A teenager is inherently an outsider, because they’re in transition, unformed, changing quickly from childhood to adulthood. They’ve been given a lot of cultural freedom as a child, because they are children. You often hear people say, “They don’t understand, they’re just children,” and this is often an excuse for breaking some minor cultural prohibition.
What is it that makes us entertain fantasies about mating outside our own species? Surely this can’t be in our DNA; the mule, sterile offspring of a horse and donkey’s mating, is an example of the evolutionary dead end that results.Yet since our earliest days we’ve apparently been fascinated by the non-human cultures we co-exist with, and the fantasy of strange creatures, able to shift from wild animal to human. Long before we could write, we told stories around the campfire about them, as lovers, not monsters.
I had no idea what that book was actually about, or any notion of characters beyond September and the Green Wind. But the book as it exists in the world of Palimpsest presented certain rules, and I always find it wonderful to write confined to a set of rules.
Rachel Swirsky was nominated for her novelette “A Memory of Wind”. Instead of asking that tired question of why you became a writer, I’m curious if there were ever any moments in your writing career where you were tempted to set it aside for a while and do something else? If so, what kept you […]
Cherie Priest was nominated for her novel Boneshaker. How long did it take you to write Boneshaker? When did you first get the idea? Could you tell us about the writing process? All in all, I guess it took about five months – at least for the first draft. The idea didn’t strike me like […]
SFWA’s 2010 Nebula Award® nomination period is open from November 15, 2010 to February 15, 2011 23:59 PST. Active and Associate SFWA members are eligible to submit nominating ballots. http://www.sfwa.org/nebula-nomination Nebula Facts Active and Associate members may nominate up to 5 works in each category of the Nebulas, the Bradbury and the Andre Norton Award. Members may […]
The Norton jury is beginning its work of reviewing the field of young adult genre literature for 2010, and would like to invite authors to help us obtain your eligible works. The jury will add deserving but overlooked works to the ballot for SFWA’s Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy. Member […]
The Carl Brandon Society, an organization dedicated to racial and ethnic diversity in speculative fiction, will hold a prize drawing of five eReaders to benefit the Butler Scholarship, a fund that sends two emerging writers of color to the Clarion writers workshops annually. In keeping with the Society’s support of literature from and about people […]
LOS ANGELES – The jury for the Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy is actively reading works published in 2010. The 2010 Norton Award jury members is chaired by Sherwood Smith. Publishers and authors may contact nebulanortonjury@sfwa.org for submission information. The Andre Norton Award for an outstanding young adult science fiction […]
If you weren’t able to attend the Nebula Awards Weekend or want to relive the moment, Keith Stokes has posted photos of the weekend at the Midamerican Fan Photo Archive. Keith was the recipient of a Service to SFWA award this weekend and that’s just one of the many reasons he earned it. Also, SFWA […]
For the Nameless Restaurant, once a discreet hole-in-the-wall meant for a cast of supernatural regulars, the increasing levels of background magic has brought with it that most dreadful of locusts – new customers.
Debbie Urbanski is the author of the story collection Portalmania (S&S, May 2025) and the climate AI novel After World (S&S, 2023), which was a Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Engadget, Strange Horizons, & Booklist Best Book of the Year.
Come celebrate our diamond year with us! Register now for SFWA's 60th Annual Nebula Conference, hosted at Kansas City, MO, and also online, from June 5-8.
