The Million Writers Award public vote

The public vote for the storySouth Million Writers Award is now open. All writers and readers are welcome to take part in the vote, which will last until 11:59 pm Eastern time on May 31, 2010.

Please note this isn't my regular email. After you email, you will receive a Yahoo Auto Response with the link and password. If you have any problems with the system, please contact me.

I apologize in advance for any hassles, but writers and readers get really worked up about literary awards and I believe this system will prevent any attempts at ballot stuffing. And before anyone asks whether I'll be able to identify individual voter choices, no, I will not. Your vote will be between yourself and your favorite literary god(s).

As a reminder, here are this year's top ten stories, from which the top stories will be voted on:

Thanks to our generous donors, this year the prizes break down as follows:

  • First place: $400, plus the $100 ThinkGeek gift certificate and a one-year Greatest Uncommon Denominator subscription;
  • Runner-up: $200, plus PDFs of GUD magazine;
  • Honorable mention (third place): $50, plus PDFs of GUD magazine.

A few thoughts on the Nebula Awards

I was unable to attend the Nebula Awards ceremony last night, but thanks to the magic of SFWA I watched the shindigs through the full-on glory of streaming video. Overall, I'm thrilled with the winners. As I mentioned when the finalists were announced, I believe this year's award represents some much needed generational change for our genre. This is still my view.

First off, I couldn't be more pleased with Eugie Foster and Paolo Bacigalupi winning. Eugie's story "Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast" was one of my favorite stories of 2009. Paolo's The Windup Girl was likewise my favorite novel of last year. As I wrote in my original review, The Windup Girl is a classic dystopian novel which deserves to be read and shortlisted for the major awards. While my review of Eugie's story was shorter, her tale stayed with me just like Paolo's novel.

In the other categories, I'm excited to see "Spar" by Kij Johnson and The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente among the winners. And while I didn't win in the best novella category, I was thrilled "The Women of Nell Gwynne's" by Kage Baker took top honors. I'm ashamed that I didn't have a chance to read Kage's novella until after the Nebula nomination period had passed. It is a fine work and a fitting end to a career cut far too short.

It will be interesting to see how people react to these winners. One blogger is already calling this Nebulafail because he hates the short story and novel winners. I'm actually not surprised by this reaction and predict we will see more of it. Great stories do not appeal to all people--the surest way to tell that a story has a seed of greatness within is if half the readers love it and the other half hate it. And this has been the general reaction to many of this year's winners. While many people like myself have praised The Windup Girl, others have hated it or said it is simply a good first novel. Likewise with "Sinner, Baker, Fabulist..." which was overlooked by all of the year's best anthologies even as it made the shortlists for most of the biggest genre awards.

Still, I think the fact that these authors won this year's Nebula is indicative of what people will think about these works a decade or two from now. So congrats to all the winners and thanks to the SFWA for all the amazing work they do.

The Japanese fairy tales of Naoko Awa

Cover250 We live in a strange age with regards to fairy tales. In some ways, fairy tales have never been more influential, with film directors and authors continually finding new ways to adapt fairies and fairy tale motifs for 21st century audiences.

But at the same time, fairy tales have never had less influence, as very few people actually read the original tales. While younger generations know by heart fairy tale adaptations like Shrek, I doubt even a handful of these kids have read the actual stories which inspired their favorite green ogre.

Which might be one reason why Japanese fairy tale author Naoko Awa is only now being introduced to English audiences. Awa, who died in 1993 at age 50, was well known to Japanese audiences for her unique takes on Japanese fairy tales. While Awa used familiar motifs from Japanese folklore, she took these motifs in new directions by combining them with her deep love of Western fairy tales created by the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen, and others.

Now the University of New Orleans Publishing has released the first English-language collection of Awa's fairy tales. Translated by Toshiya Kamei, The Fox's Window and Other Stories features 30 fairy tales spanning the last three decades of Awa's life. Even though it has been years since I've read a true fairy tale, I've loved this book. These tales spin through beautiful scenes and places, pitting sympathetic characters against dark forces while remaining true to the uplifting core of modern fairy tales. For example, in "The Sky-Colored Chair," the father of a blind girl convinces a young fairy to paint the colors of the sky over a rocking chair. When his daughter sits in the chair, she is able to see colors for the first time. Naturally, complications ensue. But where many post-modern fantasy authors would subvert the story into a tale of dire consequences, Awa reaches for an ending which is sweet and pure.

Toshiya Kamei deserves high praise for bringing Awa's tales to English audiences. While a few of these tales have been published in recent years in English literary journals and magazines--with one, "Blue Shells," making the notable story list for this year's Million Writers Award--an entire collection of Awa's stories is long overdue. I highly recommend this book to all lovers of traditional fairy tales and folklore.

Million Writers Award top ten stories of 2009

Instead of waiting until tomorrow, I decided to go ahead and release my picks for the Million Writers Award top ten stories of 2009. Here they are:

I selected these stories from the 190 notable stories of 2009, which were picked by the Million Writers Award preliminary judges. Obviously there were many great works on that list, despite my complaint the other day about depressing stories. In a few days I'll name some of the other stories from the notable list which caught my eye but didn't quite make the top ten.

