kate baker

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.

The first part of my Asimov’s story, All the Pretty Little Mermaids, is up online.
Kate Baker does a beautiful job with the audio version of “Tortoiseshell Cats are Not Refundable”

For Writers:

• I blogged about Why I Don’t Want to Read Your Story
• Please spread the word about this anthology from Brandon Bell and the impetus behind it.
• Will I get to destroy fantasy? It remains to be seen. Last week for the Women Destroying SF Kickstarter. People have asked whether I plan to do open submissions for it, the answer is yes.
• 29 Problems Only Writers Will Understand
• Locus has posted their recommended reading list for 2013.
• SF Signal asks what’s wrong with epic fantasy
  Elizabeth Bear is one of my favorite writers. Here’s an interview with her on Tor.com.

Books I talked about these books for You Should Read This:

• A fabulous work about writing, On Writing by Stephen King
• English comic novel Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
• Classic fantasy novel The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle. No time to read it? Here’s the best quotes from it on GoodReads. Or here’s a picture of him and George R.R. Martin playing with stuffed animals.
• Longtime American comic strip Pogo by Walt Kelly
• Feminist spirituality guidebook 365 Goddess by Patricia Telesco
• Classic epic work The Odyssey by Homer
• Creative aid Surrealist Games

Things of Note:

• SFWA has put together its own accessibility checklist for events
• Are you warm right now? A lot of people aren’t.
• Shades of Boneshaker, Batman! Seattle’s giant digging machine is broken

Timewasters!:

• Via Wayne, a squirrel trying to bury a nut in a very odd place
• Richard Sherman has gone missing. Well, the owl named after him.
• io9.com lists some good February reading.
  Lovely story by Natalia Theodoridou on Clarkesworld.

Here’s some pieces that I’ve particularly enjoyed over the last week, as well as pointers to some recent publications of my own.

Print:

• Apex Magazine had some terrific pieces in its March 2013 issue. My favorites are Mermaid’s Hook by Liz Argall and If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love by Rachel Swirsky. I will confess that I’m particularly fond of the latter because Rachel wrote it during a group flash writing session I was part of.
• Grá Linnaea has kicked off a serial fiction effort that’s a lot of fun. Check out The Curious Investigations of Miranda McGee on his website.
• I love pieces of fiction masquerading as something else. It’s such a fabulous device when used well. Jake Kerr’s produced a great story doing exactly that in Biographical Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince for Lightspeed Magazine. (Question: is there no audio version? The “Listen” link doesn’t work for me.)
• A lovely, resonant piece about grief from E. Lily Yu is up at Eclipse Online.
• The Nymph of Limantour by J.J. Roth, up at Every Day Fiction, is a marine love story — or is it?
• My collaboration with Ben Burgis, Logic and Magic in the Time of the Boat Lift appeared in Giganotasaurus. It’s a story of a motorcycle mechanic with a graduate degree in paraconsistent logic and a summons from the Powers that Be investigating a mystery involving were-gators, demons, and dreams of Che Guevera, all set in 1980s Miami and Cuba.

Audio:

• Part of the Broad Universe Rapid Fire Reading at Arisia, featuring Roxanne Bland, Kimberly Long-Ewing, and Gail Z. Martin. Broad Universe is a good organization for writers and well worth checking out if you don’t already know about it.
• This piece on YA fiction podcast Cast of Wonders has a simple, almost pastoral world with a sinister overlay: magic that demands the sacrifice of young women and strict societal sexual roles. An almost inevitably tragic love story between Charlotte and Lily plays out against it. Eliza Hirsch, A Song for the Season, read by Kate Baker.
• Sandra M. Odell writes wrenchingly and wonderfully. Check out David Milner Is… narrated by Joe Sammarco for Tales to Terrify.
• The Drabblecast kicked off its Women and Aliens Month with Amid the Words of War, which originally appeared in Lightspeed Magazine and was reprinted in Near+Far. Eric Marsh does a super job with it.
• Podcastle has the audio version of Logic and Magic in the Time of the Boat Lift, read adeptly and wonderfully as always by M.K. Hobson. I always smile when I hear her distinctive voice.

P.S. If you’re in the Seattle area, Deb Taber is reading tonight at the University Bookstore and should be well worth attending.