In Which I Wrote Things That May Be Eligible For Awards

[Correction, 1/7/14: looks like The Cormorant, published in the US on 12/31/2013, is actually eligible for a Hugo, at least. Angry Robot sends me the following from the org’s constitution:

I released a number of books in the Great Year of Our Tentacled Master, 2013.

And apparently I’m allowed to — expected to? — talk about my award-eligible works.

I was hesitant to even do one of these, given that I feel like if a book is worth winning an award then it’s a book you’d remember, but I had a lot of books out this year — enough where I had to go back and try to figure out what came out when, so one supposes the readership may feel an equal sense of temporal bewilderment regarding my works. And so, here we are.

These are the ones I consider (or care about being) eligible for various awards.

The Blue Blazes, which is a novel about a bad father trying to be a good father and a good daughter who went bad, with this little family drama going down at the juncture between the criminal underworld and the very real mythic and monstrous one. It released with Angry Robot.

Under the Empyrean Sky, which is a YA sci-fi novel that features a crew of teens rebelling against their wealthy skyborn masters in a dusty, crusty cornpunk agripocalyptic dystopia. It released with Skyscape Children’s Publishing.

The Kick-Ass Writer, a book featuring 1001 snidbits and yum-nuggets of cantankerous, slightly pornographic (but always sincere) writing advice. Published by Writers Digest books.

“Birds of Paradise,” a Miriam Black short story where Miriam must solve a murder before it happens in a sex shop. During a hurricane. No, really. Found in The Malfeasance Occasional: Girl Trouble, released by St. Martins.

The two novels would be applicable for Best Novel (Hugos, Nebula, Some Other Award I’m Not Thinking Of), I do believe. The Blue Blazes should also be Stoker-eligible.

The book of writing advice, well, it has some genre-writing advice so could be eligible for, say, Hugo’s “related work.”

“Birds of Paradise,” while in a mystery collection, contains a psychic character belonging to an urban fantasy/horror series, thus eligible in the appropriate genre awards.

And finally, you have me with this website, which one could argue makes me eligible for “fan writer,” since I talk about lots of stuff, re: fandom and the culture within it.

I don’t know. I’m not very good at this.

Anyway — yay! I wrote stuff. Other people wrote stuff, too. Something-something awards.

I’m sure I’m missing something. Or doing this wrong.

Awards are lovely when they happen and doubly lovely when they are born of the efforts of readers, but just the same, I try not to stress about them because of the infinite number of awesome books and authors who have never won an award or seen a nomination. I’m just happy I get to tell stories and support myself doing it, so —

Thanks!

/shamelesstapdance