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Con or Bust Auctions!

Y’all are familiar with Con or Bust? If not perhaps you should be. The aim of Con or Bust is to help fans of color get to conventions, and they fund their endeavors with an annual auction.

If you just go to their front page and start scrolling, or browse the tags, you’ll find all kinds of cool things to bid on. Quite a lot of signed books so far, but there are other things as well. Go check it out!

And as it happens, there are some auctions posted that have been donated by my publisher, Orbit.

  • There’s this Science Fiction Grab Bag, which includes a copy of Ancillary Justice, a copy of Leviathan’s Wake, a copy of Fortune’s Pawn and an ARC of Kim Stanley Robinson’s newest book, that’s out in July.

  • There’s tea and memorial pins! This one is kind of donated by me and Orbit both. The winner will get some Justice, Propriety, and Benefit, along with two memorial pins that read “Awn Elming.”

  • And last of all, you could bid on a signed, first chapter of Ancillary Mercy. I want to be very clear, this is just the first chapter. It is not the entire book.

    • And if none of those things intrigues you, I don’t doubt there’ll be other things posted as time goes by that might.

    About those pins–I had them made up and they arrived here about a week ago. I have quite a few. I figured I’d post a few at a time to my Etsy shop, at cost plus shipping (if it were only a few I’d eat the shipping, but this is way too many for that) and I threw a batch of twenty up and tweeted and tumbled and figured I’d blog when I had a chance, but they all sold out in about five minutes. The next batch took about an hour. Same for batch number three. I don’t have time to mail out all the ones I have all at once, so I’m posting them in batches of twenty, mailing those off, and then posting another batch. The next one will probably go up next Monday. And if you miss it, and want a pin, just keep an eye on my shop, there will be more.

    And if you see me in person at a convention, I might well have some on me and would be happy to give one to you.

    Posted on in announcements

    Wait, what??

    I did not think I would be blogging today.

    It’s a lovely Sunday, the weather is gorgeous, and so Mr. Leckie and I went out to the Shaw Nature Reserve for a nice long hike. Some of it is in cell phone range, but most of it is not, at least not for my carrier. We saw turtles, and heard chorus after chorus of spring peepers, which fell silent as soon as we got near them, and daffodils, and a few early-blooming wildflowers, and I got all mud-spattered and it was lovely.

    Then we walked back into cell phone range. And my phone started buzzing. And kept buzzing. And I said to Mr. Leckie, “I wonder what happened” and looked, and it turns out that Ancillary Sword has won the BSFA for Best Novel.

    I knew it was a nominee, of course. But I figured Nnedi Okorafor’s Lagoon would probably win, which thought pleased me, so I went off on my hike without even considering what I might put in a blog post if it came to it.

    The lovely and talented D. Franklin was there representing me, and I have no doubt did so fabulously. Super big thanks again, D! You rock!

    And super big thanks to the members of the BSFA. I’m well aware that it’s not a common thing to win such an award two years in a row, let alone for a book and its sequel. I’m tremendously honored. Thank you so much.

    I’ll close by suggesting that since most readers of my blog have probably already read Ancillary Sword, you might want to check out Lagoon. Or, really, anything by Nnedi Okorafor.

    Posted on in Ancillary Sword, announcements

    Hugos

    Yes, the news is out. Ancillary Sword has been nominated for a Hugo Award for Best Novel.

    I have two things to say–first, thank you to all my readers and all the fans of the Ancillary books. You folks are awesome. You write by yourself never knowing if anyone will read what you’re writing, let alone whether or not they’ll like it, or think it worthy of any sort of honors. You do the work anyway, because it’s your work to do. So when it turns out someone likes it–maybe lots of someones!–that is the most amazing moment. Enough someones who not only like it, but think it worth of a Hugo? Beyond amazing, and all the more precious because it was unlooked for. I cannot thank you sufficiently.

    The second thing. If the Hugos are something you care about (if they aren’t, just scroll past this, no worries), I am here to tell you that becoming a Hugo voter is not terribly difficult. You go to the website of the current Worldcon–that would be Sasquan this year– and read the instructions–that page has a link for currencies besides US dollars, but for US dollars, scroll down to where you can pick “Supporting Member” in the dropdown box. Fill out the rest of the form, pay your forty bucks, and there you go. Or you can mail in your membership form with a paper check, instructions at the link above. Then once your membership is processed you’ll get a PIN and a link to vote for the Hugos.

    Once you’re a member of Sasquan, you’ll also be able to nominate for next year’s worldcon, by the way. So if you read something fabulous this year, jot it down somewhere so you can put it on your ballot for next year!

    And this ought to go without saying, but I have no expectations that you’ll vote the way I would. In fact, I rarely ever even tell my close friends in private how I vote, so it’s not like any of you could do that if you wanted, except by accident. So. If the Hugos are something important to you, and you’ve got forty bucks kicking around, consider a supporting worldcon membership.

    Back to the important thing–you’re all awesome, thank you so much.

    Posted on in Ancillary Sword, announcements

    The Creation and Destruction of the World at Podcastle

    It’s a huge honor to find my story closing out Podcastle’s Artemis Rising month. That story is “The Creation and Destruction of the World” which has not appeared anywhere previously. Yes, it’s a new story!

    Well, sort of. I actually included this story in my application for Clarion West. Which means I wrote it more than ten years ago. This is the story that netted me my first, treasured non-form rejection (I am ever grateful to Jed Hartman for that!), and got lots of nice comments from editors. But no checks. At Clarion West, Andy Duncan, our week two instructor, said he’d enjoyed it very much and I should have no trouble selling it!

    Yeah. Ten years pass.

