COCOA BEACH, Fla. – Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America, Inc., has announced the Nebula Awards® winners for 2009.
The Nebula Awards® are voted on, and presented by, active members of SFWA. The awards were announced at the Nebula Awards® Banquet held at the Hilton Cocoa Beach Oceanfront the evening of May 15.
2008 Nebula Award Winners
Novel
The Windup Girl - Paolo Bacigalupi (Night Shade Books, Sept. 2009)
Novella
The Women of Nell Gwynne's - Kage Baker (Subterranean Press, June 2009)
Novelette
"Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast," Eugie Foster (Interzone, Feb. 2009)
Short Story
"Spar," Kij Johnson (Clarkesworld, Oct. 2009)
Ray Bradbury Award
District 9, Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell (Tri-Star, Aug. 2009)
Andre Norton Award
The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, Catherynne M. Valente (Catherynne M. Valente, June 2009)
Additional Honors
During the ceremonies, Joe Haldeman was honored as the next Damon Knight Grand Master, while Neal Barrett, Jr., was honored as Author Emeritus. Vonda N. McIntyre and Keith Stokes were honored with SFWA Service Awards while the SFWA Solstice Award, bestowed upon individuals who have made a significant impact on the science fiction or fantasy landscape, was presented to Tom Doherty, Terri Windling and the late Donald A. Wollheim.
About SFWA
Founded in 1965 by the late Damon Knight, Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America brings together the most successful and daring writers of speculative fiction throughout the world.
Since its inception, SFWA® has grown in numbers and influence until it is now widely recognized as one of the most effective non-profit writers' organizations in existence, boasting a membership of approximately 1,500 science fiction and fantasy writers as well as artists, editors and allied professionals. Each year the organization presents the prestigious Nebula Awards® for the year’s best literary and dramatic works of speculative fiction.
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Oil Spill
Recently I had lunch with my writer friend Bridget and we got onto the topic of BP’s broken oil well bleeding into the ocean. I mentioned that of the major oil companies, BP is the one that insiders say has a history of putting profits ahead of safety. I heard that from somebody who retired from Exxon-Mobil management.
Bridget retorted, “Say Exxon, and people think Valdez!” She went on to say, “Every time the subject of government regulation comes up, the big oil companies say they can regulate themselves and it works better if it’s voluntary. Well, then, they ought to volunteer right out into the Gulf of Mexico and not just leave it to BP. They have thousands of smart engineers and billions of dollars. Let every one of those oil companies get out there and help do something about that oil spill. That’s the only way they’ll come out of this with any credibility left.”
She’s got a point. This one looks so bad. And so unnecessary. The newspaper’s had plenty of reporting about blowout preventers having failed before, just not catastrophically. This one is public knowledge to an incredible degree, too. My boss’ two-year-old grandson in Seattle asked his mom if he was too young to go help clean the birds and beaches!
Bridget retorted, “Say Exxon, and people think Valdez!” She went on to say, “Every time the subject of government regulation comes up, the big oil companies say they can regulate themselves and it works better if it’s voluntary. Well, then, they ought to volunteer right out into the Gulf of Mexico and not just leave it to BP. They have thousands of smart engineers and billions of dollars. Let every one of those oil companies get out there and help do something about that oil spill. That’s the only way they’ll come out of this with any credibility left.”
She’s got a point. This one looks so bad. And so unnecessary. The newspaper’s had plenty of reporting about blowout preventers having failed before, just not catastrophically. This one is public knowledge to an incredible degree, too. My boss’ two-year-old grandson in Seattle asked his mom if he was too young to go help clean the birds and beaches!
