Belated Winners and Nebulas

I got so distracted last week with the Nebulas and the Website email problems and the fact that my mom was visiting, I totally forgot to announce the giveaway winners. They are:

1. Bárbara
2. Samantha

I’ll be emailing you presently.

Okay! So. Nebula Awards Weekend. This was my first SFWA event, but it will certainly not be my last. In a word: amazing. I haven’t entirely processed the experience yet, but my mind has been buzzing like one of the hives in the Nebula-nominated short story, “The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees” (highly recommend reading it if you haven’t yet, as well as the other nominees and winners, listed here) ever since. I think, when all is said and done, this will go right up there with my first RWA conference and the Castle retreat when it comes to formative experiences in my writing career.

Highlights included:

• Learning that my short story, “The Care and Feeding of Your Baby Killer Unicorn” was being taught to University of Alabama students by Professor Andy Duncan.
• Meeting R.J. Anderson (Nebula award-nominated author of Ultraviolet) and Ellen Kushner (the author of the amazing Privilege of the Sword, and you know, lots of other stuff) in real life
• Working on story problems with Franny Billingsley, the author of Chime.
• Singing folk songs with Ellen, RJ, Franny, E. Lily Yu (of the aforementioned awesome wasp story) and Neil Gaiman.
• Attending a panel with a bunch of NASA scientists about new developments in space exploration.
• Attending a panel with a bunch of alternate history writers and experts on research (I’ve only done historical fantasy/secret history so far, no “alternate history” — but hey, the research is very similar, and at least now I know how it should properly be defined!)
• Talking industry with Myke Cole
• Watching Delia Sherman win an Andre Norton Award for her amazing book, The Freedom Maze.
• Coming away with a gazillion book and story recommendations (most from Andy Duncan and Ellen Kushner). I have a lot of reading to do!
• And too many more to mention.

I didn’t take pictures, but Lily did, so here’s a picture of our impromptu folk group:

(L to R: RJ Anderson, Ellen Kushner, E. Lily Yu, me, and Franny Billingsley)

And now I have a week and a half to fix my book and get ready for my New York trip. So I might not be blogging a lot.