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Posts Tagged ‘SFWA’

Resigning from the SFWA Board of Directors

1 Comment » Written on April 10th, 2019 by
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Effective as of 10am today, April 10th, 2019, I am resigning my position as a member of the SFWA Board of Directors.

We live in a world where appearance often carries more weight than intention. Recent controversies, and my perceived involvement in them, have increasingly made it difficult for me to effectively perform the responsibilities for which I’d been elected. Accordingly, it makes sense for me to step aside and allow someone else to continue the work.

Today’s decision notwithstanding, I remain committed to the ideals and goals of SFWA, perhaps best expressed by the statement the Board composed at last year’s Nebula Conference: “We are genre writers fostering a diverse professional community committed to inclusion, empowerment, and outreach.”

It has been my privilege to be of service to this organization and our community. I encourage you all to pay it forward.

Lawrence M. Schoen, Ph.D.

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Congratulations Nebula Nominees!

No Comments » Written on February 20th, 2019 by
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Nebula Conference

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America has released the list of finalists for this year’s Nebula Awards. It’s an especially powerful ballot, bearing a stellar list of incredible work and talented authors.

Congratulations to all of the nominees! I hope you’ll all be able to attend this year’s conference in southern California. All evidence suggests that the Events Team has outdone themselves and we are in for the very best conference yet.

I’ll confess, part of my delight at this year’s list of finalists stems from seeing my own name listed as a nominee for Best Novelette for “The Rule of Three.” I am exceedingly proud of this piece. I believe it’s the best thing I’ve ever written at less than novel length, and it shows the maturation of my abilities as an author over the years.

This is my sixth Nebula nomination in seven years, and my first for novelette. The competition is particular fierce, and as always, win or lose, it really is an honor to find my work listed among such incredible writers.

But I didn’t get there by myself, and I wanted to take a moment to acknowledge and express my gratitude to the people who’s efforts contributed to my nomination.

Zangaogao Terraces

I wrote “The Rule of Three” in response to a visit to Guizhou, China. I was part of the first Danzhai workshop sponsored by the Future Affairs Administration and the Wanda Group. My experiences there will live forever in my memory, as will the incredible conversations I had with Derek Künsken, Kelly Robson, Alyx Dellamonica, Lucia Liu, Bo Jiang, Lucia Liu, Bao Shu, and especially Vera Sun, and FAA co-founder Ji Shaoting, all of which contributed to the shaping of the novelette.

Alex Shvartsman, longtime friend, convention roommate, and editor of Future Science Fiction Digest bought the story and featured it as the premiere piece in the first issue of the online magazine. His backing and belief in the novelette, basically launching the magazine with it, means more to me than I can properly express, and his continuous championing of it has been wonderful. He’s also responsible for catching a glitch in which my software (not me, I tell you, it was the software) deleted one scene and duplicated another in the manuscript. Good catch, Alex!

Elektra Hammond was my copyeditor on this novelette and she’s great. Really, it’s that simple. She’s come to know my voice from her work on other projects of mine (most notably both books in my Barsk series) and I believe that makes a huge difference. Thank you, Elektra.

Wulf Moon produced the podcast version of the novelette, doubtless providing greater saturation and allowing the work to reach more people than the print version could. He asked all the right questions and his results were excellent. Thanks, Wulf.

And finally, 脱团猫 (aka Isaac), has been handling the translation of “The Rule of Three” into Chinese. Like Alex, he also caught the twin problems of a duplicated and missing scene (and thankfully, I had the fix in hand about a day before he did so I could send it to him). His comments have been insightful and helped shaped the final manuscript before Alex published it, and will surely yield a great translation when the novelette is released in China later this year.

So, yes, my name appears on the novelette and the nomination list, but it wasn’t just me. If anyone reading this ever has the opportunity to work with any of the people I’ve listed and thanked here, know that you are in good hands and you’ve involved yourself with people of incredible talent and skill.

And again, congratulations and good luck to all the nominees!

Lawrence

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A Wonderful Phone Call

3 comments Written on February 25th, 2014 by
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Trial of the Century

Last week while I was toiling away at the DayJob, I received a phone call with some really nice news about this year’s Nebula Awards, specifically that my novella, “Trial of the Century,” which appeared in the World Jumping anthology from Hadley Rille Books, had found its way onto the ballot.

Sitting on this news for the past week (as requested by the Events folks at SFWA) has been maddening. All they told me was that I’d made the list. Now, seeing the other names and stories, I’m even more blown away and humbled (a word that I try to avoid using) at the company I’m keeping.

Thank you to everyone who read my novella. Time is every writer’s most precious commodity, and knowing some of my fellow SFWA members have burned some of theirs in reading my work is very gratifying. Even more thrilling is that some of those folk liked it enough to nominate it. This in turn increases the likelihood that other SFWA members will give it a read (now that it’s on the ballot), and that makes me really chuffed indeed. Who among us doesn’t want to be read, and more, read by our peers?

