Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America

Archive for October, 2011

2011 World Fantasy Awards Announced

Sunday, October 30th, 2011

The World Fantasy Awards are presented annually to individuals who have demonstrated excellence in the fantasy field.

A panel of judges and members of the World Fantasy Convention select nominees. Winners are selected by a panel of judges that differs every year. This year’s judges were Andrew Hook, Sacha Mamczak, Mark Rich, Sean Wallace, and Kim Wilkins.

Life Achievement
Winner: Peter S. Beagle
Winner: Angélica Gorodischer

Novel
Winner: Nnedi Okorafor, Who Fears Death (DAW)
Lauren Beukes, Zoo City (Jacana (South Africa)/Angry Robot)
N K Jemisin, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, (Orbit)
Graham Joyce, The Silent Land (Gollancz/Doubleday)
Guy Gavriel Kay, Under Heaven (Viking Canada/Roc/Harper Voyager UK)
Karen Lord, Redemption In Indigo (Small Beer Press)

Novella
Winner: Elizabeth Hand, “The Maiden Flight of McCauley’s Bellerophon” (Stories: All-New Tales)
Elizabeth Bear, Bone and Jewel Creatures (Subterranean Press)
Michael Byers, The Broken Man (PS Publishing)
Tim Lebbon, “The Thief of Broken Toys” (ChiZine Publications)
GRR Martin, “The Mystery Knight” (Warriors)
Rachel Swirsky, “The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers beneath the Queen’s Window” (Subterranean, Summer 2010)

Short Story
Winner: Joyce Carol Oates, “Fossil—Figures” (Stories: All-New Tales)
Christopher Fowler, “Beautiful Men” (Visitants: Stories of Fallen Angels and Heavenly Hosts, edited by Stephen Jones, Ulysses Press)
Karen Joy Fowler, “Booth’s Ghost” (What I Didn’t See and Other Stories, Small Beer Press)
Kij Johnson, “Ponies” (Tor.com)
Mercurio D. Rivera, “Tu Sufrimiento Shall Protect Us” (Black Static #18, 08/09.10)

Anthology
Winner: Kate Bernheimer, ed., My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me (Penguin)
John Joseph Adams, ed., The Way of the Wizard (Prime)
Ellen Datlow and Nick Mamatas, eds., Haunted Legends (Tor)
Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio, eds., Stories: All-New Tales (Morrow/Headline Review)
S. T. Joshi, ed., Black Wings: New Tales of Lovecraftian Horror (PS Publishing)
Jonathan Strahan and Lou Anders, eds., Swords & Dark Magic (Eos)

Collection
Winner: Karen Joy Fowler, What I Didn’t See and Other Stories (Small Beer Press)
Caitlin R. Kiernan, The Ammonite Violin & Others (Subterranean Press)
M. Rickert, Holiday (Golden Gryphon)
Angela Slatter, Sourdough and Other Stories (Tartarus Press)
Jeff VanderMeer, The Third Bear (Tachyon)

Artist
Winner: Kinuko Y. Craft
Vincent Chong
Richard A. Kirk
John Picacio
Shaun Tan

Special Award—Professional
Winner: Marc Gascoigne, for Angry Robot
John Joseph Adams, for editing and anthologies
Lou Anders, for editing at Pyr
Stéphane Marsan and Alain Névant, for Bragelonne
Brett Alexander Savory and Sandra Kasturi, for ChiZine

Special Award—Non-professional
Winner: Alisa Krasnostein, for Twelfth Planet Press
Stephen Jones, Michael Marshall Smith and Amanda Foubister, for Brighton Shock!: The Souvenir Book Of The World Horror Convention 2010
Matthew Kressel, for Sybil’s Garage and Senses Five Press
Charles Tan, for Bibliophile Stalker
Lavie Tidhar, for The World SF blog

Congratulations to all the winners and nominees.

Tags: World Fantasy
Posted in News, SFWA Blog | 3 Comments »

Quick Updates for 2011-10-30

Sunday, October 30th, 2011

• Further clarification – SFWA business meeting Saturday morning at 8:00 AM is in the Meeting House building – Sunrise room. #WFC2011 #
• #SFWA meeting now in Meeting House in sunset room. Light breakfast. #WFC2011 #
• SFWA member @nancykress's original novella of BEGGARS IN SPAIN, winner Hugo & Nebula, available as ebook, Nook & Kindle, from Arc Manor. #

Tags: twitter
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Guest Post: Science Fiction and
the Scientifically Inclined Hero

Saturday, October 29th, 2011

by Mike Brotherton

When I was about six or so, I realized that what separated humans from other animals was our intelligence rather than our physical capabilities.  Sure, there are other differences, such as the degree of tool use, or the social aspects of our species and how we employ culture and altruism to lead to ever increasing success, but ultimately we’re smart critters.  We figure out how to do really complicated things both as individuals and as groups working together. Silly me, I logically decided to focus on intellectual achievement.

