EXCITING THINGS HAVE HAPPENED!
I was at Boskone all weekend, which was crazy and wonderful by turns. It’s been about eight months since I’ve been to a con and it was amazing to not be burned out on cons while at one. I really needed the rest, and I was so happy to see my friends.
AND THEN I GOT NOMINATED FOR A NEBULA OMFG.
I heard the news right before Boskone and couldn’t tell anyone while I was there! Even at the Clarkesworld reading where I read form Silently and Very Fast! Which is what was nominated! In the novella category! EEEEEEEE!
Seriously, this is insane. I wrote Silently for WSFA because I was the GOH at Capclave. Normal people give them short story reprints or a trunk novel. But I got it into my head that I should write an original AI story because then I could commit SF without anyone being all PLZ STAPLE YOUR DEGREE IN COMPUTER SCIENCE TO ALL SUBMISSIONS. From scratch, digging up an idea I’d been nesting on since I first moved to Ohio a million years ago but didn’t know enough about AI to write, a long, long story that was not long enough to be a novel but too long to be a short story. And then of course the deadline came as I was so exhausted from touring I was nearly catatonic.
It is what you call an unlikely contender. This is, in fact, my first Nebula nomination. The Andre Norton Award is Not a Nebula, as stated by large and bolded print in the rules. If I manage to get nominated for a Stoker some year, I’ll have the royal flush of nominations (Hugo, Nebula, WFA, and Stoker). No wins, but I’ve been nominated. I’ve been invited to the game. It’s a big deal to me, personally, and especially because SAVF is my first major work of SF as opposed to fantasy. It’s a work that I’d been planning for five years, learning and researching so I could get smart enough to write it. It means maybe there’s room for me in the science fiction club, after all.
Speaking of, my other big news is that a lovely gentleman waited in my signing line (I had a signing line! It was long! Wow!) so that he could ask me in person to be the Principal Speaker/GOH at Philcon 2012 this fall. Philcon is the oldest SF convention in the country, and I am floored to be asked. So I will see you all in Jersey just north of Thanksgiving, right?
It has been a long weekend of silent, repressed squeeing. Now I squee from the rooftops.
Yawp, too.
It is for times like this I made this icon.
Mirrored from cmv.com. Also appearing on @LJ and @DW. Read anywhere, comment anywhere.
2012-02-21 06:46 pm (UTC)
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2012-02-21 07:02 pm (UTC)
(Aaand I've been reading The Hunger Games too much, nearly typed "Catniss" instead of "Cat". Catniss is totally one of those character names I wish I'd thought of.)
2012-02-21 07:05 pm (UTC)
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2012-02-21 07:12 pm (UTC)
[Edit] She's named after a plant called katniss. What I love is that the plant's genus is Sagittaria, and Katniss the character is known for her abilities with archery.
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2012-02-21 08:51 pm (UTC)
I was so sorry to miss Boskone this year
2012-02-21 09:40 pm (UTC)
2012-02-21 10:08 pm (UTC)
That's not the only reason I like it, mind you.
P.
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2012-02-21 10:17 pm (UTC)
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2012-02-21 10:58 pm (UTC)
I have always enjoyed Philcon, and it will be excellent to see you as a guest there.
2012-02-22 12:03 am (UTC)
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2012-02-22 08:32 am (UTC)
*giggle*
I have a computer science degree, and I'll take a story by an actual writer (as long as the writer knows that programs don't come on magnetic tape anymore and that a computer that's turned off can't be "hacked" even by the most skilled hackmeister in the land of Hackdom) over a story by a computer geek who's showing off.
Congratulations on your nomination.
2012-02-22 12:32 pm (UTC)
I am about halfway through Silently and Very Fast. I love it.
2012-02-22 12:56 pm (UTC)
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