SFWA

Things are cranking away as we get ready for the book release. Here’s the cover – the typo that some of you will notice has been addressed. 😉

The book will be available at Emerald City Comicon — find me there at one of my panels, or stop by the Wordfire Press table, which is where I’ll be hanging out when not stalking John Barrowman.

Those panels will be:

Friday, March 27: Fueling Creativity: Sci-Fi and Fantasy Authors on Ideas
Room: Hall B (WSCC 602-603)
Time: 3:30PM – 4:20PM
Moderator: David Hulton

Guest(s): Cat Rambo, Greg Bear, Ramez Naam, Jason M. Hough, Myke Cole
Authors often dread the interview question “where did you get the idea for this book?” because the answer is never simple. There’s rarely a single moment where an entire plot or world comes to mind. This panel is an exploration of why that’s such a difficult question to answer. Our panel of novelists will discuss the many ways they find inspiration for their work. In addition, they’ll talk about the wonderful and often strange ways an idea will find its way into a novel.

Sunday, March 29: Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations
Room: Hall B (WSCC 602-603)
Time: 10:30AM – 11:20AM
Moderator: Anna Alexander

Guest(s): Cat Rambo, Garth Reasby
Diversity in entertainment is both vital and challenging. This panel of novelists will cover how to effectively write compelling characters who are different than you and how to deal with critics of who you are versus your work. Panelists include Anna Alexander, Jamie Ford, Cat Rambo, Aaron Duran, J.R. Terrel, Garth Reasby, and Sarah Remy.

I’ll also be appearing at ICFA March 18-22, and will be leading an informational meeting about SFWA there.

Plenty of stuff is lined up for the blog over the next two months, including:

• Several giveaways
• Lots of guest posts, including experts talking about writing for games and comic books, how to write more than one series at the same time, food and fantasy, writing collaboratively, and more!
• Pieces of original fiction related to the book
• Essays on the writers that influenced the book
• Links to appearances elsewhere
• Snippets from the sequel, Hearts of Tabat

I will not be teaching or taking on any new editing projects in March; I will be mailing out soon about April and May classes.

#sfwapro

As you may know, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, (aka SFWA) had a membership vote and changed their membership criteria pretty drastically, admitting self-published and small press members to apply if they can prove they’re making an amount of money equivalent to the advance a writer would make from a traditional publisher and qualify for SFWA: three thousand dollars over the course of a year. The year does not need to be Jan-Dec, and it can be any period after January 1, 2013.

Income can come from crowdfunding, but in that case, the book must have been delivered to the funders in a timely fashion. You can combine advance and royalties, but they must fall in the same twelve months.

The income is net, not gross. If you spend ten thousand bucks printing books and then sell them for three thousand dollars, that would not count. Mainly this is there to keep people from faking their way in and I’m not too worried about small publishing expenses counting here, myself.

How do you prove income? Right now, we’ll look at whatever people think is reasonable. As the month progresses, we’ll start knowing what is and isn’t reasonable.

This is all very new, and I know we’ll be deciding many cases as we go along. I also expect there will be delays at first as we get the process working and people flowing through the pipeline.

You can find out more on the SFWA site. The application form is there. I apologize for the fact that it’s not entirely suited to self-pub apps so far – we’re working on that, and I’d be glad to hear your suggestions.

Got questions? I can answer them here if you like.

Note from a question that arose in this morning’s e-mail: Active members CAN qualify through self-published short fiction; that got left out of the official webpage and I’ve got a request in to add it.

Dear SFWA members:

Yep, I’m running for President, even though that’s a two year term. I’ve got a number of projects I want to see through, and this seems the best way to do it. The self-pub and small press qualifications amendment has passed, and I’d like to help SFWA adjust to that large change.

You’ve seen me in action as vice president for a year. I don’t know that it was the most representative year since I spent most of it on the road, but I think I’ve demonstrated that even when other stuff crops up, I do stick around. I had to put a couple of projects on the back burner while waiting for the selfpub/small press qualifiying vote to shake out but now that the vote has passed, I hope to pick up those loose ends. By now, I’m starting to get more of a handle for the internal workings of SFWA, and that should help me be even more effective.

I’ve fixed a few small problems, and I’ve got some other stuff in motion that will solve others. Some of that is fairly visible, such as the push to make it easier for volunteers to find roles within SFWA. Overall SFWA is still suffering some growing pains, and I’ve found my experience as management very helpful there.

Most of you that have worked with me know that I’ve got decent people skills and a solid work ethic. When it comes to the various factions that clash occasionally, I’ve got friends on most sides and pride myself on trying to listen and understand where people are coming from. I’ve tried to be good about touching base with other members of the SFWA team and working well with them, including weekly Google Hangout sessions and phone calls. I don’t mind admitting when I’m wrong, and I try to learn from both my mistakes and what other people pass along. Aside from deciding to run, I am reasonably sane.

January: The Year Begins in the San Juans

2014 was a great year and I want to thank the wonderful friends and family that helped make it so.

I started the year out in the San Juan Islands with Wayne, Mom, and Mark. We watched Sherlock (Mom hadn’t learned about Benedict Cumberbatch yet), read, and did a lot of walking and bird watching, as well as throwing a ball for the dog living on the front porch of the rental place. There was a great fireplace, and plenty of room to sit around and talk or play games. Lunch at the Love Dog Cafe was a worthy meal, although I still miss Bilbo’s.

