The 2013 Locus Awards finalists have been announced. Many good choices there, though the male dominance (four men and one woman) in the YA category is a bit depressing, especially since YA is heavily female dominated. But then, the four male nominees (and the lone female nominee for that matter) are popular and highly respected writers of adult SFF rather than explicit YA writers. Plus, it’s the sort of YA that is free of girl and romance cooties – no love triangles in China Miéville or Paolo Bacigalupi.
Even more awards: The finalists for the John W. Campbell and Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Awards have been announced as well. Nice selection on the Sturgeon Award, though the shortlist for the Campbell Award is very testosterone heavy and also very heavily weighed towards a particular kind of hard SF. But then this is the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, so what do you expect?
Meanwhile, those who have been following the recent awards controversy will have noticed that many of the same names and titles show up on various awards shortlists, so this year’s nominations do seem to reflect what is popular and gets attention in SFF after all, even if it does not reflect the tastes of certain fans and critics.
Also awards related as well as an addendum to yesterday’s post about women and SFF, John Scalzi reports about his very positive experience at RT Booklovers Convention, where he accepted RT’s Reviewers’ Choice award for Redshirts. Scalzi particularly notes how he was made feel welcome, even though he was a man at a primarily female dominated con and a man writing in a different genre at that.
Silvia Moreno-Garcia has a great post about the reasons for and challenges of writing in English as a non-native speaker. As another non-native speaker writing in English, I can certainly sympathize.
Not exactly new, but iO9 has a great post by Kelly Link on strategies for coming up with story ideas.
The Guardian has a lovely article by pianist James Rhodes (nope, not War Machine of Iron Man fame) about the drive to create art. This is just as applicable to writers as to musicians and visual artists.
This is fascinating: According to the Washington Post, linguists have identified a number of words which have remained fairly unchanged since the last Ice Age. However, Language Log is skeptical. Found via Jay Lake.
Finally, over at Pegasus Pulp, I mention how the German edition of Under the Knout just edged onto a bestseller list at Amazon Germany and found itself in very rude company (but then this is Under the Knout, the story which likes to hang out in the gutter) and plug some worthy books and events by other people.
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