Sean Williams

Here's my schedule for the rest of the year:

• SwanCon 36/Natcon 50 (April 21-25) 
• LA Times Festival of Books (April 30-May 1)
• Auckland Writers & Readers Festival (May 11-15)
• Sydney Writers' Festival (May 16-21)
• Aurealis Awards (May 21)
• Hay Festival of Literature and the Arts (May 26-June 5)
• World Fantasy Convention (October 27-30)

If you want to catch me at any of these events, check the sites for program details. I'm the Australian GOH of Swancon, an invited guest of LA, Auckland, Sydney and Hay, a possible presenter of an AA, and just hanging out at this stage at WFC. There will also be the odd signing and tour date outside those festivals, which I’ll try to update here.

Sadly, I won’t be at this year’s Writers of the Future bash because it clashes with both Sydney and Auckland. Congrats to all the winners--particularly, and rather parochially, the Australians (I’m told we have a couple this year). My apologies for not being able to be there to celebrate with you.

I'll also miss the Nebulas (clashes with Sydney), which is a shame as I was keen to attend at least one SFWA committee meeting while ORD. Can't be everywhere at once, I guess, but I still feel a little guilty about it.

If you're in Adelaide and want to catch up . . . July is looking good!

Well the news is out. (I guess it has been for a while, but the email only went out this week, and I've been busy.) SFWA has a new president, a new committee, and, after a year in which this position was left unfilled, an Overseas Regional Director.
 
I'm enormously honoured to have been accepted in the latter role--and a bit nervous too, I must confess. It's a big world out there, and apparently I'm in charge of it!

Congrats to John, Mary, Robert, Amy, and Lee. Thanks to the people who voted for me. The cheques are in the mail.

It's been a tough year for the SFWA. On top of everything, it's now short of recommendations for the Nebula Awards--which may have gone a little bit wobbly on their wheels in recent years but are still among the field's most respected awards.

If you're a member, you would've received the call to vote via email this morning. If you're a member like me, you probably haven't read nearly enough to consider yourself able to vote, and that makes you feel vaguely guilty. Well, I'm considering shucking off that guilt and voting anyway. If enough of us do the same, all our misinformed opinions will mash together to form some kind of uber-gestalt, and the correct result will pop out of its black box like magic.

Below is a list of the works I've enjoyed this year (not counting the works already on the existing list (here)). I'm not 100% sure any more how the rules of the Nebulas work, but I'm going to vote anyway. You can vote for them as well (here), if you're short on inspiration, or you can suggest titles I might not have thought of. Note that I'm not trying to kick-start a bloc-vote. I'm just trying to get things moving. Only one member in five is recommending works for the ballot at the moment. The field has long been too big for any one person to keep in touch with, so we need put our faith in our collective unconscious and vote regardless. This is democracy in action.

Ragamuffin by Tobias S Buckell (novel)
Plague Year by Jeff Carlson (novel)
Darkspace by Marianne de Pierres (novel)
"WikiWorld" by Paul di Filippo (novelette)
Bright of the Sky by Kay Kenyon (novel)
Mainspring by Jay Lake (novel)
Magic's Child by Justine Larbalestier (Andre Norton)
The Darkness Within by Jason Nahrung (novel)
Lady Friday by Garth Nix (Andre Norton)
Set the Seas on Fire by Chris Roberson (novel)
The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss (novel)
"Kiosk" by Bruce Sterling (novella)
Extras by Scott Westerfeld (Andre Norton)
"Julian: A Christmas Story" by Robert Charles Wilson (novella)
Battlestar Galatica: "Razor" (script)
Doctor Who: "Blink" (script)

I really wish I'd had time to read or watch more. There are bound to have been excellent and worthy works out there that I just haven't seen. Still, better a list than none at all. (And while I'm in the mood to plug, I would be remiss not to mention that my own Saturn Returns and Cenotaxis are eligible too, for the novel and novella categories respectively. Just a reminder, which you should feel free to ignore at will. :-)

As of this moment, there are insufficient recommendations to make a full ballot. So get cracking! Spread the word if you're not a member yourself. The deadline is the end of this year. That doesn't give us long to keep this fine tradition alive. What, after all, are we going to argue and bitch about if the Nebulas die?