    Anyway, check it out! It’s read by Diane Severson and…y’all, she actually sang the songs! That’s her music, I didn’t write any for this! It’s pretty awesome, check it out!

    Posted on in announcements

    Nebulas

    So, I’ve known about this for a couple of days, but of course could say nothing. The ballot for the Nebula Awards is out, and Ancillary Sword is on it! Along with a lot of fabulous books and stories. Congratulations to all the nominees! It’s a great ballot. Rather like last year, I’m amazed at the thought that someone–some number of someones!–thought my book belonged among those others. It’s incredible to find myself in such wonderful company.

    Posted on in Ancillary Sword, announcements

    BSFA

    So, the shortlist for the BSFA Awards was announced on Friday. Turns out, Ancillary Sword is on it! Also a lot of fine work that you would be well-advised to check out. It’s an honor to find my book in such company.

    Personally, I plan to get a lot of vicarious enjoyment out of this year’s awards season. It’s amazing and wonderful to have your work nominated for an award, even more so to actually win, and so I see a lot of delighted moments ahead of a lot of folks this year, and a lot of my knowing how that feels and being happy for them. This is not to say that I don’t enjoy the heck out of the BSFA nomination (excuse me while I do a little happy bounce), but there’s no way in seventeen hells this year is going to be anything like last year for me. And honestly, that’s a good thing.

    In other award related news, the Kitschies shortlist was also announced on Friday. I have a particular fondness for the Kitschies, since that was my first award nomination ever, and I have a particularly happy set of thoughts for the folks whose first award nomination this might be. Most of this year’s Golden Tentacle titles are unfamiliar to me (though one I had just the day before gotten a copy of, it having been recommended to me as something particularly up my alley), and I suspect you wouldn’t go far wrong if you picked one or two of these to read.

    Lastly! And also awards-related! I chanced across a conversation in which folks were thinking about award-eligible short fiction they might want to nominate, or at least consider nominating, and the possibility of my story “The Nalendar” being eligible in the novelette category was brought up. Someone else correctly pointed out that in fact, the issue of Uncanny Magazine in which it appeared came out this year, in 2015.

    That is definitely the case–but as it happens, the story is a reprint. “The Nalendar” originally appeared in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine #36, in 2008. So it won’t be eligible even next year. I’m quite flattered that anyone finds the story worthy of award consideration, though. Thanks for that!

    Posted on in announcements

    Misc. News: Ancillary Mercy, Ancillary Justice (Subterranean edition)

    I’ve been awfully scarce around the internets lately. Part of that is just introvert crash (I went to way more cons and meetings last year than I ever have, and done much, much more socializing than usual, which was fabulous and I loved getting to meet people, but it’s exhausting), but part of it has been me trying to actually finish writing Ancillary Mercy.

    I have finished Ancillary Mercy. And turned it in to my editors.

    So, what’s next? Well, pretty much everyone wants to know that. Including me, myself. I’m not sure. Certainly I’ll have notes from my editors, and I’ll do revisions, and copyedits when those come around. After that, well, we’ll see!

    I made a wordle of AM, which I am tempted to post, but I’m not sure if I should. Maybe I’ll wait a few months?

    Next! You all may remember that Subterranean is doing a limited edition hardcover of Ancillary Justice.

    The other day I got a look at a draft of the cover art. The cover is going to be by Lauren St Onge and it’s fabulous! But I can’t show it to you yet. I will as soon as I can, though!

    In other news–there are now six Ancillary Justice-related playlists on 8tracks. Check them out!

    Also–fairly trivial, but just to answer some speculation or questions I’ve seen here or there–I was an active member of a CJ Cherryh fan community under the name hautdesert, and I still count the folks in that community among my friends. Before that I was also–this is perhaps a bit less obvious, and a bit more random–the proprietor of a Peter Gabriel fansite, and during that period I went under the name “Eve.” I had a few moments of fan glory during that time, the biggest being the time a reporter interviewing PG presented him with printouts of part of my fansite for him to react to. Not that the site itself was anything special–if I tell you it was originally on Geocities, that will tell you all you need to know about that part of my internet career. Hey, we all have to start somewhere!

    The folks from Shejidan already know I’m haut, but if you know me from Gabeweb, here’s a “hi!” and a friendly wave.

    Posted on in Ancillary Justice, Ancillary Mercy, announcements, Misc

    Amazon Daily Deal!

    I know I haven’t blogged really at all for quite some time. I’m doing my darndest to complete a draft of Ancillary Mercy, and probably most of you would prefer that I work on that, rather than blog posts. Maybe? I hope so, because that’s what I’m doing.

    Anyway. Happy winter holidays! And if, perchance, your preferred winter holiday includes gift giving and you received an e-reader or a new tablet (or if you already have those things and just want something more to read) you might want to check out Amazon’s daily deals today.

    Yep, Ancillary Justice is $2.99 today. Of course, chances are if you follow my blog you’ve already read it. In which case, cast your eyes down that list because there’s some excellent reading there. Give it a look!

    And now it’s back to the word mines. Being a writer has a lot of awesome bits to it–I said in an interview it’s like having the fun parts of homework for the rest of your life, and that’s absolutely true. (Also–“Yes I am sitting on the couch reading. It is actually Important Work. No matter what I’m reading.”) But today I am experiencing one of the minor drawbacks of the writing life, which is that I actually don’t get to laze around in my jammies today. Or, I’m not changing out of my jammies, don’t get me wrong, but I need to power up Scrivener and dig this chapter out of my head today.

    In my jammies. Yeah. Happy Dies Natalis Solis Invicti everybody!

    Posted on in Ancillary Justice, announcements