Award Season Begins

There are two major groups of awards in the Science Fiction and Fantasy genres: the Hugos and the Nebulas. The Hugos are given out every year at Worldcon (in late-Summer) and voted on by members of the World Science Fiction Society (or, put more in other words, by people who are either attendees or supporting members of that Worldcon). The Nebulas are voted on by Active members of the Science Fiction Writers of America and given out at a SFWA banquet in mid-Spring.

I don't know if I'll be attending Worldcon this coming year and I'm unlikely to buy a supporting membership to vote on the Hugos. Since I'm not currently an Active member of SFWA (having only two of the three required qualifying sales of short fiction) I don't know if I'll be voting on the Nebulas or not.

What I can definitely do for this years awards, as an Associate member of SFWA, is submit nominations for the Nebulas. I am actively interested in reading short fiction which qualifies for nomination for the 2012 Nebula Awards. If you would like to propose titles which I should look into reading between now and when nominations close, please feel free to put them in a comment below. Depending on how many suggestions I get, I may or may not get to read absolutely all of them. Short stories and novelettes will be more likely to get my time than novellas. If the story was published in a free-to-read manner online, providing the address of the story will definitely make it easier for me to access the story and make me happy. I will be maintaining a page listing stories I found notable as I go through my reading.

Finally, there is a single story of my own which I would like to point readers toward as they consider their nominations for Short Story awards. "Scraps" was published in October at Daily Science Fiction. It is both my personal favorite of my short stories and the one which has received the most praise from others.

"Kelly signs for possession of the fireproof box and wonders what her mother had felt the need to protect. No jewelry, that all would have been hocked years ago--cigarette money. Back when they still talked, Kelly always told her mom the cigarettes would kill her.

She hadn't imagined it happening so suddenly.

She is tired from the overnight drive and stares at the only legacy left to her. Of course there's no key. It seems a perfect coda to her mother's life, until the helpful officer tells her how easy it is to pop the lock.

She thanks him and leaves the station, carrying what had been transformed from a little mystery into something mundane. Just another problem with a half-assed solution."

Those are the opening four paragraphs of Scraps. It is relatively-short, approximately 1600 words, so I hope you will consider going to Daily Science Fiction and reading the rest, whether you are reading for short story nominations for awards or not. Thank you!