That was the same month my story, “All the Pretty Little Mermaids,” which appeared in the March issue of Asimov’s SF, made it onto the shelf, so I was able to spot it in the wild. At the same time, “Summer Night in Durham” came out in the anthology Stamps, Vamps, and Tramps, edited by Shannon Robinson.

SFWA, at its usual slow lumbering pace, is heading towards answering the question of whether or not the organization should allow self-publishing as a way to qualify for membership. For those unfamiliar with the current requirements, it involves sales to traditional publishing markets: three stories or a single novel advance at a specified rate (current 6 cents per word for stories and a $2000 advance for a novel, from a market listed as a SFWA qualifying market).

Do I believe results with self-publishing should qualify someone for SFWA? Yes, absolutely. To me the only question is how to define those results in a way that makes them comparable with the existing criteria.

I’m delighted and a little daunted and planning on lots of things.

Right now I’m composing a blog post about self-publishing and why SFWA”s looking at it, as well as my own adventures, past and planned, in self-publishing.

Beside all the convulsions of moving and prep for travel, I’m doing the usual writing (working on a YA novel and have a slew of stories I’ve been asked for), but I’m also working on a nonfiction project of a type I never thought I’d work on: a cookbook, which I’m co-editing with Fran Wilde.

It’s a SFWA project, and I’m excited about it for a number of reasons.

1. It’s following in a SFWA tradition. There were two previous cookbooks, both edited by Anne McCaffrey, Cooking Out of This World and Serve it Forth.
2. Next year is SFWA’s 50th anniversary, so this will be part of the celebration. Accordingly, it’s a party-themed cookbook with sections on savory snacks, sweet snacks, alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks, and dishes to take to potlucks.
3. It’s a (hopefully) noncontentious effort that celebrates SFWA’s community, a community which is for me one of the benefits of being a member.
4. It’s a great chance for me to touch base with a lot of fellow members. I’m fairly certain I’m SFWA’s next vice-president (barring the event of a successful write-in campaign for Randall Garrett) and it’s wonderful to have a reason to interact with them other than problem-solving. I’ve been contacting a few members in advance (there will be a general solicitation to the members next month) and it’s been a lot of fun seeing some illustrious names in my inbox. I’ve talked to a few who I didn’t know had left, and I hope that maybe it’ll persuade some to give the organization another chance.
5. We get to test a lot of very interesting recipes.
6. As with so many SFWA projects, I’m learning a lot in the process.
7. Who doesn’t like a party?
8. It’s a chance to share my Welsh rarebit recipe with the world. 😉

We’ve got a lot of cool plans that will be revealed over the coming months, so stay tuned.

I’ve been very absent from the blog of late, and I apologize for that. I’m actually in the process of radically trimming down our belongings, packing up Chez Rambo, moving us into temporary housing, and then getting this place ready to sell. Then Wayne and I are going to travel a bit while we figure out what we want to do. There will be plenty on that to come, but it’s why I won’t be teaching in the latter half of 2014 and will generally be unreceptive to anything other than requests for stories or reprints during that period as well. I do plan to write steadily while on the road, which should be a new and interesting experience. Advice from other road-warriors is welcome.

For people wondering how that’ll affect my tenure as SFWA’s vice president, which seems increasingly likely barring the eruption of a singularly well-organized write-in campaign: not too much. That’s one reason I’ve cut a lot of other responsibilities. As before, I’ll be stepping down as head moderator of the SFWA boards, which takes a good slice of stuff off my plate. I did commit to driving the third iteration of a SFWA cookbook (more on that to come as well), but I’ve got the capable Fran Wilde co-leading that effort as well as a nice long deadline, so all’s good there.

Various publishing news: Just turned in the last edits for “Rappacini’s Crow”, which will appear in Beneath Ceaseless Skies. There’s another story going through edits there right now, “Call and Answer, Plant and Harvest,” which features a city, Serendib, that I sense will become a working part of my mental universe as far as story production goes. “English Muffin, Devotion on the Side” will be popping up in Daily Science Fiction. “The Raiders” (formerly “In Andersonville”) will pillage in the pages of Fiction River’s Past Crimes issue, edited by Kristine Kathyrn Rusch and “Marvelous Contrivances of the Heart” will unfold in Fiction River’s Recycled Pulp issue, edited by John Helfers. “Elections at Villa Encantada” will appear in Unidentified Funny Objects 3.

Christy Varonfakis Johnson, aka Folly Blaine, will be narrating both of my collections and is currently working on Eyes Like Sky and Coal and Moonlight. PseudoPod will include “The Worm Within” in an upcoming podcast.

I will pick up the “You Should Read This” posts again soon! I’m finishing up a review of two new Jo Walton books for Cascadia Subduction Zone right now, but once that’s done, I’ve got a number of old as well as recent reads I want to talk about.

So…plenty to do. And plenty more to come.

There’s plenty of room left in my upcoming online classes.

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.

The SFWA Board recently passed an Accessibility Guidelines Checklist, which will be used at all SFWA-sponsored events. That includes things like the Nebulas, the NY Meet and Greet, etc. Along with passing them, the board passed a provision that every time they get used at such an event, someone sits down afterward and checks to make sure they worked well and don’t need to be adjusted.

One reason I think this is great is that I’ve seen a lot of conventions lately — among the largest around — that have dropped the ball as far as accessibility goes. I’ve seen con participants treated shabbily and shamefully, even to the point where participants from other, more mundane conventions and gatherings end up stepping up to help up the F&SF fans. It’s great to see SFWA leading by example by using such a set of guidelines as well as making it available to conventions who might find it a useful resource.

So here’s what the checklist involves: