SFWA

I must admit to an extra hint of pride in this book’s appearance here, because Ann was a member of my Clarion West class back in 2005, when she was first wowing all of us with her Radchi universe. Ann and I also know each other through SFWA and our shared agent, Seth Fishman.

What: Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie is a fabulous space opera with an unusual protagonist whose struggle will pull the reader in. It is, alas, not a particularly long book, and I could have read at least twice more the length happily.

Who: read this if you like space opera or action-filled but character driven SF. Read it if you want to hear the latest in the ongoing conversation about gendered pronouns held between SF writers for decades now. Read it for the sake of enjoyment and rejoice to know it’s the first of three.

When: read this when you have time to devour great chunks in one sitting, because otherwise the story will haunt you, will keep calling you back while you are spending time at other tasks, making you remember exactly where you laid the book down, calculating when you can return to it.

Why: Read this because it will be appearing on many of the awards ballots this year and rightly so. Read it so you know why you’re voting for it. Read it because it does new and interesting things. Read it because it’s good.

Where/how: This is ideal for a while-away-some-hours situation, depending on your reading speed. Leckie’s world is immersive, intelligent, and interesting.

Here is some of the stuff that appeared on my blog and social media in the week ending 1/26/2014.

Stuff I posted on the blog:

I announced I am running for SFWA Vice President. #sfwapro is a tag you’ll be seeing on posts intended to appear on the @sfwaauthors feed as well.

The Women Destroying SF Kickstarter will sponsor my destroying Fantasy if they hit a $35k stretch goal.

I talked about my January writing news and provided a teaser from a still-untitled steampunk piece

Stuff for Writers:

• I talked about the demands of collaboration.
• Industry discussion of an editor here by Tobias Buckell
• How to handle a synopsis when you have a lot of characters
• Thoughts on “Do What You Love”.

In the new You Should Read This series, I read:

• Writing classic from one of the greats, About Writing by Samuel R. Delany
• Classic fantasy novel, The Forest of Forever by Thomas Burnett Swann
• Self (and writing) help, The Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense by Suzette Haden Elgin
• 19th century novel of manners, Miss Mole by E.H. Young
• Terrific book for MG/YG writers of any age, Turn Not Pale, Beloved Snail by Jacqueline Jackson

I blurbed this book by Django Wexler.

Time Wasters!

• Bad fantasy covers.
• A guy singing heavy-metal with his cat.
• How the history of civil rights is being retold.
• A murmuration of starlings.
• Onion piece that hits too close to home.
• Zebra finches rocking out.

Interesting Social Media Links:

• 33 Ways to Get More Pins on Pinterest.
• Excellent piece on GoodReads giveaways.
• A great response to trolls and nasty commenters.
• Kickstarter phrases that pay.
• Moving from a blog to G+.
• Useful Twitter hashtags for writers.

Sign up for the mailing list of news about my online speculative fiction writing and editing classes!

Well, the statement’s up in the SFWA forums, so I should probably put it here as well. I am running for SFWA VP. I think I can do a good job. Even if you’re not voting for me, please vote if you’re a SFWA member.

Dear SFWA Members:

I am running for Vice President of SFWA.

I joined SFWA in 2005, as soon as I made my first qualifying sale. Among the work I’ve done for SFWA are stints on the Nebula short fiction and Norton juries, work with the Copyright Committee, interviews and articles for the SFWA blog, articles for the SFWA Bulletin, assisting with the YA-SIG’s move to a mailing list, and helping develop guidelines for and moderating the discussion forums. At the time I joined, I was excited and proud to be joining the ranks of so many writers I’ve admired, and I continue to be an enthusiastic advocate for and supporter of SFWA.

I have worked with the current administration and know that I can interact smoothly with it to maintain and continue to build the organization as a valuable resource for speculative fiction writers and one whose members can take pride in their membership. I’m pleased to see SFWA continuing to adapt to changes in the publishing landscape, such as the recent rate increase for SFWA-qualifying markets and the work of the Self-Publishing committee, and hope to lead similar efforts.

As far as my qualifications go, I’ve worked as both a writer and an editor. I have over 100 original short story publications, including in such places as Asimov’s, Weird Tales, and Tor.com, and three collections (two solo, one with Jeff VanderMeer) (for a complete list, see http://www.kittywumpus.net/blog/fiction/). My short story, “Five Ways to Fall in Love on Planet Porcelain,” was a 2012 Nebula nominee, while others have been nominated for the Locus Award and the Million Writers Award. I was the editor for several years of award-winning Fantasy Magazine, receiving a 2012 World Fantasy nomination for my efforts there, and I have multiple editing projects coming up in 2014. I have also worked as a volunteer with both Broad Universe and the Clarion West Writers Workshop. Last year I wrote and self-published Creating an Online Presence, a guidebook for writers trying to navigate the confusing world of online self-promotion, and am currently writing a similar guide on podcasting with Folly Blaine, the podcast manager of Everyday Fiction. I teach a popular series of online classes on writing and editing and do some podcast narration. I am a frequent convention-goer and make a point of participating in SFWA activities when they’re available at such gatherings. This year, I will be attending Norwescon, the Nebula Award ceremony, the Locus Awards, and Worldcon, with tentative plans for a couple of other conventions.

