scalzi (John Scalzi) and Charlie Stross were on. The decisions of the SFWA Board are here.Please to be noting the substantial differences between what the Committee said and what the Board said they said.
Scalzi closed comments on his post to directly them towards Charlie's. However, there was a thread created in his discussion forum, and in it I posted the following:
John, like many new authors, realizes that the real challenge facing genre writers today is people not reading. It's cool that there's so many genre movies, TV shows, comic strips, etc out there, but getting people reading, and liking reading enough to go looking for other authors is what will make more people able to be writers. John sees that, and helps other people do the same. I think the development of an active literary culture of new material and new people is an essential part of what I see as the cutting edge of genre writing today, and the interconnected network of authors and fans the Internet has provided.
I think Andrew Burt and the SFWA as an organization have been avoiding, inhibiting and preventing this, and that's a problem.
To expand on this a bit, I read several high Sci/Fi content blogs and LJs, including Making Light, The Whatever,,
james_nicoll and Midnight Highways, among many others. They are written by a Publisher/Editor, a well established author with multiple novels etc, a book reviewer and fan, and a developing author. I think they've all posted on other another's sites at probably. It certainly feels like they would. This combination of audience, publisher and author forming an interconnected community is I think critical for the success of genre writing in the modern age. I read an interesting book, I go to the author's site to see what else they're written and what they have to say. They recommend someone else's book, I go read that. In between books, I participate in interesting and enlightening conversations on an infinity of topics on their sites, reinforcing my interest in what they think is good and what they are recommending. I read and loved Tobias Buckell's novels Crystal Rain and Ragamuffin because of Dave Klecha's recommentation. John Scalzi pushed it too, but I think I was already reading. However, I'm not reading Dave for the recommendations, I'm reading him for the general chat.I'm only a datum, but I think this community effect is the key to success in the internet age of writing.