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
WINDSOR EXECUTIVE SOLUTIONS
As the media erupts in celebration of the terrorist next door meme, telephotos the latest love trusts of the photogenic Wales boys, and hides M.I.A.'s revolutionary new video, the fine fellows at Futurismic have just posted a new story I was fortunate enough to co-author with Bruce Sterling. Bruce and I hatched the idea while hanging out in Mexico City last for the Mundos Paralelos symposium at the Festival de Mexico: I was admiring the combat ready bodyguard's son in the gossipy pages of Hola! magazine, Bruce was pondering Terry Schiavo and her Italian analog as the world's first posthumans; add street corner machine guns and large quantities of Tequila, and the result is Blackwater Prince Harry. An excerpt:
JANE’S ADDICTIONS
From our analysts to friends and followers of Jane’s Information Nexus
Happy Birthday Your Undead Highness
by (name withheld)
21 April 2026
Popular celebrations break the general darkness for the 100th birthday of the world’s first posthuman monarch. Queen Elizabeth II is not alive, nor is she dead. Suspended under glass in icy limbo, she awaits the inevitable. Heretics who question the Queen’s ‘divine right to persist’ swing from the surveillance lamps over the burning cars.
Five long years since our Queen fell and could not rise. Elizabeth has joined the ranks of prominent women deemed too important to die. Britain has never come to proper terms with life-extension.
Our elite zombies have become the obverse of our working-class suicide cults. The flesh of young women explodes among us daily while centenarians dream on ice.
The last functional segment of Government is the propaganda wing of the Royal Household — now run mostly by Americans.
Meanwhile, hooligans raid immigrant neighborhoods after the pubs close, armed with assault rifles smuggled from Texas. Bobbies are genteel by day, death squads by night. Young upper class paramilitaries gather at posh wine-bars on ‘Sloane Ranger’ hunts for anarchists, crusties, and ‘ugly people.’
The only viable tactical path is ‘direct action’ — to exorcise the royal ghost from her Westminster crypt. Yes, that means ‘assassination’ — in some strictly technical sense.
We forecast a techno-regicide. At Janes, it is our unpleasant business to assess the military odds of success.
The Archbishop of Canterbury and the Emir of Dubai make unlikely allies. But since someone’s hand must pull the royal plug, why not some helpful, understanding pagan? They can pay, and they can pardon.
The radical wing of Plaid Cymru killed the Prince of Wales when Charles was eighty. The Welsh separatists also bombed the Imperial College, where the Queen was once stored. But after the terrible vengeance of ‘Windsor Executive Solutions’ — which made Cardiff a crater and called that ‘peace’ — Plaid Cymru is urban legend.
Our NATO alliance with the United States offers us airstrikes on demand. Brussels offers us mussels and Tintin cartoons. The United Nations is beyond any use to anyone. And Prince William, after his doomed attempt to live like a human being, suffered a complete mental breakdown.
So Windsor Executive Solutions are — we must conclude — the final solution.
The Black Prince will strike, because his people demand it. His global guerrilla army is the only entity capable of mounting a coup. ‘Blackwater Prince Harry’ must annihilate his frozen grandmother and resuscitate the failed state.
Jane’s paying subscribers will recall that Harry — the mercenary veteran of endless global microwars — redefined his efforts within Britain as ‘domestic security consultancy.’ His commandos savaged entire city blocks through video surveillance and airborne robot assaults.
Harry’s press spokesman is ‘Lord Falstaff’: an exiled American — fat, boozy, bizarrely charismatic, carousing across the ruins of the Middle East. Falstaff’s drawling provocations crackle over pirate feeds at every cornershop. Each time the Prince’s acolytes shoot an elected official, Falstaff immortalizes it.
The cowed Establishment emits a deafening silence.
‘Public opinion,’ the artifact of a vanished public order, has ceased to exist. There are no reporters, and there are no chattering classes. Falstaff hunts and kills the lonely bloggers hunched over their laptops.
Blinded by the light of fiber optics, we descended into darkness. By the time we realized the depth of the abyss, we were too low and weak to escape.
Harry’s drunken bandits are modern cult heroes, worship-figures. The pogroms of the Blackwater Prince go unquestioned by anyone. In today’s Internetherworld, ‘fact,’ reality,’ and the ‘official story,’ have vanished in a cabinet of monstrosities. Beset on all sides by collapse, bereft of the mass consent once engineered by mass media, we breathe legends, rumors, folk-tales, pop-songs, and terror.
