Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America

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Mike Allen

Mike Allen edits the anthology series Clockwork Phoenix and the poetry journal Mythic Delirium. His story “The Button Bin” is a 2008 Nebula Award nominee.

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“The literary equivalent of a syringe full of adrenaline.” –Publishers Weekly

Nebula Awards Weekend

The Forty-Seventh Nebula Awards Weekend will be held Thursday through Sunday, May 17 to May 20, 2012 at the Hyatt Regency Crystal City in Arlington, Virginia, near Reagan National Airport.

We honor Connie Willis as our Grand Master!

To register, click on “Registration” in the menu to the immediate left.  Then scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on the “Register” button.

Tours, workshops and panels are available for registered attendees (the number of people who can be accommodated on the tours and workshops is limited.)  Active and Associate SFWA members may nominate works, until February 15th, for the awards to be presented at the May 19th Nebula Awards Weekend Banquet. Hour long interviews and readings will be recorded by Jim Freund for his Hour of the Wolf radio show broadcast on WBAI (99.5FM) in New York City.

Jon Williams is our Toastmaster (he will also conduct a half-day Writers Workshop on Friday morning.)  Mike Fincke is our Keynote Speaker.

The Mass Autographing Session on Friday, May 18th will be followed by a reception to honor the nominees and other honorees.

You don’t have to be a nominee, a member of SFWA, or even a writer to participate in the weekend. Registration for the 2012 Nebula Awards Weekend is open now.  The cost for the Nebula Awards Banquet is $75.00 per person.  The cost to register is $50.00 for a SFWA Member and $60.00 for a non-SFWA Member until February 29, 2012. Rates for registration will be higher as the date of the event draws closer.

Results from the 2010 Nebula Awards (presented 2011).

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Archive for April, 2010

SFWA announces 2010 Solstice Award honorees

Friday, April 9th, 2010

COCOA BEACH, Fla. — Tom Doherty, Terri Windling and the late Donald A. Wollheim are recipients of the 2010 Solstice Award, presented by Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.

SFWA President Russell Davis made the announcement March 22. The recipients will be honored during the Nebula Award Weekend® in Cocoa Beach, Fla., May 14-16.

“The SFWA Solstice Award is meant to recognize those who have made a major difference to our field, and we’re proud to be able to honor the contributions of Tom Doherty, who has been integral to the shape and growth of SF and fantasy, for many, many years, as well as Terri Windling, whose contributions to the field, especially in mythic fiction, are unrivaled, and, of course, Donald Wollheim, who changed the course of fantasy paperback publishing in the United States,” Davis said.

Tom Doherty founded Tom Doherty Associates in 1980 following a career that included stops at Pocket Books, Simon and Schuster, Tempo Books and Ace. As president and publisher of Tom Doherty Associates, his publishing lines now include Tor, Forge, Orb, Starscape, Tor Teen and Tor Classics imprints, and many of his authors have won honors as diverse as the Nebula, Hugo, Edgar, Spur, Tiptree, Stoker and Western Heritage awards, among others.

“Thank you, SFWA, you who have told the stories which have moved the generations of my lifetime to dream and build and move beyond,” Doherty said. “Your recognition of my contributions to the speculative fiction field is a very special thing.”

Writer, editor and artist Terri Windling has earned widespread acclaim for her promotion of the fantastic in the arts, notably through her founding of and continued work with Endicott Studio. She has published more than 40 books as author and editor, winning nine World Fantasy Awards, the Mythopoeic Award and the Bram Stoker Award. Her essays on myth, folklore and mythic arts have appeared in magazines, art books and anthologies in the United States and Europe.

“It has been a great privilege to work with so many talented writers, artists and editors in the SF/fantasy field over the last three decades,” Windling said. “I’m particularly grateful to the fantasy genre for giving a home to those of us who care passionately about myth and fairy tales and their expression in contemporary fiction and art. Thank you so much for this award, which truly belongs to all my colleagues and collaborators at the Endicott Studio and in the field of mythic arts.”

A founding member of the Futurians, Donald A. Wollheim was active in early fandom, organizing the first science fiction convention, and had a profound influence on the development of 20th century science fiction. He published numerous short stories and novels, but is best remembered for his work in publishing. In 1953 he introduced science fiction to the Ace line and invented the Ace Doubles, and his controversial publication of unauthorized paperback editions of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings is credited with establishing the modern mass-market fantasy field. He founded DAW Books, and helped launch many careers of science fiction and fantasy authors through the mass-market publisher. From 1965-71, he co-edited the annual anthology World’s Best Science Fiction with Terry Carr, and continued with The Annual World’s Best SF from 1972 until his death in 1990.

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Posted in Nebula Awards, News, SFWA Blog | 1 Comment »

