A quick note here, as I just got back from attending the Nebulas in Pittsburgh. Put on by SFWA (Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America), it’s a little like the Oscars for genre fiction. I had a marvelous time, and came home with far too many books.
The conference was a great time to network and meet other writers, as well as my first opportunity to meet the folks who work for my publisher (Colin, Jae and Kaelin of Parvus Press). I also met one of Parvus’ other authors (Rekka Jay, whose steampunk/space opera Flotsam was released two months ago). This was the first time I’ve ever attended a conference of this sort, and SFWA goes out of their way to make the conference friendly, and a welcoming space for newcomers, in all stages of their career. One of the facets I particularly enjoyed was the conference’s mentor program - pairing new conference attendees with others who have volunteered to give pointers about making the best of the conference. I was paired with the lovely Shanna Swendson, and we spent a nice half an hour on the first day of the conference chatting. Between her, and the folks from Parvus (most of which I only knew via email), it was good to have some folks I already knew.
After the awards, I watched some of the Alternate Universe speeches, which is an amazing thing I hope more awards programs will take up. Basically, it gives all of the nominees a chance to get up and deliver their speech. Some of them were amazing (like a ukulele ballad), and I really liked the fact that the Nebulas was making space to give voice to and celebrate all the nominees’ work, not just the winners. Just another instance of how welcoming and supportive I found the conference to be.
As the alternate universe speeches would down, I ended up standing next to an acquaintance of an acquaintance, listening to a Notable Statesperson of Fantasy talk to a small group of rapt writers.
“You’re here for him, aren’t you?” said one of the gathered folks - a woman I knew only vaguely as someone acquainted with my publisher - and quickly pulled me in to the circle. I listened for about half an hour as the Notable Statesperson talked about the publishing business, and handed out some advice for early-career writers, before he was called away to have his picture taken with a Muppet. (Several were in attendance, as puppeteer Martin P. Robinson was the Emcee.) The next day, Notable Statesperson gave me a signed copy of one of their books at an autographing event, which cemented my need to have a checked bag sent back that was pretty much entirely full of books I’d been gifted or bought at the conference. Particular favorites - ARCs of Naomi Novik’s Spinning Silver, and V. E Schwab's City of Ghosts, a signed copy of Peter S. Beagle’s The Overneath, and Fluency by Jennifer Foehner Wells, which Rekka recommended and I’m excited to read. Oh, and Rebel Mechanics by Shanna Swindson, my lovely conference mentor.
I also liked that the conference actively solicited volunteers, even among the ranks of new attendees. I signed up to help with the last Office Hours session - mostly involving helping people who had signed up for a session locate their person, and a few instances of gently reminding people that someone else was waiting to start their slot. The office hours themselves are a great idea - a sort of curated form of networking and after-hours chatting, wherein willing attendees make themselves available in 15-minute blocks to talk with anyone who wants to sign up for a slot. The topics ranged from hypnosis to social media marketing, and many conference goers seemed to be taking advantage of the opportunity to chat.
Of course, one of the highlights for me was meeting Connie Willis, who has been a favorite author of mine since I stumbled on to her book To Say Nothing of the Dog as a teenager. (This also gave me the entirely erroneous starting assumption that the worst that was ever going to happen in a Connie Willis novel was someone attempting to murder a cat…) It was an incredible honor to meet her, both because I admire her work (I stayed up until 2 AM to finish Passage before leaving to go back to work on a boat… Anyone who has ever read Passage will realize this was a terrible life choice…) and also because her work, especially the Oxford time traveling novels, have left their fingerprints on more than one of my own works.