We at Janes therefore conclude that Windsor Executive Solutions, inevitably mutating from multinational corporation, to Praetorian Guard, to a hungry mob, must devour the frozen flesh of Queen Elizabeth.
Check it out.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
The new Apple iPad
SF Signal's Mind Meld has posted a fascinating discussion about the new iPad: does it sizzle or fizzle? I come down on the side of sizzle., but other people offer various takes and visual aids. Lou Anders' remarks are surprising.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Discovery Green
Two years ago today was opening day for Houston's new Convention-Center park, Discovery Green. Many people thought it would never get much use from ordinary folks, not in torrid, gas-guzzling Houston and certainly not downtown, which for many years was a barren bricolage of skyscrapers and parking lots. Wrong. Attendance at the park is way over projections. Conventioneers just love having it there. And it sometimes serves as the backdrop for really cool stuff.
Several weeks ago I was one of the guests at Comicpalooza, held in the George R. Brown Convention Center. As it turned out the SFF track was sketchy. I spent some time across the street where Discovery Green had a race course blocked off on the streets along its perimeter. The occasion was the Shell Eco-Marathon. College and high school team from the U.S., Canada and and elsewhere had designed vehicles to maximize gas mileage. They were little vehicles, in most cases sized around the smallest driver the team could come up with, but they maximized gas mileage in a big way.
So I wandered over from the comic book convention to one of the cordoned-off streets. Before long here came this thing like a scurrying white beetle.
There were more where that one came from.
They honked at each other as they went for the inside of the turns. By race rules they had to go at least fifteen miles an hour. Some of them were speedier than that.
In the dappled shade at the edge of Discovery Green, the pit area was full of intent teams with their vehicles.
I watched the guy with the green flag launching the vehicles for a new lap of the marathon. Off and away they went.
This sleek entry from Laval University in Quebec ultimately won the Grand Prize in the Prototype category with 2,487.5 mpg.(!)
Purdue took home a prize in the solar-power-assisted category with mileage in the high 4000's miles per gallon. Onlookers joked about it being a stealth eco-car.
Honors in the fuel cell category went to the Clean Green Machine from Cicero-North Cyracuse High School. It's the green one pictured above in the pit area.
Another winner of the race was the world, with a new generation of bright engineers figuring out how to optimize our fossil fuel resources. That's quite a nice kind of discovery to happen on the perimeter of a green urban park.
Several weeks ago I was one of the guests at Comicpalooza, held in the George R. Brown Convention Center. As it turned out the SFF track was sketchy. I spent some time across the street where Discovery Green had a race course blocked off on the streets along its perimeter. The occasion was the Shell Eco-Marathon. College and high school team from the U.S., Canada and and elsewhere had designed vehicles to maximize gas mileage. They were little vehicles, in most cases sized around the smallest driver the team could come up with, but they maximized gas mileage in a big way.
So I wandered over from the comic book convention to one of the cordoned-off streets. Before long here came this thing like a scurrying white beetle.
There were more where that one came from.
They honked at each other as they went for the inside of the turns. By race rules they had to go at least fifteen miles an hour. Some of them were speedier than that.
In the dappled shade at the edge of Discovery Green, the pit area was full of intent teams with their vehicles.
I watched the guy with the green flag launching the vehicles for a new lap of the marathon. Off and away they went.
This sleek entry from Laval University in Quebec ultimately won the Grand Prize in the Prototype category with 2,487.5 mpg.(!)
Purdue took home a prize in the solar-power-assisted category with mileage in the high 4000's miles per gallon. Onlookers joked about it being a stealth eco-car.
Honors in the fuel cell category went to the Clean Green Machine from Cicero-North Cyracuse High School. It's the green one pictured above in the pit area.
Another winner of the race was the world, with a new generation of bright engineers figuring out how to optimize our fossil fuel resources. That's quite a nice kind of discovery to happen on the perimeter of a green urban park.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
The English Woman Warrior
I mentioned this on Twitter months ago, and the response got me doing some research on the topic, but the initial attempts turned up nothing, and then real life got me doing other things, and now I’m out of time, so I’ll simply post what I’ve got now and trust that others who are interested in the topic will turn up more than I did.
