[… I have been promising my fans on Reddit to post a picture of the Stabby Award they so kindly bestowed on ROGUES, but somehow it kept slipping my mind.
But I finally got a half-decent pic, courtesy of my minion Raya.
So here ’tis.
The Stabby really is a striking award. And no doubt will prove very useful come the zombie apocalypse.
2015 was a great year for me as far as awards and other honors were concerned as well.
It did not start out that way. Last February I flew to LA for the Writers Guild Awards. I was up for two: one for my season four episode “The Lion and the Rose,” and one as part of the writing staff on GAME OF THRONES. Lost both, alas. That was disappointing. Oh, it was a honor to be on the shortlist, to be sure, especially since I had only been nominated for a WGA Award once before, for a TWILIGHT ZONE script way back when. But there’s something special about recognition from one’s peers, and a win would have been cool. I doubt I will be getting another shot at that one.
That was the only (small) down note, however. After that, awards and honors came fast and furious the rest of the year. ROGUES, the latest of the crossgenre anthologies I’ve been editing with Gardner Dozois, won two: a LOCUS and a Stabby. It was also a finalist for the World Fantasy Award, but lost that one (no surprise, as DANGEROUS WOMEN had won the year before). Gardner and I was also gratified that two of our ROGUES contributors won prizes of their own for their stories in the book: Joe Abercrombie took a LOCUS award and Gillian Flynn an Edgar.
I was also thrilled to receive an Alumni Achievement Award from my alma mater, Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism. They gave me a Northwestern football helmet too. And I got to return to Evanston for the first time in decades. All cool.
Then, of course, there was my birthday present. You guys remember that, yes?
That was as unexpected as it was exciting. Having lost the Emmy six times before (twice for BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, four times for GAME OF THRONES), I was pretty pessimistic going in. I was never so glad to be so wrong.
Of course, I can’t really take too many bows: it was David and Dan and Bryan, the great folks at HBO, and the best cast and crew in television who really brought hold the Emmy gold. The first time a fantasy or SF show has ever won… but not, I hope, the last.
One sometimes hears it said that it is more blessed to give than to receive. So maybe it is only fitting that my favorite award of 2015 was not one I won, but one I gave to others. I am, of course, talking about the Alfies.
I am as proud of the Alfies as of anything I have ever done in fandom, and I will always treasure my memories of that night, and especially the words of those who won these old hood ornaments. Sometimes it feels good to do good.
(I said all of this, at somewhat greater length, in the Lost Post).
PS ((Oh, and now that I’ve uploaded this, I realize I forgot that I also received a New Mexico Governor’s Award for contributions to the art, and a PiePlate award from the Santa Fe Independent Film Festival. I did include those in the original update, but missed them in the Cliff’s Notes version. And who knows what else I’ve forgotten? It was a good year for honors)).
I had lots of books come out last year. Old books, like the Tor reissue of the fifth volume of Wild Cards (DOWN & DIRTY), and new books like the Dunk & Egg collection A KNIGHT OF THE SEVEN KINGDOMS, the GAME OF THRONES adult coloring book, the OLD VENUS anthology.
I talked about them all in my Famous Lost Post. To tell the truth, I don’t recall what I said. Maybe it wasn’t important.
Oh, wait… I did say something about A KNIGHT OF THE SEVEN KINGDOMS debuting high on the bestseller lists in both the UK and the US… and how gorgeous the Gary Gianni artwork was, what an absolutely lovely volume… oh, and what a hoot it was when A GAME OF THRONES ascended briefly to #1 on the NEW YORK TIMES mass market list. Quite a feat for a book originally published in 1996.
Anyway, that was some of my good stuff in 2015.
(And I have the nagging feeling maybe I’ve even forgotten a publication or two in this retelling. Which I did not do first time around. So be it).
My giant Review of the Year Post got eaten by Live Journal.
That was very vexing. I had spent the entire morning and part of the afternoon working on that post. It was very long. Lots of graphics too, book covers and party photographs, all sorts of stuff I had to find on my hard drive and load. And in an instant it was gone.
I don’t have the time to energy to recreate it. I probably could not even if I tried. Nothing is as onerous as trying to rewrite something you’ve already written and lost.
So all I can give you, on this fine 2016 afternoon, is a sort of Cliff’s Notes version.
And to make sure I don’t lose a lot of stuff again, I will break this up into a number of shorter posts rather than one epic one.
So… where was I? Oh, the lost post. Well, the title was simply “2015.” It was meant to be a review of my entire year, personal and professional. And yes, I talked about WINDS, but I talked about a lot of things as well. That was the sort of year it was.
My opening statement was a crib from Dickens: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Which pretty well sums up 2015 for me. Lots and lots and lots of amazing stuff happened, and I felt that I wanted to stress that… most writers could only dream about the kind of year I had… but it was a year full of frustration and disappointments as well, a year of lows as well as highs…
So let me get into that.
In smaller posts.
I just got finished watching the Outback Bowl.
For a Northwestern alum, that was not a pleasant way to begin a new year.
Congratulations to the Volunteers and all, but… I think I had better go back to watching pro football.
One last Sunday. Go Jets. Go Giants.
((I did have a great party last night. Happy New Year, everyone)).
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