My priorities as a board officer include:

• Building SFWA’s name and influence by reaching out to both established and newer F&SF writers who have not joined but would find it useful. I’d like to see SFWA’s social media presence continue to expand and to work to interest and intrigue potential members.
• Preserving SFWA’s institutional memory through archives and collecting existing information.
• Improving the existing volunteer structure in order to more effectively connect volunteers with SFWA’s needs, as well as recognizing and rewarding volunteers more consistently.
• Assisting SFWA as it determines qualifications for self-published writers as well as how it can best serve such writers.
• Working to address internal miscommunications by better communicating what the board is doing and how people can assist in such efforts. I’d like to help current volunteers and SFWA officers tell other members what they do.

My primary role as VP, though, would be to support SFWA’s President. To assist me in that role, I’ve got good people skills, a sense of humor, and the fact that I don’t take myself overly seriously. I will continue to represent SFWA with enthusiasm and the respect such an august organization deserves.

Currently I am head moderator of the SFWA discussion forums. To avoid a potential conflict of interest, I have asked the other moderators to oversee the election subforum. Over the last six months, I’ve been recruiting new moderators and working out processes so someone else can take my place, should I be elected. As VP, I would continue to work with the moderating team to help make the transition as smooth as possible.

Sincerely,
Catherine (Cat) Rambo

Well, it’s been a very good year.

I had 20 original stories come out. Here’s the list, if you want to look for some of them.

• DAILY SCIENCE FICTION, November, 2013. Just the Facts: A Zombie Story.
• DAILY SCIENCE FICTION, October, 2013. Flying Matilda (with Gio Clairval).
• DAILY SCIENCE FICTION, October, 2013. Superhero Art.
• ABYSS & APEX, October, 2013. The Toad’s Jewel.
• WHAT FATES IMPOSE, edited by Nayad Monroe, September, 2013. To Read the Sea.
• SIGNS OF LIFE, September, 2013. Mystery in Metal.
• GLITTER AND MAYHEM, edited by Lynne Thomas and Michael Damien Thomas, September, 2013. Of Selkies, Disco Balls, and Anna Plane.
• EVERY DAY FICTION, August, 2013. Three Wishes.
• BEYOND THE SUN, edited by Bryan Thomas Schmidt, July, 2013. Elsewhere, Within, Elsewhen.
• DAILY SCIENCE FICTION, July, 2013. On the Big-Fisted Circuit.
• THE MAD SCIENTIST JOURNAL, June, 2013. Prophetic Lobster Man.
• CLOCKWORK PHOENIX FOUR, May, 2013. I Come From the Dark Universe.
• THE JOURNAL OF UNLIKELY ENTOMOLOGY, May, 2013. Of Spiders, Centipedes and Holes.
• SQ MAGAZINE, April, 2013. A Man and His Parasite.
• THE OTHER HALF OF THE SKY, edited by Athena Andreadis and Kay Holt, April, 2013. Dagger and Mask.
• DAILY SCIENCE FICTION, March, 2013. Soft.
• GIGANOTASAURUS, March, 2013. Logic and Magic in the Time of the Boat Lifts (with Ben Burgis).
• DAILY SCIENCE FICTION, February, 2013. Love’s Footsteps.
• FISH, edited by Carrie Cuinn, 2013. The Fisher Queen.
• EVERY DAY FICTION, January, 2013. The Passing of Grandmother’s Quilt.

I’ve finished up the first draft of the Building an Online Presence for Writers class, and am in the process of incorporating feedback from the first readers into the text. At the same time, I’ve been doing a lot of research and adding some new tools to my promotional toolbox. Here’s some of the new ones:

• Authorgraph: Developed by a reader here in Seattle, Authorgraph provides a way for authors to electronically sign an e-book. Sign up on their site to allow readers to request a personalized signature. Authorgraph provides a way to add a Facebook page that readers can use to request signatures as well.
• Wikis: The SFWA blog recently featured my write-up on wikis and how authors can use them for both writing and promotional purposes.
• Reddit: Another post for the SFWA blog talked about Reddit, which holds a number of lively reader communities. I’ve been enjoying participating over there and have been gleaning some interesting new suggestions for my to-be-read list.
• Buffer: I’ve been using Buffer lately for scheduling tweets and am pretty happy with it. Here’s a pretty exhaustive guide to it that goes into great detail.

I will be hosting a special free session of the Building an Online Presence for Writers – details forthcoming in the next day or two. If you’re interested in being informed when the book comes out in November, you can sign up here.

If you’re familiar with C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, you may know what I’m quoting in the title. In the final book of the series, The Last Battle, there is a group of dwarves who believe in their cause so strongly that they cannot perceive reality. There are multiple interpretations of the dwarves, particularly given how prone to Christian allegory Lewis’s work is, but I think they hold a lesson for those of us witnessing and/or participating in arguments on the Internet.