Congratulations to all the nominees, and especially to Andy Duncan & Ellen Klages, Vylar Kaftan, Nancy Kress, Veronica Schanoes, and Catherynne M. Valente. I look forward to seeing you all in San Jose in May.

If you haven’t yet read “Trial of the Century,” here are some links to help you fix that tragic oversight:

epub
mobi
pdf

 

For those of you who like award trivia, let me hook you up:

This is my second year in row being nominated for the Nebula for Best Novella. Both novellas are from the same series, my Amazing Conroy universe. And both novellas were published by a small press, Hadley Rille Books.

Finally, for those of you who are not members of SFWA but who do have nominating rights for this year’s Hugo Awards (which opened just the other day), feel free to download your own complimentary copy of “Trial of the Century.” Despite landing on the Nebula ballot, last year’s novella didn’t make the Hugo ballot. Let’s try and correct that this year, okay?

 

creative commons licencse

This novella is released under a Creative Commons, Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives license.
Follow the link if you’re not sure what that means.

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For your Nebula Awards Weekend Edification

No Comments » Written on April 24th, 2012 by
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Nebula Awards Weekend

The forty-seventh Nebula Awards Weekend is coming up in just a few weeks. In addition to the awards banquet and the massive author signing there will be various field trips and lectures.

I have the great pleasure and privilege of offering one of the lectures, drawing on my experience as a professor of cognitive psychology and my research in human memory. On Saturday, May 19th, from 4:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m., I’ll be giving a talk entitled How to Remember Anything.

I’ll review some of the different types of memory, the four underlying principles that modulate most memory, and then discuss a few different mnemonic techniques and systems.

The typical limit of most people’s “short term memory” is seven items (plus or minus two). In the last few minutes of the presentation, I’ll load up everyone there with a list of twenty items — courtesy of an incredibly easy to use mnemonic system — that they’ll be able to hold on to for days and days.

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SFWA Voting

No Comments » Written on March 30th, 2012 by
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Over on his blog (which certainly doesn’t need any links from me), SFWA President John Scalzi has posted a reminder that the deadline for Active and Lifetime Members to cast their online Nebula ballots is tonight, March 30, 2012, 11:59pm PDT.

Yeah, I know, many people will have glanced at that deadline a month or more ago and mentally miscoded it as “last day of March,” which of course it’s not. And boy howdy, if you were one of them, won’t you be annoyed if you try and vote tomorrow!

And, as long as you’re remembering to cast your online Nebula ballots at the proverbial last minute, let me remind you that you still have a couple weeks in which to mail in your ballot for this year’s SFWA Election.

That’s right, we’re still functioning under the old articles of incorporation, which prohibit online elections. Maybe next year we will cease our wandering in the desert and arrive at the promised land (or at least electronic balloting), but for now I have to go out to my mailbox every day and check for arriving ballots (for those that don’t know, I’m once again the SFWA Election Officer, which means you send your votes to me!).

So, don’t just settle for casting your Nebula ballot today, send in your election ballot as well. And don’t worry about me and my paper cuts, it’s a price I gladly play for our sacred system of democracy. Yeah, you betcha!

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2011 Nebula Award nominees

No Comments » Written on February 22nd, 2012 by
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While I was away in California doing familial things, the nominees for the 2011 Nebula Awards (which will be presented in May of 2012) were announced. You’ve probably seen them elsewhere, but I’m happy to post them here all the same:

Novel
Among Others, Jo Walton (Tor)
Embassytown, China Miéville (Macmillan UK; Del Rey; Subterranean Press)
Firebird, Jack McDevitt (Ace Books)
God’s War, Kameron Hurley (Night Shade Books)
Mechanique: A Tale of the Circus Tresaulti, Genevieve Valentine (Prime Books)
The Kingdom of Gods, N.K. Jemisin (Orbit US; Orbit UK)

Novella
“Kiss Me Twice,” Mary Robinette Kowal (Asimov’s Science Fiction, June 2011)
“Silently and Very Fast,” Catherynne M. Valente (WFSA Press; Clarkesworld Magazine, October 2011)
“The Ice Owl,” Carolyn Ives Gilman (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, November/December 2011)
“The Man Who Bridged the Mist,” Kij Johnson (Asimov’s Science Fiction, October/November 2011)
“The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary,” Ken Liu (Panverse Three, Panverse Publishing)
“With Unclean Hands,” Adam-Troy Castro (Analog Science Fiction and Fact, November 2011)

