I have worked with my local awesomesauce indie book/comic store, Chapel Hill Comics, to provide signed copies of my books to anyone who wants to purchase online. So if you don’t see yourself hitting any of the cons I’m attending (and there are only two left this year), this is the best way to get a signed copy.
Here is the link to the page, and thanks for supporting one of my favorite stores ever!
tl;dr: Know what you’re paying for when it comes to your WorldCon membership. Scroll to the bullet points. Read the links at the bottom.
WorldCon is two and a half weeks away. I love this con as it contains some of the best networking opportunities I’ve ever experienced, the panels are great, it’s usually smaller and less crazy than other cons (*cough*Dragon*cough*), has the Hugo Award (and Campbell Award, Not A Hugo (TM)) ceremony, and since it moves around yearly, it lets me experience new cities in the world as long as I have the fundage. (more on the “world” thing in a bit.)
WorldCon is expensive. Currently, an attending membership is $240, but it’s cheaper if you buy early. Most cons I attend will comp someone’s badge if they’re going to be on panels, but WorldCon only comps its Guests of Honor. We all pay to go to WorldCon. But many of us do not know what that money gets us. For example, I attended the business meeting for the first time last year – only because friends encouraged me to come help get a YA Hugo on the ballot. After we failed, I talked to other con attendees about my disappointment, and nearly every person – all members of the WSFS – showed confusion about this mysterious meeting that they knew nothing about. A meeting that they had every right to be part of.
Who can blame them? If we hear “business meeting” we’re thinking it involves the Important People Involved With The Con Business. Like the volunteers and the con chair and the treasurer. Not us attendees who are desperately trying to kill a hangover so we can look good for the Hugo Awards, or trying to get up the nerve to meet Elizabeth Bear.
When I found out others were as blind as I had been to all of the benefits of WorldCon membership, I figured I’d write something about it. So, here are convenient bullet points:
What You Can Expect From The WorldCon Membership
For those asking “yes, but what can I do?” Well, if you’re attending LoneStarCon 3 this year, go to the WSFS Business Meeting (you can!) and vote it down (you can do that, too!). The dates and times of the business meeting will be available in the program when you get there. I believe the first is on Friday at 10am, but these things are fungible, so double check when you arrive. I am not personally arriving until late Friday, so if anyone who is going to that meeting wants to use this piece to bolster their argument if necessary, go right ahead. I also understand at the Friday meeting it can be punted out of further discussion, which would be nice.
(And yes, I understand that from a certain point of view I’m just trying to use the Internet to logroll you all into voting the way I want. I am the worst person ever.)
**** And quoting Seanan McGuire:
Please, if you are attending this year’s Worldcon in San Antonio, Texas, join me and others at the WSFS Business Meeting to help us vote these measures down. The first will be Friday morning at 10am.
We have the power to keep this from happening. It’s not the power of Grayskull, but I still think it’s pretty damn neat.
Let’s keep these awards for everybody.
Cons are fun. You can drink with and meet famous authors and editors, and play dress-up and see the SFF Oscars. But a WorldCon membership allows you, whether writer, fan, editor, volunteer, agent, or con planner, to help shape the current and future landscape of WorldCon and the Hugo awards, and, in a ripple effect, SFF as a whole.
Heavy stuff. Hope to see you in San Antonio! And I REALLY hope to see you at the business meeting. We’ll sit together. Put stuff on Twitter. Let’s make our voices heard.
Resources:
Hullo Mur.
Hullo, 40.
You’re looking awfully reserved, Mur. What’s up?
I just feel like it’s a Big Day. And I don’t have a lot planned. Should this be big? I mean, I’m not freaking out over 40, and I’m only comparing it to my pediatrician’s 40th birthday party a little bit.
…you lost me.
Oh, my mom was a nurse, and her boss was my doctor. So I got to be in the exam room with the doc, and then in the break room with the staff. And his 40th birthday party was boob-themed. Boob cake, boob mug, boob buzzer that his 4 year old son kept pushing the nipple to make it go bzzz. It was the 80’s, so it was OK. I felt slightly uncomfortable, but am pretty sure no one is getting me boobs for my birthday.
Boob buzzer?
Totally. Bright red nipple, white boob. BUZZZZZ!
We will move on from this.
Probably for the best.
So what’s going on with you? Most people, when they come to me, have pretty big issues. What’s going on, besides the, ah, boob buzzer?
Well, I’ve achieved things, my “pre-40” bucket list, so to speak. I got a book on the shelves, I became a mom, the marriage is still awesome, and I’ve been nominated for two awards.
Hang on. 39 just passed me a note. “Yes, and please vote for Mur for the Campbell Award, voting closes July 31.“
Seriously, Mur? You need to validate yourself with pleas for award votes? You don’t think your skill is enough to garner said awards?
