Whatever

But enough about me. Let me tell you about some cool stuff other people are doing.

* Joe Hill, aside from someone whose writing is a slice of awesome generously slathered with awesome sauce with a sprig of awesome as a garnish (and that’s a lot of awesome, friends), strongly believes that you should support your local indie book store. He believes it so much that he’s running a contest: Between now and the end of March, buy a book (or two, or seven) from your local indie book store, e-mail Joe a picture of the receipt, and he’ll enter you to win cool and valuable and rare stuff from him and other authors (including me, as it happens). So you’ll be a) getting books you want, b) supporting local indie bookstores, and c) having a chance to win stuff that will make all your friends jealous. There is no downside.

Here are the details. Good luck and happy reading.

* The Speculative Literature Foundation wants me to help them get the word out on their Older Writer’s Grant, so here’s the word:

The deadline for the Speculative Literature Foundation’s Older Writers’ Grant is fast approaching! The grant of $750 is available to any writer of speculative literature of 50 years or older at the time of application who is just beginning to work professionally in the field. There are no restrictions on the use of the grant money.

Applicants are asked to submit a brief autobiographical statement, a writing sample, and a bibliography. For full details on how to apply for the grant, please see the SLF web site: http://www.speculativeliterature.org/Grants/SLFOlderWriters.php, or email olderwriters@speclit.org. Applications must be received by March 31st 2009. The successful applicant will be announced on June 1st 2009.

This is a really great opportunity for newer older writers — and proof it’s never too late to start writing speculative fiction.

* As I haven’t done it in a while — and as I have to travel today to Millennicon and then be at Millennicon and thus will probably not be around here a lot for the rest of the day — this is an excellent time to hereby declare this an open pimp thread, in which you (yes, you! You, there!) share with the rest of the class something you think is worth promoting to others. It can be something you are doing, if you’re one of them there creativey types, or it can be something one of your creativey type friends is doing, or it can just be something you think is cool. Share! Share!

The usual reminder: One link per post is generally best; put too many links in and you might get sent to the moderation queue on an automatic basis. If this happens, relax: I’ll come through at some point and release the moderated posts.

Now: Promote!

To follow-up on some me-centered Hugo-related questions folks have asked via Twitter, Facebook, e-mail and here (and damn if my Internet presence isn’t diffuse these days):

1. Think you’ll win?

My answer to this at this moment was the same answer I had at the same time last year: Don’t know, don’t care.

Yeah, yeah, I know. But look: you don’t know how true “it’s an honor just to be nominated” is until it happens to you. It really is possible to be happy with a place on a ballot, especially when the ballot is as excellent as it is this year. Also, you know. I already have a Hugo. Pressure to win: not so much. Which is not to say I wouldn’t like to win this year; it’d be nice to take one home (winning two wouldn’t suck, either. Winning three might be greedy). But it is to say I’m not going to worry about it right now. Right now, I’m going to enjoy being in the club.

2. Is it some sort of record to be nominated three times in one year?

No. It’s unusual, but it happens. Locus has a list of people with three/four nominations in a single year, so you can see who’s pulled it off before. Note, incidentally, that by Locus’ own manner of accounting, the METAtropolis nomination does not accrue to me, since as the magazine’s web site states, regarding the Dramatic Presentation categories, “the Locus Index to SF Awards notes credits listed on Hugo ballots as comments, but does not compile them as nominees.” Which is fine; on the other hand the Hugo awards folks sent along the nomination to me as the editor to accept or decline, so I feel the actual Hugo folks trump Locus in deciding these things. That said, I happily, necessarily and quite properly share the Hugo love with Elizabeth Bear, Tobias Buckell, Jay Lake, Karl Schroeder and Steve Feldberg (the project’s producer at Audible.com). This was and is a group endeavor. If METAtropolis wins the Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form Hugo, you can expect that the Hugo in question will be shuttled, Stanley Cup-style, between us. Unlike the Stanley Cup, however, none of us is likely to use it to eat cereal. At least, I hope not.

3. Two years ago you were nominated for one Hugo, last year for two, this year for three. Four for next year, you greedy bastard?

Really, no. For one thing, the day you start expecting to be on the Hugo ballot, rather than hoping to be on it, is the day your ego is officially out of control and you must be stopped. Preferably with knives. I’m not there yet, thank God. For another, I have no novel coming out this year, save for the paperback release of Zoe in April, and the limited edition of The Last Colony. The only things officially on the schedule for this year are the print release of METAtropolis this July, a short story in the New Space Opera 2 anthology in June, and if I can finish it in the next couple of weeks, a fantasy novella which will be printed as a stand-alone book by Subterranean Press late this year. I may write up a couple of other short stories as well. But at the end of the day, I suspect the 2010 nominators will have other works on their minds, and I will be forgotten and alone, weeping silently in the corner as the genre passes me by, a dried-up husk, a has-been, if you will. Woe, oh, woe.

4. You won the Best Fan Writer category last year and this year you weren’t even nominated. How do you feel about that?

I feel really good about that, actually. Some of you may recall that when I won that Hugo, I stood up on the Denvention 3 stage, thanked everyone for the award and then asked them not to vote for me next year, and instead to spread the award around among the fan writers to let the award reflect the vitality of the field. They did the first part, since I didn’t get a nomination this year; whether they’ll do the second part and give the award to someone who’s not won this particular award before is something we’ll find out. With no aspersions toward the recent former winners of the award (who, after all, include me), let’s hope the voters this year see the quality that the other nominees bring to the field as well, and vote accordingly.

Thank you once again to everyone who has sent in congratulations and their good wishes about this year’s Hugos. It’s a good feeling to be nominated, and a great feeling to be nominated with such excellent company in Best Novel, Best Related Book, and Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form. One is known by the company one keeps, and I’m really happy to say that the company I’m in is some of the best I could have hoped for.