The following is taken, for the most part, from Dianne Dugaw’s Warrior Women and Popular Balladry, 1650-1850 (Cambridge University Press, 1989).
The warrior woman was a popular character type in 17th and 18th century ballads and theater, to the point that in the 18th century real-life warrior women, like Hannah Snell, were used on-stage as performers.
(The short Hannah Snell: 1723-1792, enlisted--disguised as a man, of course--in the British Army in 1747 in pursuit of the husband who abandoned her. Enlisted in the Royal Marines later that year, took part in the expedition to capture the French colony of Pondicherry in India in 1748 and fought in the battle of Devicotta in 1749, where she was wounded eleven times in the legs and once in the groin. By her own account, she managed to treat her groin wound without revealing that she was a woman. In 1750, back in Britain, she informed her shipmates that she was a woman. She was honourably discharged and–no small thing, in 1750–was granted a pension. See The Hannah Snell Homepage for more).
The publishers of broadsides churned out numerous “disguise ballads,” songs about the adventures of women disguised as men. Sample titles: The Bristol Bridegroom; The Female Sea-Captain; The Frolicsome Maid Who Went to Gibralter [sic]; Jack Monroe; The Sailor’s Happy Marriage; The Female Drummer; The Female Tar; and The Female Champion.
The English warrior woman goes back before the 17th century, of course. The English preoccupation with the warrior woman is a feature of the Elizabethan era, with the obsession reaching its height in the 1620s, both with King James’ inveighing against women wearing men’s attire and with the wonderfully-titled pamphlet Hic Mulier; or, The Man-Woman: Being a Medicine to cure the Coltish Disease of the Staggers in the Masculine-Feminines of our Times, Expressed in a brief Declamation: Non omnes possumus omnes.
But it was the 18th century which saw the most real English warrior women. The Amazons of Fielding’s Tom Jones turn out not to be so far-fetched as might be thought.
There were, of course, female boxers throughout the century. Dugaw quotes at length the challenges of two female boxers from a June 1722 match at Hockley in the Hole:
More intriguing is Dugaw’s brief description of female duellists. Dugaw draws from James Peller Malcolm’s Anecdotes of the manners and customs of London during the eighteenth century (1808-1810); perhaps one of you, perhaps with access to the Bodleian or the British Library, could go further?
(Dugaw pithily summarizes Malcolm: “Already in 1808 when he writes, the previous century appears to him barbarous and remote.”)
Dugaw, quoting Malcolm:
Stokes and his “much admired consort” won, and Malcolm later quotes from an advertisement “issued by the proprietors of the Amphitheatre:”
Dugaw concludes:
I don’t have access to the resources needed to go beyond Dugaw and Malcolm, nor do I have the time or energy to do so. But maybe one of you might? Too, the preceding is something to keep in mind when writing historical novels or historical fantasy. Months ago, on Tor.com (I think), someone (not Jo Walton, as I mistakenly first claimed) wrote a carefully-reasoned article on why there couldn’t have been any real medieval women warriors, based on women’s strength limitations. While this may have been true in the medieval era, a century or two later, when agility guided a sword more than strength, it was emphatically not true. Writers, feel free to put a swordswoman in your next Elizabethan or Jacobean historical fantasy.
Edit: It wasn't Jo Walton, it was this Judith Berman post on Black Gate. My apologies to Ms. Walton for my mistake.
The following is taken, for the most part, from Dianne Dugaw’s Warrior Women and Popular Balladry, 1650-1850 (Cambridge University Press, 1989).
The warrior woman was a popular character type in 17th and 18th century ballads and theater, to the point that in the 18th century real-life warrior women, like Hannah Snell, were used on-stage as performers.
(The short Hannah Snell: 1723-1792, enlisted--disguised as a man, of course--in the British Army in 1747 in pursuit of the husband who abandoned her. Enlisted in the Royal Marines later that year, took part in the expedition to capture the French colony of Pondicherry in India in 1748 and fought in the battle of Devicotta in 1749, where she was wounded eleven times in the legs and once in the groin. By her own account, she managed to treat her groin wound without revealing that she was a woman. In 1750, back in Britain, she informed her shipmates that she was a woman. She was honourably discharged and–no small thing, in 1750–was granted a pension. See The Hannah Snell Homepage for more).