I’m learning the balance of publishing and the value of making people aware that a) you’re there, and b) you are nominated. Beyond that, they can vote however they want. I just want them to give me a thought. Or two.
Fuck that. You want the award.
More than I want air, yes. But since I lost it last year, I know I can survive losing it. They apparently don’t take the losers and kill them and pack them in salt to preserve them. This is a relief. And as a good friend recently told me, “we don’t write for that.”
Awards. Not avoiding salt packing. Although I feel like we do that every day. If I saw some asshole coming up the street with a knife in one hand and a box of Morton’s in the other, I’d run like hell.
Also, I’m pretty sure after 40 seconds or so of depriving me of air, if you gave me the choice between Campbell award and air, I’d choose air.
Exaggeration for effect. I get it. So you’re not freaked by me, but you did have a list of things you wanted before you met me. To me, that says I do have some semblance of meaning for you.
Well sure. Humans definitely like the round numbers. Someone doing something for 37 years is impressive, but OMG 40. You get presents at 40 years of doing anything. People expect you to grow up. Be responsible. Stuff. So I’m trying to think of what the next 40 years will hold.
That will bring you up to 80. Dude, she is a SHE WOLF. You do NOT want to meet 80 until you’re ready.
I won’t be ready for another 40 years. But I can handle her when I get there.
So, what now? 39 tells me you’re slightly obsessive and take negative comments to heart too much. You want SO HARD and your defeats are devastating.
Yeah, but I bounce back. I keep going. Can I get props for that?
Mur, 40 year old people don’t say “props.”
FUCK YOU I WILL SAY PROPS IF I WANT. PROPS. PEEPS. STREET CRED.
You’re embarrassing me.
I am tired of embarrassing people. If you can’t figure out what I’m about at this point, then don’t even try. I figure by the time you reach 40, you’re set. You’re done with the maturing, and if changes are going to be made of your personality, it will fucking take the ghost of your dead BFF plus three of his homies to change you. Otherwise, take me as I am.
Ghosts, man.
This is me. I write. I have ambitions. I sometimes stumble and let envy or discouragement stand in my way, but not for long. I say silly things as a joke, and if it doesn’t land, I move on. I’m me, and that’s OK. Mess me up, and we have a problem, apologize and we’re cool. Do you really not want to be my buddy, 40? Cause if you don’t, well. I don’t even know.
I do. I like people who know who they are at this point. Some don’t. Some dude in Canada did a “hey y’all, watch this” move, and got international attention, but he begged for reporters to mention the fact that he ACHIEVED HIS GOAL. Doesn’t matter what the world thinks, as long as his buddies think he’s cool, he’s happy. This dude is 47.
47 came to me the other day in tears. Yo was saying that said dude’s mother had the luxury of hanging up on him and telling him he was an idiot (not in that order, I guess) but that yo would have to keep nurturing the dude for months. Yo can’t wait till he turns 48 and it’s not yo’s problem anymore.
I promise I will not drink 8 beers and swim to another country. I don’t drink that much beer, and besides, I don’t swim well. Also, fucking stupid thing to do. Also also, “yo?”
Gender neutral pronoun. We’re genderless years, so it’s appropriate. It’s catching on in Baltimore.
Oh. Cool. Didn’t you say 80 is a she-wolf, though?
Shut up. She-wolf is much cooler than “scary anthropomorphic year representing mortality and old people diapers.”
Fair enough.
So the moral of this story is?
You can’t trust the system?
No.
Um. Be confident in who I am?
Bingo.
—
PS- It’s also Matt Fn Wallace’s birthday. Go tell him something nice and birthdaylike. He’s a whippersnapper. You can tell him I said that.
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It’s a ninja book launch for The Shambling Guide to New York City, special guest, Myke Cole!
(My producer Patrick Hester is back! Thanks, Patrick!)
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Yeah, I interviewed matt like last year or something. He’ll be pissed at me. But I’m not afraid of him. He’ll forgive me on our birthday anyway.
Matt Wallace, everybody!
(My producer Patrick Hester is back! Thanks, Patrick!)
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OK, there’s no more. I just like things in threes.
You may have remembered in the past I had work in the Bundle of Holding, where you could get fiction written by RPG writers, and now I’m in the next one! If you’ve ever been interested in my Heaven series in ebook form, and haven’t picked it up, you can do it now, alongside a lot of other great books by authors such as Matt Forbeck and Gareth-Michael Skarka. Part of your payment will also go to charity, this time benefitting the EFF or PEN International.
Learn more at the Bundle of Holding!