Here’s the thing. Everyone believes their own worldview. It may not totally jibe with the one they project to the world, a la Stephen Colbert. But deep inside, everyone is the champion in their own narrative, or at least that’s the impression that everyone I’ve ever met or read about gives me.

And because they’re the main character in their story, people like to believe that they are good or at least mostly good. But that definition of good can vary wildly from individual to individual. It often is a combination of definitions associated with a particular religion along with whatever personal modifications one requires. Their attitude and behavior toward other beings are shaped by those definitions.

So, the dwarves are being good according to their own dwarvish standards, which, depending on our own internal definitions may or may not seem incorrect to us. That’s worth taking a moment to think about.

“Hey, how about that SFWA mess?” my brother asked in an e-mail.

I winced, because I knew exactly what he meant. In my capacity as the lead of the moderating team on the SFWA internal forums, I’d been reading about it for the past few days – and working to keep the discussion — on those boards, at least — somewhat sane. There was a whole lot of shouting going on. And some of it, I think, could be avoided if some of the shouters had actually taken the time to listen to (by which I mean read) what was being said.

That’s a problem happening on both sides (and honestly, there aren’t really “two sides”. There’s a lot of possible takes on this and part of the problem is this idea of “us vs. them”.) “OMG they are attacking Mike Resnick!” screams one group. “OMG old white dudes telling us what to do!” shouts another.* There’s assumptions being made that’s there’s no room for the organization for both sides and that each is trying to somehow oust the other.

I blogged about Nightshade last week, and since then there’s been a number of developments, including modification of the contracts that were so crappy. Authors should be feeling a little happier, at least.

But, I wanted to point to another group that’s involved in this and which is getting worse treatment than the authors, which is the production crew.

Marty Halpern says:

…all the focus online this past week has been the deal that Skyhorse and Start are offering the Night Shade authors. Authors. Authors.

There has been absolutely no mention, nor commitment made, to all the artists, designers, editors (including myself), and others who are owed tens of thousands of dollars — and seem to have been forgotten in all this “discussion” over the authors’ deal.

And now that NS is essentially closed and in “escrow” for this potential sale, the money that is owed to me (for invoices dating back to October of last year) — and all the other production people — may never get paid.

There would be no books to speak of if there weren’t editors, artists, and designers willing to work continuously for Night Shade for just the promise of pay. We are a dedicated lot and deserve to have our story told — and responded to — as well.

I’m afraid that when all is said and done, and the authors make their decisions — some will join S/S, others will not — those of us production people who helped put Night Shade books on the shelves and in ereaders, may be left holding a lot of empty invoices and bills.

Since I first heard about this, Rose Fox has posted about the production crew’s plight, and now there’s an addendum that comes from Jarred Weisfelt at Start Publishing saying that if the deal goes through, the creditors will get 30-50% of what they’re owed.

Better than nothing, sure. And Start and Skyhorse have been both communicative and willing to listen to authors, despite the deluge of “shame on you” comments on their Facebook wall. Still, finding this out is disappointing, particularly since production crew aren’t usually particularly well paid in the first place.

So, much of the Internet’s time, at least on the spec-fic side of things, was taken up this week by recent convulsions surrounding Night Shade Books.

Night Shade Books is a small press run by Jeremy Lassen and Jason Williams. Among the books they’ve published are Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Windup Girl, Iain M. Banks’ The Algebraist, the novelizations of the Girl Genius books by Phil and Kaja Foglio, and on and on. In short, they publish excellent stuff.

Night Shade’s been having problems for years. SFWA, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, got involved in 2010. Within the past few months, the authors have been asking SFWA what’s up with Night Shade. Here, I get a little confused. I find it difficult to believe that any publisher is quaking in their boots at the threat of being delisted by SFWA. All that being delisted does, as far as I can tell, is prevent that publisher from being considered a “professional market” that people can use to qualify to become a member of SFWA. Big whoop. If this is the biggest club an author has in their arsenal, we are all in terrible trouble.

Well, as you may know, Five Ways to Fall in Love on Planet Porcelain made it onto the Nebula ballot. I can’t express how much that means to me. The Nebulas are voted on by members of SFWA, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, all of whom are writers in their own right, and so this feels very much like recognition and validation from my peers. Wow. That’s all I can say about that.

I’m definitely headed down for the Nebula Awards weekend, which is also a welcome chance to visit one of my favorite places in the world, the Winchester Mystery House.

But! My other great news, somewhat related to that, is that I’ve got an agent now, the excellent Seth Fishman of the Gernert Company. He’s as excited about the novel as I am, and so I’ve been figuring out my rewrite roadmap and planning to devote March to that. Huzzah! Onward and forward.

This is the last day for getting the special deal on the Writing F&SF Story class or Editing Class! Sign up for one of those and you get a bonus class as well. Bonus class options include: the First Pages workshop, Flash Fiction workshop, Everything You Need to Know about E-Publishing, Literary Techniques in Speculative Fiction, Building an Online Presence for Writers, and Art of the Book Review.