The publishers of broadsides churned out numerous “disguise ballads,” songs about the adventures of women disguised as men. Sample titles: The Bristol Bridegroom; The Female Sea-Captain; The Frolicsome Maid Who Went to Gibralter [sic]; Jack Monroe; The Sailor’s Happy Marriage; The Female Drummer; The Female Tar; and The Female Champion.
The English warrior woman goes back before the 17th century, of course. The English preoccupation with the warrior woman is a feature of the Elizabethan era, with the obsession reaching its height in the 1620s, both with King James’ inveighing against women wearing men’s attire and with the wonderfully-titled pamphlet Hic Mulier; or, The Man-Woman: Being a Medicine to cure the Coltish Disease of the Staggers in the Masculine-Feminines of our Times, Expressed in a brief Declamation: Non omnes possumus omnes.
But it was the 18th century which saw the most real English warrior women. The Amazons of Fielding’s Tom Jones turn out not to be so far-fetched as might be thought.
There were, of course, female boxers throughout the century. Dugaw quotes at length the challenges of two female boxers from a June 1722 match at Hockley in the Hole:
I Elizabeth Wilkinson, of Clerkenwell, having had some words with Hannah Hyfield, and requiring satisfaction, do invite her to meet me on the Stage, and box with me for three guineas, each woman holding half a crown in each hand, and the first woman that drops her money to lose the battle.
I Hannah Hyfield, of Newgatemarket, hearing of the resoluteness of Elizabeth Wilkinson, will not fail, _____ willing, to give her more blows than words, desiring home blows, and from her no favour.
I Hannah Hyfield, of Newgatemarket, hearing of the resoluteness of Elizabeth Wilkinson, will not fail, _____ willing, to give her more blows than words, desiring home blows, and from her no favour.
More intriguing is Dugaw’s brief description of female duellists. Dugaw draws from James Peller Malcolm’s Anecdotes of the manners and customs of London during the eighteenth century (1808-1810); perhaps one of you, perhaps with access to the Bodleian or the British Library, could go further?
(Dugaw pithily summarizes Malcolm: “Already in 1808 when he writes, the previous century appears to him barbarous and remote.”)
Dugaw, quoting Malcolm:
August 1725 produced a conflict for the entertainment of the visitors of Mr. Figg’s amphitheatre, Oxford-road, which is characteristic of savage ferocity indeed. Sutton the champion of Kent and a couragious [sic] female heroine of that County fought Stokes and his much admired consort of London: 40l. was to be given to the male or female who gave the most cuts with the sword, and 20l. for the most blows at quarter-staff, besides the collection in the box.
Stokes and his “much admired consort” won, and Malcolm later quotes from an advertisement “issued by the proprietors of the Amphitheatre:”
In Islington-road, on Monday, being the 17th of July, 1727, will be performed a trial of skill by the following combatants. We Robert Barker and Mary Welsh, from Ireland, having often contaminated our swords in the abdominous corporations of such antagonists as have had the insolence to dispute our skill, do find ourselves once more necessitated to challenge, defy, and invite Mr. Stokes and his bold Amazonian virago to meet us on the stage, where we hope to give a satisfaction to the honourable Lord of our nation who has laid a wager of twenty guineas on our head. They that give the most cuts to have the whole money, and the benefit of the house; and if swords, daggers, quarter-staff, fury, rage, and resolution will prevail, our friends shall not meet with disappointment.
– We James and Elizabeth Stokes, of the City of London, having already gained an universal approbation by our agility of body, dextrous hands, and courageious [sic] hearts, need not perambulate on this occasion, but rather choose to exercise the sword to their sorrow, and corroborate the general opinion of the town than to follow the custom of our repartee antagonists. This will be the last time of Mrs. Stokes’ performing on the Stage.
