Archives: 2011 September

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Featured Author

Pandora’s Genes, 1985 award-winning novel about a post-oil spill disaster, is featured by e-reads because of new relevance.

Featured Book

A palace filled with ghosts… a thirst for revenge… a heartbreaking choice. “Transcendent and triumphant.”-Kirkus (starred review)

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 September, 2011

An Interview with Norman Spinrad, Anarchist

Monday, September 5th, 2011

by Cat Rambo

American science fiction writer Norman Spinrad described himself as an anarchist and a “syndicalist” in a 1999 interview with Locus. His work challenges and provokes, whether it’s The Iron Dream starring Hitler as a speculative writer or the more recent Osama the Gun. He’s just as outspoken when answering questions, as this interview proves.

Q: The Iron Dream, an alternate history novel about a writer named Adolf Hitler, was banned for eight years in Germany. What drew you to that story and why did you describe the writing of it as “unpleasant”?

NS: Try reading everything Hitler ever wrote for the purpose of being able to channel him and write in his turgid style and see how you like it! I didn’t really know what I was into until I was into it. By the time I finished the novel, I hated it. Only over a few years of awards, world-wide publication, good to rave reviews, did I realize it was the process of writing The Iron Dream that I hated, not the novel itself.

What drew me to write it was that the economic and political reasons for the rise of Nazi Germany never convinced me. Hitler was a media genius, and Nazism a psychosexual phenomenon. … Like a certain species of “heroic fantasy.” Hitler was a big fan of Wagnerian Opera at a time when “Space Opera” had a big fandom too. “Homer Whipple’s” afterward sort of tells the tale, and was the only part of the novel I really enjoyed writing.
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Tags: cat rambo, Norman Spinrad
Posted in SFWA Blog | 1 Comment »

Guest Post: When You Have a Chance to Meet an Editor, Say Hello!

Sunday, September 4th, 2011

by Jason Sanford

One of the highlights of last weekend’s Context convention – aside from hanging with great people like John Scalzi, Maurice Broaddus, John Hornor Jacobs, and Jason Sizemore – was having the opportunity for a detailed discussion with David Hartwell. In case you don’t know, Hartwell is a top editor with Tor Books and has decades of experience in the science fiction field. He has worked with a number of big name authors, including Philip K. Dick and Gene Wolfe (and was intimately involved in editing Wolfe’s influential series The Book of the New Sun, which is one of the best literary works of the entire 20th century).

Hartwell and I sat beside each other at a “Meet the Authors” event and talked a good bit. One thing which stuck with me–and which Hartwell said I was free to share with others–was his shock at how few new writers had approached him at this convention. Considering that Context is geared toward writers, Hartwell expected a number of new authors to either pitch their novels or, if they didn’t have a book ready, to at least introduce themselves. Instead, I was evidently one of the few writers he didn’t personally know who engaged him in conversation.
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Tags: David Hartwell, Jason Sanford, Jason Sizemore, John Hornor Jacobs, John Scalzi, Maurice Broaddus
Posted in Advice for New Writers, Building a Career, Information Center, Networking and Self-Promotion, SFWA Blog, The Business of Writing | 1 Comment »