I’ll just lay it out. I’m a coward. I’m an angry feminist and the latest bullshit with members of SFWA trying to silence people who stand up against sexism and racism makes me very angry. But I’m also a coward. I’m not good at arguing and I don’t thrive on debate. I feared the letters, the rape threats, the abuse. I have been apologizing to the women who came before me, and fought before me. I felt that I would have made a shitty suffragette, I’d be something closer to a suffrascooter. But I kept silent.
I’m finally done. I had an epiphany this morning and decided to finally talk about it. And I’m going to do it in the spirit of Jim Henson’s The Labyrinth. Also taking a bit of creative license, since the movie wasn’t about racism and sexism.
But it was about power.
SO! This is young Mur, learning about SFF, learning what the Hugo was. Wanting to be part of it, before I even knew what fandom was, what conventions were. I had the dream.
After all, science fiction and fantasy is the genre of inclusiveness, right? The genre of the ostracized nerds, and since we know what it’s like to be ostracized, we welcome anyone!
I was even feeling good about the state of the genre. In the past few years, more women and more people of color were making the ballots. People like Paul Cornell started to fight for gender parity on convention panels, giving up their seat to a woman in the same industry who was not invited.
But then, of course, the problems started with an unapologetic racist misogynist ran for president of SFWA. He lost in a landslide but still got 46 votes. I’m stunned that 46 (well, 45, I guess, since he probably voted for himself) people felt a giant step toward bigotry was the best way to go for the professional organization.
During this time, the SFWA Bulletin ran three questionable issues. One allowed two men to talk about “lady writers and editors,” reminiscing about which ones were hot. Then the cover of the Bulletin ran a chainmail bikini woman on the cover.* Then the two men responded to the criticisms of their first column by running another column about censoring feminist liberal nazis.
People have said it before, and better than I have, but
*(Yeah, I know chainmail bikini is a staple in fantasy – well, fantasy from the 1970s – and is still considered pretty sexist. The deal is, when/if a book comes out with that cover, I have the choice not to buy it, voting with my dollars. With the Bulletin, my dues are going toward this. I’ve already paid for it, like it or not.)
So as women started standing up for this, the attacks came (a lot of awesome men stood up too, and as I understand it, are not getting abused as much, but they are called things like “pinkshirts” and “gamma bunnies” which John Scalzi has embraced totally). Their opinions didn’t matter because they weren’t as well published as others. Or they shouldn’t come in trying to change an organization that was doing just fine before they arrived, thank you very much. And I started to feel
Then NK Jemisin gave an amazing GoH speech at an Australian con, and posted her speech online. Said loser of the SFWA presidency went on a horrific rant that was blatantly racist and sexist. Then he abused the SFWA Twitter account by releasing his blog post over the official twitter account, sending his racist vomit to all who are interested in SFWA writers. Amal El-Mohtar called for his removal from the organization. Now the same old guard are digging in their heels.
Amid this all, I’m watching this and hating the whole thing.
and
And as I think about how I wanted my career to go, in the terms of being a pro and getting involved with the community, I felt
Through it all, I’m constantly amazed by the violent reaction to the idea that you should not treat people badly. (And that you have the right to decide what “badly” is – when a whole group of people are calling you out for bigotry, the obvious result doesn’t seem to be “nuh uh!”) I don’t think it’s that much that I be treated fairly, not “othered” by the term “lady” as Seanan McGuire puts it here, and not having my opinions judged by my plumbing. But apparently women not wanting to be harassed at a convention, not suggested to be Barbie, not calling people of color “savages,” and not crying about your right to be a bigoted asshole with no one calling you on it is
I was despairing. I was seeing women and men with much better debate skills bang their heads on this wall, feeling I could never help them, that I would get in the way. And, frankly, I was afraid. I still am. But you know, here comes the epiphany I had this morning:
Their silencing tactics are the oldest trick in the book. And it was working on me. Calling names, threatening, telling people their voice simply doesn’t matter. It’s the bully tactic, the puffing up of feathers, toddlers screaming in a tantrum, that they are using.
Can they actually hurt me? Maybe. There is a reason we are fighting – to feel safe at conventions, to be respected as equals, to have our work judged based on the work and not our race, gender, sexuality, or any of the other reasons people dismiss us. But the weapons against us are becoming increasingly primitive. Mean emails? Nasty names? Threats? SMOFs won’t invite me as a guest to conventions? Those tactics are the wail of a dying breed, the last resorts of people desperate for things not to change, as the change is about to roll over them. If we really didn’t matter, they wouldn’t notice us. They notice. And they’re scared. There are an awful lot of us who believe that people shouldn’t be bigots.
And the bigots have no power over us. As long as we keep fighting for what is right.
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Sometimes I hate my own voice and ideas, thinking they’re derivative and lame. There’s a reason for that, I realized.
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I’ve had a crisis of confidence lately. It’s sucked. Also, day 200 on the magic spreadsheet!
