The Industry

Stuff I discover and report with fascination as a new author journeying through the industry.

Sharing — and contemplating — a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming

/ 6 Comments / Squeeage, The Industry, Thinkythoughts / By

I get a lot of really nice fanmail, and I try to respond to all of it (though I can be slow). But I got one last night that really made me feel warm and fuzzy all over. Mentioned it on my FB earlier today, but the reader let me know it was OK to post her note, so I’m putting it here. True Story: So I ordered a half dozen white cotton handkerchiefs (men’s) from Amazon and when they finally arrived (took forever) they were in a box with two copies of The Fifth Season by a writer I’d […]

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An open letter to the WSFS about unintended consequences

/ 18 Comments / Awards, Controversies, The Industry / By

ETA: I missed that there’s been a new development since I started writing this; the folks putting forward the proposal are dropping the novelette clause. Still not liking the “saga” portion of the proposal either, for the reasons I’ve said here and which Scalzi said in his post, but at least the proposal isn’t actively harmful anymore. Whoa. Did you guys think this through? No, seriously. Beyond whether “The Wheel of Time” could get a Hugo, or whether you, personally, like short fiction or not. Did you consider how proposal B.1.3 looks, both within and outside SFFdom? What message it

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Pretty much the only comment I’ll make here on the current SFWA shenanigans

/ 32 Comments / Controversies, Natter, The Industry, WTF World? / By

Because dozens more people* are talking about and archiving it already. Nothing but admiration for folks who have the patience and blood pressure left to spend on this, but I can’t headdesk anymore. I need my head, and my desk, to write. Doing this pre-coffee, BTW, and hepped up on cold medicine, so brace yourself. But here’s the thing: I am all about the First Amendment**. Most writers are. And if this current brave blow in defense of artistic expression had been actually about artistic expression, I might’ve been in their corner. If they’d gone to bat like this, poured

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Contemplation, at the end of a season

/ 17 Comments / Awards, The Industry, Thinkythoughts / By

It’s the end of awards season in SFFdom. The Killing Moon was published in May of 2012, and I meant to address this in May of 2013, after it had been on the market for a year — but when the book got nominated for a Nebula, a Locus, and the World Fantasy Award, I decided to wait and see if it won any of them. Alas, it did not. (The Shadowed Sun won a Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice, tho’!) That said, the old aphorism that it’s an honor just to be nominated is very much truth for me, and

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The Ten Percent

/ 12 Comments / Controversies, The Industry, Thinkythoughts, WTF World? / By

Note: Since I had 10 weeks to think about SFWA’s potential decision re Mr. Beale, I wrote two reaction posts. The one I posted last week is, thankfully, the “if he’s expelled” version, and I followed it up by renewing my SFWA membership. Below is what I would’ve posted if he had not been expelled, and I would’ve preceded it with a membership cancellation. As you can see, both posts use some of the same elements and arguments, though I think there’s an emotional difference that makes posting this one worthwhile. I also think it’s worthwhile to continue the larger

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Time to pick a side.

/ 2 Comments / Controversies, The Industry, WTF World? / By

I’ve written two different posts about this issue. Circumstances decided that this one got posted first; good. I might post the other. Depends on how I feel over the next few days. So, I’ve had a few weeks to think about the fallout from my Guest of Honor speech at Continuum. I’ve also had a few weeks in which to observe the SFWA controversy that was brewing before my speech, in response to the Malzberg & Resnick articles in the Bulletin. Lots of other things have happened during that time, on both the micro and macro scale: yet another incidence

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The end of an era

/ 2 Comments / Natter, Shorts, The Industry / By

Jed Hartman’s retiring from editorship at Strange Horizons. Jed talks about this himself, so go over and read his blog post, and say goodbye. It’s not a sad affair; it’s just time to move on for him, which I totally get. But I think it’s important to point out just how revolutionary SH has been — and no, I’m not heaping praise upon it because Jed & the gang have published two of my short stories, which gave me 2/3rds of the sales I needed to reach SFWA pro status. I’m heaping praise upon it because the folks who started

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Not 100,000 Kingdoms, but quite a few

/ 17 Comments / On Writing, The Industry / By

Just got another foreign rights offer! This one’s not signed yet, and I try not to talk about them until they are, but altogether The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms is now available or will soon be available in a remarkable number of countries and languages. This is not an exhaustive list (because I’m doing it from memory; always a risky venture), but thus far the book has sold to: Most English-speaking countries (Not sure about India; I’m a little fuzzy on whether everyone in the Commonwealth can buy from UK sellers. Frex Australia can — sometimes — and Canada can’t. It

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If Tolkien Were…

/ 37 Comments / Interview, The Industry, Thinkythoughts / By

Didn’t mention this here ’til now because I wanted to think about it a bit, though those of you who follow me on Twitter or Facebook probably saw it already. But anyway, last week I had an interview with columnist/critic Laura Miller from Salon, who talked with me and David Anthony Durham on the recent incursions of people of color into epic fantasy — which as she noted is a traditionally very Eurocentric sort of bastion. The interview was a lot of fun and the resulting article is phenomenal; she made me sound much more coherent than I actually am

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I’m a-doin’ the Write-A-Thon

/ 2 Comments / Causes, Pimping, The Industry / By

I’ve never been to a Clarion. Or any six-week workshop. Never worked in the kind of career field that would permit it, and never had a fortuitous conjunction of money and unemployment in between careers. Still, I like the idea of the whole thing — creativity boot camp, total immersion in ideas and discipline with the isolation necessary to foster the imagination to its fullest. It’s something I get in smaller increments with my writing group, particularly when we go off on our annual retreat — but how cool is it to go on a massive, six-week-long retreat with guest

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