Novelette
“Fields of Gold,” Rachel Swirsky (Eclipse 4, Night Shade Books)
“Ray of Light,” Brad R. Torgersen (Analog Science Fiction and Fact, December 2011)
“Sauerkraut Station,” Ferrett Steinmetz (Giganotosaurus, November 2011)
“Six Months, Three Days,” Charlie Jane Anders (Tor.com, June 2011)
“The Migratory Pattern of Dancers,” Katherine Sparrow (Giganotosaurus, July 2011)
“The Old Equations,” Jake Kerr (Lightspeed Magazine, July 2011)
“What We Found,” Geoff Ryman (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, September/October 2011)

Short Story
“Her Husband’s Hands,” Adam-Troy Castro (Lightspeed Magazine, October 2011)
“Mama, We are Zhenya, Your Son,” Tom Crosshill (Lightspeed Magazine, April 2011)
“Movement,” Nancy Fulda (Asimov’s Science Fiction, March 2011)
“Shipbirth,” Aliette de Bodard (Asimov’s Science Fiction, February 2011)
“The Axiom of Choice,” David W. Goldman (New Haven Review, Winter 2011)
“The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees,” E. Lily Yu (Clarkesworld Magazine, April 2011)
“The Paper Menagerie,” Ken Liu (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, March/April 2011)

Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation
Attack the Block, Joe Cornish (writer/director) (Optimum Releasing; Screen Gems)
Captain America: The First Avenger, Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely (writers), Joe Johnston (director) (Paramount)
Doctor Who: “The Doctor’s Wife,” Neil Gaiman (writer), Richard Clark (director) (BBC Wales)
Hugo, John Logan (writer), Martin Scorsese (director) (Paramount)
Midnight in Paris, Woody Allen (writer/director) (Sony)
Source Code, Ben Ripley (writer), Duncan Jones (director) (Summit)
The Adjustment Bureau, George Nolfi (writer/director) (Universal)

Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy Book
Akata Witch, Nnedi Okorafor (Viking Juvenile)
Chime, Franny Billingsley (Dial Books; Bloomsbury)
Daughter of Smoke and Bone, Laini Taylor (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers; Hodder & Stoughton)
Everybody Sees the Ants, A.S. King (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)
The Boy at the End of the World, Greg van Eekhout (Bloomsbury Children’s Books)
The Freedom Maze, Delia Sherman (Big Mouth House)
The Girl of Fire and Thorns, Rae Carson (Greenwillow Books)
Ultraviolet, R.J. Anderson (Orchard Books; Carolrhoda Books)

I still have some reading ahead of me, but I’ve already consumed most of the titles listed here. It strikes me as a very strong list, and that’s always great to see.

Congratulations to all the nominees! I look forward to seeing you all at SFWA’s 47th Annual Nebula Awards Weekend in May!

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SFWA NY Reception 2011

No Comments » Written on October 2nd, 2011 by
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The good news is that Valerie is recovering nicely from her surgery, is more or less free from post-surgical pain, and has gotten over most of the annoying symptoms related to going off more than two weeks of high grade narcotics that kept the pain at bay. Yay, Valerie!

The bad news is that her stamina is still poor, and she’s simply not up to a 2+ hour car ride (each way), hanging around NYC for a couple hours before the reception, and then 3 or 4 hours of the reception itself. So, I’ll be there alone this year, which sucks, but better than not going at all.

And once again, I’m beset with the same issue that always hits me for this event: where in NJ should I park. In past years I’ve parked near various NJT stations and taken the train over. The last couple years I’ve parked at a lot in Hoboken and taken the Path over. I haven’t been particularly happy with the parking near the Path train, so I’m not sure what I’m doing this time out.

Anyone with brilliant ideas, feel free to chime in and let me know.

The current plan is for me to leave Philadelphia about 2pm (which is when I get off work). That should put me in Hoboken between 4:00 and 4:30, and so I could conceivably be in NYC by 5pm. Not a clue what I’ll do for two hours before things kick off at Planet Hollywood, so I’m open to suggestions there too.

In any case, if you’re going to be at the shindig, I hope you’ll stop by and say “howdy.”

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Small Joys & SFWA

No Comments » Written on March 31st, 2011 by
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As you know, Bob, for the last few years I’ve had the responsibility of being the SFWA Election Officer (or chair of the SFWA Election Committee, if you prefer that phrase). Mostly this involves preparing the forms which eventually get photocopied and shipped out (not by me) to the membership, and organizing the counting of the election ballots on the appointed day.

A lesser known perk (at least to me) is that all of the ballots get mailed to my home. At this time of year, every day brings a stack of new mail from SFWA members. It gives me a small bit of joy to flip through these envelopes (they remain unopened until the day of counting) and see the names on the return stickers or handwritten addresses in the upper left corners. Many many authors, big names and little, people I’ve read and people I haven’t, are all sending me mail.

What can I say, I find happiness in some odd things.

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