Vote vote vote--and rec rec rec rec

[ellen_datlow]

Ok. Here's my impassioned plea/push/nag for anyone who reads this blog and is eligible to recommend stories and or novels for the various peer group science fiction, fantasy, and horror awards.
I know that some people feel that awards themselves are a bad thing and that they should all be abolished. I'm not talking to you. I don't believe that and I know I'm not going to change your minds.

Awards are NOT going to go away but they could become less visible (which I think is a bad thing). As an editor I really appreciate it when the stories/books I edit make final award ballots and win awards. And I think most writers are even more appreciative of this. It gives a sense of validation for what you're doing by your peers (for the Nebula and Stoker).

Right now is "award rec season" and there are discussions on both the SFWA Bulletin Board and the HWA Bulletin Board about how their respective awards are dying --not enough members are recommending works to even make a preliminary ballot.

Now some people think that this might be because no one likes the work being published.
Others that no one is reading enough short fiction to be interested in recommending works in those categories.
I have a really difficult time believing the first reason. I've been reading sf/f/h short fiction for twenty five years and have found no drop off in quality in any of those fields.

I can't answer for the second but I hope it's not true because if so my profession will die and I love editing short fiction.

If you care at ALL for the genre short story then I urge you to recommend the stories that you think are worth bringing to the attention of your peers.

This is totally off the cuff and I know if I thought about it more I'd have more to write--but I'd also probably just delete the whole post...

Comments welcome!

Comments

[bluetyson.livejournal.com]

What stories exist is partly a mystery, too, to most people?

I can go and look at LibraryThing or an online bookshop and find a novel, or book even - if it is an anthology/collection, the chance that the stories in it are listed is often slim.

Dozois' essay says the list he works on is in a notebook, handwritten!

Having a central story list of some sort would be of interest, certainly. Whether it is possible to do, not sure. Locus website and isfdb etc. will get a lot of them eventually, but that is zero use to those interested in the new and current now. That is bibliography and archival work, not sales and marketing.

Whether a 'current sfstories.com' website/wiki would ever happen with editors submitting their stuff, I dunno, or if they even want people to be looking at other work from other publications?

For instance, if someone would like to read a lot of the Horror stories from one year, how do they do it? No list exists outside the offices of some professional places? Same for Fantasy/SF. If you were a fantasy fan you might know some stories in Asimov's are fantasy - but which ones? Good luck finding out.

If Weird Tales or DarkHorrorWebzine3 had a couple of SF stories in a month, I would never know unless they got picked out into a collection.

Given all the competing interests, I am sure it is probably not likely to happen, but just having that list of stories would be helpful for readers, I think.

There are websites that do some sort of compilation of places writers can submit stories to, but that is not at all the same thing, locus has a list of places too, and both may or may not be up to date.

No money in doing the work to provide this info for people, perhaps, either. :(

However, the editors that get to hear about it all and are making spreadsheets are the most central people for the info that I can see.

However, none of that is focused or filtered enough to help people find what they are looking for.

JBU has some of the right idea - fantasy stories/science fiction stories at least labelled. New stories or serials? They forget about it there. Your big Year's Best splits it up - Strahan's didn't, that sort of thing, too.

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

By checking the magazines I mention in my summary of the year, the reader can get a feel for what's in which magazine (I mention those magazines that are mixed-genre every year and mention darker stories I found in each one).

I'm not a big fan of labelling as a lot of the stories I read can be classified as both dark fantasy/horror. For example, one person's sf is another's horror story.

[bluetyson.livejournal.com]

Sure, but some idea/guide is better than none. Horror people will claim some stories as horror, sf as sf, etc, which is fine.

[bluetyson.livejournal.com]

Oh, and a year or so later, or whenever someone gets the book doesn't help with the 'read stuff and be current to nominate/talk about' angle, at all, which is more the point I think?

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

If you look at any past volume you can see the magazines I think are worth reading. I feel a little uncomfortable raving about stuff in the year I'm reading it...I'll consider it though.

[bluetyson.livejournal.com]

Not really worried about that as such, as that is what you are selling later, but a list of 'this is what I have seen' e.g. 47 magazines with titles, 28 anthologies, these 14 collections, one video game with a story included, as opposed to 'these are my 4 star or higher stories'.

All possible blog fodder, anyway, I suppose.

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah...if I get bored one evening (you think I'm kidding? It would be better than spending two hours browsing --and not bidding-- on ebay).