Nurmal Resources PUBLISH ME! Contest

Friday, April 9th, 2010

Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware

I've gotten a number of questions recently about the Nurmal Resources PUBLISH ME! contest, from authors who've been solicited via email to enter it. (What's Nurmal Resources, you may ask? A new publisher. According to its website, "Nurmal is passionate about developing resources that inspire a new normal in everyday life. We cultivate emerging authors who have a clear life-impacting message, are actively engaged in community life, and are committed to spreading their ideas locally & globally.")
Do you want a 1 in 50 chance of getting published? Enter the PUBLISH ME! Contest sponsored by Nurmal Resources, and you could be published within a few months. We are focused on cultivating emerging authors, and you could be one of them. The winning author will have his or her book published by Nurmal Resources and receive 500 copies of the book plus $1,000 cash toward marketing!
The contest is limited to the first 50 entrants. In addition to the prizes mentioned above, winners will receive "professional editing" and distribution on Amazon. All you have to do to enter is to submit a book proposal, a completed contest agreement...and a $250 entry fee. For any contest, even the screenwriting contests with three-figure entry fees, that's way steep. Think about it: do you really want to shell out $250 just for the chance of publication? With a brand-new company? That hasn't actually issued any books yet? (The first of Nurmal's three announced books--all by the same author--won't be published until May.) Since Nurmal is seeking manuscript submissions, and at the moment the only way to submit is via the contest (the submission link leads directly to the contest page), that contest fee looks a whole lot like a reading fee. Perusal of the contest application and agreement form reveals that publication will be done through CreateSpace (something that any author could do him/herself for free). As for the $1,000 for marketing, many entrants might hope that the cash would actually land in their hot little hands, but the wording of the agreement suggests it'll be the publisher doing the spending, not the winner: "We will spend up to $1,000 to market your book based on your recommendations and in a way that we agree upon." Of more concern, the agreement includes a transfer of publishing rights. Although only three finalists will be asked to submit complete manuscripts, simply by entering the contest entrants are giving Nurmal an exclusive, life-of-copyright, all-rights publication grant, with the only provision for termination being the cancellation of the contest (which happens if fewer than 50 entries are received by May 31, 2010). This is yet another example of why it's so important to read the fine print of any contest you're thinking of entering. (It also makes the $250 contest entrance fee look more than ever like a reading fee.) So with this contest, it looks as if Nurmal will gain a pool of potential authors, plus a pool of money for publishing them (50 entrants at $250 apiece adds up to $12,500; deduct the $1,000 for marketing, the $2-3,000 CreateSpace charges for an order of 500 books, and possibly a few hundred dollars for editing, and you're still left with several thousand dollars). Not a bad way to stock and fund a publishing startup. EDITED 4/11 TO ADD: In response to this post, Nurmal has revised its contest agreement form to make it clear that the grant of publishing rights applies only to the winner. The wording of the agreement still makes no provision for termination of the grant of rights, but hopefully that's something that will be clarified in the publishing contract the winner will presumably sign.

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Quick Updates for 2010-04-09

Friday, April 9th, 2010

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Quick Updates for 2010-04-08

Thursday, April 8th, 2010

Quick Updates -- istock

Member News

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Authorial Control

Wednesday, April 7th, 2010

by Cherie Priest

Some time ago, an author friend gave me the heads-up regarding a brief-but-nasty review of Boneshaker (as well as this author’s own works) composed by someone who was irate over Amazon.com’s georestrictions. In short, because this man could not download our books to a Kindle (edited to add: Or otherwise acquire them, apparently) in Australia, he thought he’d take out his frustration on us.

This isn’t altogether shocking, since we-the-authors are arguably the most public face of the publishing process; and, in the reviewer’s defense, when he was asked nicely to remove the reviews, he did so. Of course, his parting shot informed me that my books were available for free in “all the usual places” so he could always just download them anyway. Eh. One step forward, two steps back, I guess.

But this brings up a couple of things that I’ve seen discussed a lot lately: (1). e-piracy and (2). authorial control, and I wanted to clear up a few of the more prevalent misconceptions on these subjects.

Actually, I don’t have much to say about piracy because Nicole Peeler has already produced a pretty good run-down on the subject. However, when I linked her post on Twitter, I received some follow up questions regarding libraries, used book stores, and friend-sharing — so I’d like to take a moment to address them.

In short, of course authors would love it if everyone could buy brand new copies of their books. But the next best thing is borrowing books from a friend or library; and no, most of the authors I know don’t have problems with used book stores, either. The reasons are primarily twofold: (1). original purchase, and (2). scale. (more…)

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Posted in Building a Career, Publishing Technologies, SFWA Blog | 3 Comments »

Quick Updates for 2010-04-07

Wednesday, April 7th, 2010

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Book View Café releases International Kittens of Mystery, by Chris Dolley

Tuesday, April 6th, 2010

In an uncertain world there is one organisation that stands head and small furry shoulders above the rest. Whenever the planet is in danger – be it from giant balls of wool or bands of renegade squirrels – only one group is guaranteed to answer th…e call: The International Kittens of Mystery!

 If your cat is a secret world ruler, this is the book for you. It’s the book the iPad was designed for – ask Steve Jobs’ cat.

http://www.bookviewcafe.com/index.php/Chris-Dolley-Bookshelf/Picture-Books/

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Guest Blog Post: Grants for Writers–As Diverse As You Are

Tuesday, April 6th, 2010

Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware

Being paid for writing is the ultimate author's dream. Today, guest blogger C. Hope Clark sheds light on an area of support that many writers don't think of: Grants. There are plenty of them out there, if you know where to look--though, as Hope points out, you must be sure you meet their eligibility requirements, and are willing to conform to their conditions.

For much more grant information, as well as market info and contest listings, visit Hope's website, FundsforWriters.com.

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By C. Hope Clark

When I speak at writing conferences, I'm inundated with requests about grants. I prefer to talk about funding streams - how to incorporate contests, publishing, freelance markets, jobs AND grants into a successful career that turns a real dollar. But the word "grant" stirs excitement in a room, in some cases making people tune out all else. Like winning the lottery, who doesn't crave free money?

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Quick Updates for 2010-04-06

Tuesday, April 6th, 2010

Quick Updates -- istock

Member News

  • SFWA member Paul Cornell will be the Guest of Honour at the 2012 Eastercon.
  • Campbell nominees for Best New Writer: Saladin Ahmed, Gail Carriger, Felix Gilman, Seanan McGuire, and Lezli Robyn.
  • Jon Courtenay Grimwood: ‘neoAddix” my 1st, worst and rarest novel -long out of print- is now a free download.

Industry News

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Quick Updates for 2010-04-05

Monday, April 5th, 2010

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