaroslav Barsukov
  10. Phoebe Barton
  11. Alan Baxter
  12. Helena Bell
  13. Renan Bernardo
  14. Gautam Bhatia
  15. Derrick Boden
  16. Maurice Broaddus
  17. Laurence Brothers
  18. K.T. Bryski
  19. Andi Buchanan
  20. Cora Buhlert
  21. Stephanie Burgis
  22. Lisbeth Campbell
  23. Rebecca Campbell
  24. H.E. Casson
  25. Minerva Cerridwen
  26. L. Chan
  27. Jordan Chase-Young
  28. Mike Chen
  29. Joyce Chng
  30. Zen Cho
  31. May Chong
  32. Kay Chronister
  33. Nino Cipri
  34. Chandra Clarke
  35. ZZ Claybourne
  36. Katherine Crighton
  37. Brandon Crilly
  38. Marc Criley
  39. Carrie Cuinn
  40. Ray Daley
  41. J.R. Dawson
  42. Aliette de Bodard
  43. Ashley Deng
  44. Tracy Deonn (eligible for Astounding)
  45. Anya Johnson DeNiro
  46. S.B. Divya
  47. Maria Dong
  48. Jennifer Donohue
  49. Vraiux Dorós (eligible for the Astounding Award)
  50. Aidan Doyle
  51. Katharine Duckett
  52. Jonathan Louis Duckworth
  53. Andy Dudak
  54. R.K. Duncan
  55. Anthony Eichenlaub
  56. Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki
  57. Louis Evans
  58. Corey Farrenkopf
  59. Illimani Ferreria
  60. C.C. Finlay
  61. A.J. Fitzwater
  62. Vanessa Fogg
  63. Susan Forest
  64. Theresa Frohock
  65. Sarah Gailey
  66. Ephiny Gale
  67. R.S.A. Garcia
  68. Emma J. Gibbon
  69. Craig Laurence Gidney
  70. Chadwick Ginther
  71. Lora Gray
  72. J.T. Greathouse
  73. A.T. Greenblatt
  74. R.W.W. Greene
  75. Mika Grimmer (eligible for the Astounding Award)
  76. Eileen Gunnell Lee
  77. Thomas Ha
  78. Elad Haber
  79. Essa Hansen (eligible for the Astounding Award)
  80. Leigh Harlen
  81. Maria Haskins
  82. Kate Heartfield
  83. Joachim Heijndermans
  84. Sylvia Heike
  85. Rhiannon Held
  86. Carlos Hernandez
  87. Alicia Hilton
  88. Stark Holborn
  89. Jessica Jo Horowitz
  90. A.P. Howell
  91. Jennifer Hudak
  92. Andrew D. Hudson
  93. Zina Hutton
  94. Oshahon Ize-Iyamu
  95. Sid Jain (eligible for the Astounding Award)
  96. Jessica Jo
  97. Rachael K. Jones
  98. Anya Josephs
  99. Keishi Kajifune (eligible for the Astounding Award)
  100. Umiyuri Katsuyama
  101. Gwen C. Katz
  102. Ava Kelly
  103. Michael Kelly
  104. L.P. Kindred
  105. Scott King
  106. Benjamin C. Kinney
  107. Gwendolyn Kiste
  108. Zelda Knight
  109. C.H. Knight
  110. Shawn Kobb
  111. Joanna Koch
  112. Jordan Kurella
  113. Jamie Lackey
  114. Lavanya Lakshminarayan
  115. N. R. Lambert
  116. C. J. Lavigne
  117. J.H.R. Lawless
  118. Eileen Gunnell Lee
  119. P.H. Lee
  120. R.B. Lemberg
  121. Jessica Lévai
  122. L.D. Lewis
  123. Mina Li
  124. Monte Lin
  125. Marissa Lingen
  126. Darcie Little Badger
  127. Monica Louzon
  128. S. Qiouyi Lu
  129. Catherine Lundoff
  130. M. Evan MacGriogair
  131. Clara Madrigano
  132. Usman T. Malik
  133. Lyndsie Manusos
  134. Marshall Ryan Maresca
  135. Anna Martino
  136. J.A.W. McCarthy
  137. Jo Miles
  138. Lawrence Miller
  139. Samantha Mills
  140. Premee Mohamed
  141. Aidan Moher
  142. Ben Monroe
  143. Elisabeth R. Moore (eligible for Astounding Award)
  144. L.H. Moore
  145. Sunny Moraine
  146. Mike Morgan
  147. Ilana C. Myer
  148. Ray Nayler
  149. Yvette Lisa Ndlovu
  150. Celia Neri
  151. Mari Ness
  152. Wendy Nikel
  153. Leah Ning (eligible for the Astounding Award)
  154. Christie Nogle
  155. Julie Novakova
  156. Claire O’Dell
  157. Sandra Odell
  158. Aimee Ogden
  159. Tobi Ogundiran
  160. Anya Ow
  161. Suzanne Palmer
  162. Rhonda Parrish
  163. Irette Patterson
  164. Shari Paul
  165. Charles Payseur
  166. Robert G. Penner
  167. E.A. Petricone
  168. Aimee Picchi
  169. Sarah Pinsker
  170. Hailey Piper
  171. Vina Jie-Min Prasad
  172. Mary Rajotte
  173. Cat Rambo
  174. Jenny Rae Rappaport
  175. Arula Ratnakar (eligible for the Astounding Award)
  176. Julie Reeser
  177. Jeff Reynolds
  178. Joyce Reynolds-Ward
  179. Endria Issa Richardson (eligible for Astounding Award)
  180. Lauren Ring (eligible for the Astounding Award)
  181. Rebecca Roanhorse
  182. Karlo Yeager Rodríguez
  183. Josh Rountree
  184. Frances Rowat
  185. Jed Sabin
  186. Malena Salazar Macia (eligible for the Astounding Award)
  187. R.P. Sand (eligible for the Astounding Award)
  188. Jason Sanford
  189. Lynne Sargent
  190. Erica Satifka
  191. A.T. Sayre (eligible for the Astounding Award)
  192. Edmund Schluessel
  193. Adam R. Shannon
  194. Jennifer Shelby
  195. Sameem Siddiqui
  196. T.R. Siebert
  197. Elsa Sjunneson
  198. Prashanth Srivatsa (eligible for the Astounding Award)
  199. Carlie St. George
  200. Caitlin Starling
  201. Mats Strandberg
  202. Sonia Sulamain
  203. Bogi Takács
  204. Jordan Taylor
  205. Kristina Ten (eligible for the Astounding Award)
  206. R.J. Theodore
  207. Sheree Renée Thomas
  208. M. Elizabeth Ticknor
  209. Steve Toase
  210. E. Catherine Tobler
  211. Rebecca E. Treasure (eligible for the Astounding Award)
  212. Eugenia Triantafyllou
  213. Sienna Tristen
  214. Marcus Vance
  215. Hilary Morgan Ventura
  216. Elaine Vilar Madruga (eligible for the Astounding Award)
  217. Kelly Washington
  218. Izzy Wasserstein
  219. Paul Weimer
  220. M. Douglas White
  221. Rem Wigmore
  222. Yudhanjaya Wijeratne
  223. Fran Wilde
  224. Brittany N. Williams
  225. A.C. Wise
  226. John Wiswell
  227. Merc Fenn Wolfmoor
  228. Caroline Yoachim
  229. Ramez Yoakeim
  230. Filip Hajdar Drnovšek Zorko (eligible for the Astounding Award)

Editors:

Publishers:

Podcasts
If This Goes On (Don’t Panic) (Alan needs to give me the link to this post, hi Alan 🙂 )

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