Tag Archives: kate wilhelm solstice award

Opinion: On Baen Books, Moderating Discussion Boards, & Political Expression

A few days ago writer Jason Sanford published an investigative report into what was happening on the discussion boards known as “Baen’s Bar,” run by the fantasy and science fiction publisher Baen Books, specifically in its Politics group, where people were supporting in support of the Jan 16 coup attempt and suggesting ways it could be better organized and executed. Baen, as well as some authors, replied. Others replied to them. Now I’m weighing in too.
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SFWA is Many Things, But Not a Gelatinous Cube

I was looking at Twitter the other day and reading through mentions of the Nebula Conference Weekend, including celebration of our new Grandmaster C.J. Cherryh, when I hit a tweet saying something along the lines of, “I hope SFWA doesn’t think this excuses the choice of picking (another author) in the past”. The way the sentence struck me got me thinking about the sort of perception that allows that particular construction.

No, SFWA doesn’t think that. Because SFWA isn’t a person. It doesn’t think. Sometimes I like to imagine that SFWA. It lives in a basement somewhere and looks much like a pale green gelatinous cube, covered with lint and cat hair, and various unguessable things lurk in its murky depths, like discarded typewriter ribbons, empty Johnny Walker Black Label bottles, and that phone charging cable you lost a few weeks ago.
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Posted in SFWA | Tagged , , , , , , | 36 Comments