Little did I know that being tall leads to advantages in society, or that athletic scholarships are much bigger than academic scholarships.  In some meta context, it really does seem crazy to reward freaks of physical achievement when there are animals faster, stronger, and much more physically capable than humans. A guy I knew once put it this way: you can measure someone’s athleticism by how many seconds they last before a tiger kills them.
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Tags: Mike Brotherton
Posted in SFWA Blog | 1 Comment »

Quick Updates for 2011-10-29

Saturday, October 29th, 2011

• In answer to @mkhobson's question. World Fantasy requires our meetings to be outside of programming hours. #SFWA #

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Guest Blog Post: Copyright Is People

Friday, October 28th, 2011

by Michael Capobianco

Recently, a consortium of university libraries called HathiTrust decided to make more than one hundred digitized books available as e-books to the universities’ communities because the books were “orphans,” works for whom the rightsholders could not be located after a diligent search.

Shortly thereafter, the Authors Guild filed a lawsuit against HathiTrust, and began to blog about how easy it was to find the authors of those books or their heirs, ridiculing HathiTrust’s process for designating orphan works (two of which, it was ultimately discovered, were actually still in print). After some defensive maneuvers, HathiTrust admitted that their process was faulty and announced they would re-think it, but intended to continue with their plan to release works they deemed to be “orphans.” Librarians across the Internet came out in support of HathiTrust, and reviled the Guild.

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Tags: Writer Beware
Posted in SFWA Blog, Writer Beware | 3 Comments »

Quick Updates for 2011-10-28

Friday, October 28th, 2011

• @KenanBrack Excellent goals. #

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Quick Updates for 2011-10-27

Thursday, October 27th, 2011

• @Polenth email nac@sfwa.org #

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A Small Press Implodes: The Inside Story of Aspen Mountain Press

Wednesday, October 26th, 2011

Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware

A month ago, I blogged about the troubles at Aspen Mountain Press, whose authors report nonpayment of royalties, contract breaches, delayed publication schedules, and other problems; and whose senior staff resigned en masse in early August.

Usually, when this kind of turmoil engulfs a publisher, authors and staff members are reluctant to say too much, and the details don't become widely known. But recently, in a searing blog post, AMP's former head editor Celina Summers broke her silence, and went public with the whole sordid story of AMP's demise.
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Tags: Writer Beware
Posted in SFWA Blog, Writer Beware | 2 Comments »

Guest Post: A Writer’s Crash Guide to
Recent Social Media Changes–Google+

Monday, October 24th, 2011

by Amy Sundberg

A couple of days ago I covered Facebook’s new direction, including both the potential large upside for writers and the accompanying privacy concerns. But what about Google+? Where does it fit into this picture? (Disclaimer: my husband works on Google+, so I’m not an uninterested party here. Apparently I also need to tell you explicitly that these are my opinions and not his. So yes, all mine. Especially the brilliant parts.)

Google+ has only been public for a month, and has only been live at all for the past three months. So we’re still in the very early days, which means there is still a lot of room for conjecture. First, let’s talk about a few differences between Facebook and Google+ (although with all of FB’s recent changes, there are less of them than there were). I was happy to have independent verification that Google+ is not doing the creepy cookie thing that makes me so concerned about Facebook and its privacy. There’s also less chance of accidentally posting information you don’t want posted, which is always nice. With its recent integration of Hangouts (group video chat) with new tools, especially Google Docs and screen views, Google+ lends itself well to collaboration in creative, business, and educational fields (and even recreational). The Google+ stream is not filtered the way Facebook is; you see all the posts being shared with you, although not in straight reverse chronological order as sometimes new comments will make an old post jump back higher in your stream. Google+ has garnered a reputation for hosting more in-depth discussions and conversations and for being a great platform for meeting new people.
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Tags: Amy Sundberg, Google+
Posted in Advice for New Writers, Information Center, Networking and Self-Promotion, SFWA Blog, The Business of Writing, Tips for Beginners | 2 Comments »

Guest Post: A Writer’s Crash Guide to
Recent Social Media Changes—Facebook

Saturday, October 22nd, 2011

by Amy Sundberg

There have been a lot of shifts in social media in the last few months. Google+ has entered the field and become known for its Hangouts (which can now even be broadcasted), its conversations, and its potential for collaboration. Facebook launches the rest of its redesign on or around September 30, including Timeline (the scrapbooking and record-keeping replacement of the profile and wall) and deep integration with applications, most notably media applications (music, movies, TV, news and articles, etc.).

First, a few more details about Facebook’s newest features. Its application integration will make it easy to automatically share information on the internet, from what article you’re reading to what recipe you’re cooking to what song you’re listening to. Once you give a certain app–whether that be Spotify, the Washington Post, or Hulu–permission to share your activities (you only need to give this permission one time ever per app), it will stream all your behavior directly to Facebook without you having to make additional clicks for each item you’re sharing. The idea is that this will make it easier for people to serendipitously discover media based on what their friends are doing, and there are already discussions about how this could be revolutionary for the music industry in particular (not to mention a possible savior of the faltering print news organizations). All of these application updates will be shown in the scrolling ticker box on the righthand side of your screen, as well as being recorded on your Timeline. (I’ve also already seen some of them creeping into the News Feed.) And speaking of the Timeline, you (and your friends) will be able to see anything and everything you’ve ever put up on Facebook. (more…)

Tags: Amy Sundberg, facebook, social media
Posted in Advice for New Writers, Building a Career, Information Center, Networking and Self-Promotion, SFWA Blog, The Business of Writing | Comments Off

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