A few updates on Nebula nominations, Czech magazine Ikarie, and my writing

Thought I'd touch on a few updates this morning.

• Yesterday I received an entire year's worth of the Czech SF magazine Ikarie. Wow! What a beautiful magazine. They reprinted two of my stories in 2009, "The Ships Like Clouds, Risen by Their Rain" and "When Thorns Are the Tips of Trees," and I ordered additional issues to explore what is one of the best SF magazines in Europe. At right is the issue containing my "Ships Like Clouds" story. I plan to do a blog post at some point about this great reprint market, along the lines of what I wrote about for the Russian magazine ESLI.
   
• Speaking of "The Ships Like Clouds, Risen by Their Rain," Rachel Swirsky has selected the story as one of her Nebula Award novelette nominations (while the story was originally published in Interzone in 2008, it is eligible due to first being published in the U.S. in 2009 in Year's Best SF 14). Many thanks! Rachel is posting about her nominations on Jeff Vandermeer's website. Here are her short story picks, and her novelette picks.
   
• Speaking of Nebula nominations, remember the deadline is Feb. 15. Here are my nominations. Of my selections, the following are doing well but need more love from SFWA members to push them over the top: "Hooves and the Hovel of Abdel Jameela" by Saladin Ahmed (in the short story category with 9 nominations); "A Memory of Wind" by Rachel Swirsky (in the novelete category with 11 nominations, "Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast" by Eugie Foster (in the same category with 9 nominations); and The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi (in the novel category with 11 nominations). Remember, the top five six selections in each category make the final ballot, so don't forget to vote!
   
• In addition to Rachel Swirsky, I also want to thank the people who nominated my other stories ("When Thorns Are the Tips of Trees" and "Sublimations Angels") in the Nebula's short story and novella categories. I don't know who you are, but many thanks. While I'm under no illusion that the stories will make the final ballot, it's nice to know people enjoy my work.
   
• Finally, for those keeping track--and why would anyone but myself being doing that?--last week I spent 7.5 hours editing and revising short stories, 2 hours submitting stories to markets, 0 hours working on my novel, and way too much time online because I was launching this year's Million Writers Award. But I'm giving myself a pass on that online time because the award is now up and running!

Comments

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

The top 6 selections, actually.

"12. The FINAL BALLOT shall be comprised of the top six works in each category which receive the most nominations."

[Jason Sanford]

Oops. Thanks for catching that mistake, Mary. I've now corrected the post.

[Rachel Swirsky]

6! i had missed that, too.

somehow, i also missed your short story -- i will read that asap.

by the way -- i haven't finished all my novella reading yet (5 to go!), but 'sublimation angels' is my shoe-in so far.