Dugaw concludes:
Of particular significance in these notices are the apparent frequency of such battles and the casual acceptance of women combatants. Neither the report of the bout nor the advertisement for it makes any distinction between male and female duellists, nor does either treat the presence of the women as particularly noteworthy. Applying no special rules to the women, the proprietors extend the rewards without qualifications to “the male or female who gave most cuts.” Like the ballad heroine, these women were not expected to duel any differently from men, and their participation in “masculine” sport seems not to have been considered a violation of their “natural” female inclinations.
I don’t have access to the resources needed to go beyond Dugaw and Malcolm, nor do I have the time or energy to do so. But maybe one of you might? Too, the preceding is something to keep in mind when writing historical novels or historical fantasy. Months ago, on Tor.com (I think), someone (not Jo Walton, as I mistakenly first claimed) wrote a carefully-reasoned article on why there couldn’t have been any real medieval women warriors, based on women’s strength limitations. While this may have been true in the medieval era, a century or two later, when agility guided a sword more than strength, it was emphatically not true. Writers, feel free to put a swordswoman in your next Elizabethan or Jacobean historical fantasy.
Edit: It wasn't Jo Walton, it was this Judith Berman post on Black Gate. My apologies to Ms. Walton for my mistake.
Friday, April 9, 2010
SFWA announces 2010 Solstice Award honorees
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.
“I’m thrilled that my father has been chosen by the President and Board of SFWA to receive the Solstice Award,” said Betsy Wollheim. “Although my dad was primarily an editor, he thought of himself first and foremost as a writer. It is especially meaningful that he is now being honored by his fellow authors. Thank you all so much!”
Created in 2008, the SFWA Solstice Award may be given at the discretion of the president with the majority approval of the SFWA Board of Directors. No more than three awards may be given in a fiscal year. The Solstice Award may be given to any person, living or deceased, with the exception of an individual who has already received either a Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award or named Author Emeritus, who has had a significant impact on the science fiction or fantasy landscape, and is particularly intended for those who have consistently made a major, positive difference within the speculative fiction field. Previous winners include Algis Budrys, Martin H. Greenberg and Kate Wilhelm.
The Solstice Award is not reserved to members of SFWA, nor just to writers, but is intended as a broad spectrum award to recognize a wide variety of individuals.
The 2010 Nebula Awards® Weekend will be held in Cocoa Beach, Fla., May 14-16. The date was chosen to coincide with the scheduled launching of the Shuttle Atlantis on Friday, May 14. The Nebula Awards will be presented at a banquet on Saturday evening, May 15. Vonda N. McIntyre and Keith Stokes will be honored with the SFWA Service Award, and Joe Haldeman will be honored as the next Damon Knight Grand Master. For more information, visit www.nebulaawards.com.
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.
“I’m thrilled that my father has been chosen by the President and Board of SFWA to receive the Solstice Award,” said Betsy Wollheim. “Although my dad was primarily an editor, he thought of himself first and foremost as a writer. It is especially meaningful that he is now being honored by his fellow authors. Thank you all so much!”
Created in 2008, the SFWA Solstice Award may be given at the discretion of the president with the majority approval of the SFWA Board of Directors. No more than three awards may be given in a fiscal year. The Solstice Award may be given to any person, living or deceased, with the exception of an individual who has already received either a Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award or named Author Emeritus, who has had a significant impact on the science fiction or fantasy landscape, and is particularly intended for those who have consistently made a major, positive difference within the speculative fiction field. Previous winners include Algis Budrys, Martin H. Greenberg and Kate Wilhelm.
The Solstice Award is not reserved to members of SFWA, nor just to writers, but is intended as a broad spectrum award to recognize a wide variety of individuals.
The 2010 Nebula Awards® Weekend will be held in Cocoa Beach, Fla., May 14-16. The date was chosen to coincide with the scheduled launching of the Shuttle Atlantis on Friday, May 14. The Nebula Awards will be presented at a banquet on Saturday evening, May 15. Vonda N. McIntyre and Keith Stokes will be honored with the SFWA Service Award, and Joe Haldeman will be honored as the next Damon Knight Grand Master. For more information, visit www.nebulaawards.com.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)