The public vote for the overall winners--meaning people will vote for their favorite story from the ten listed above--will begin on Sunday and run through the end of this month. Thanks to our generous donors, this year the prizes break down as follows:

  • First place: $400, plus the $100 ThinkGeek gift certificate and a one-year Greatest Uncommon Denominator subscription;
  • Runner-up: $200, plus PDFs of GUD magazine;
  • Honorable mention (third place): $50, plus PDFs of GUD magazine.

For more information on the award, please see the main Million Writers Award page.

UPDATE: I'm having difficulty with the vote system I was going to use, so I have to switch to a backup one. I'll try to have the vote up and running by the evening of May 17. My apologies for this delay.

Million Writers Award update

I have finished reading the 190 Million Writers Award notable stories, so my picks for the top ten online stories of the year will be released on Saturday, May 15.

The public vote for the overall winners will begin the following day. After seeking feedback in recent weeks on this public vote, I have decided to limit the vote to 16 days. This means the public vote will run from May 16 through May 31. Based on feedback from people, I believe this will be enough time for everyone to read the top ten stories and vote.

Don't forget that thanks to our generous donors,this year the prizes break down as follows:

  • First place: $400, plus the $100 ThinkGeek gift certificate and a one-year Greatest Uncommon Denominator subscription;
  • Runner-up: $200, plus PDFs of GUD magazine;
  • Honorable mention (third place): $50, plus PDFs of GUD magazine.

For more information on the award, please see the main Million Writers Award page.

What's with all the depressing stories?

After reading the 190 notable stories of 2009 for this year's Million Writers Award, I have one question for all the writers and readers out there: What's with all the depressing stories making the rounds?

Don't get me wrong. I love depressing stories when they're well done. (Note to readers: cliches about life to follow.) After all, life isn't an endless refrain of Don't Worry, Be Happy. Without falling into the valleys of life, you can't understand why the peaks are so f'in high. Ups and downs, good and bad, happiness and tragedy--they're all part of the whole being alive and human gig.

So I do enjoy stories and books on depressing subjects and situations. A perfect example is Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy, which is not only one of my all-time favorite novels but also a damn-depressing book. To balance that out, I also love uplifting books like Life of Pi by Yann Martel. Not that this novel is a happy happy book either--I mean, the main character loses everyone he loves and spends months in a lifeboat with a tiger. But despite the bad things that happen in Life of Pi , there is a glimmer of hope to the story. You finish the book feeling that life isn't all bad. That good things are possible.

And that's all I ask from my reading--that some of the stories give me that glimmer of hope.

But as I read those 190 notable stories, I felt under siege by the forces of depression. Incest. Violence. Murder. Betrayal. Anger. Extremely unhappy endings and beginnings and middles. There were very few uplifting stories on the list. I wondered what had happened to stories like the wonderful "FridayAfternoons on Bus 51" by Sruthi Thekkiam, which I picked for the Million Writers Award top ten a few years back.

While I haven't done a happy/depressing analysis of the previous Million Writers Award notable story lists, my sense is that this is the most angst-filling list ever. And perhaps this is only natural. The world has been going through a bad run of late, what with the economic near-collapse, wars, and so on. So perhaps it is only natural that the stories being published recently are overall darker in tone than a few years ago.

Again, don't take me wrong. In a few days, when I release my 10 favorite stories from the notable list, most of those stories won't be happy happy. In fact, it's possible all of them will feature a dark display of anger, violence, murder, betrayal, and evil deeds. I'm picking the best stories possible. If they're all depressing, so be it.

Still, is it too much to ask for a few rays of sunshine once in a while?

Anyone care if there's a slight change to the Million Writers Award?

As I mentioned last week, I'm evaluating different public voting options for this year's Million Writers Award. I'm now almost finished reading 190 f&!#ing stories :-) so I should be able to release the top ten stories of the year, and start the public vote, around May 15th.

However, the costs to run the public vote look to increase in all the options under consideration. Basically, there are a few good online systems for holding the vote, but all of them cost way more than I've paid in previous years. Under these options, I can pay for a month to month subscription. The catch, though, is that the voting for the award usually runs exactly a month. Adding in setup and vote testing to a one-month vote means I'd have to pay for two months. Ouch.

Would anyone care if the public vote for this year's award ran for three weeks instead of four? That way a one month subscription to a voting system would cover the entire process. Just FYI, I've always paid for this voting system out of my own pocket--meaning all donations go purely toward the prize money--and I'd prefer to keep it this way. I've also noticed that most people vote for their favorite story in the first few weeks.

So are there any concerns if we go with a three week vote?

Interzone Readers' Poll Winner

I woke up this morning to the news that my novella "SublimationAngels" (PDF download) won this year's Interzone Readers' Poll, while my story "Here We Are, Falling Through Shadows" tied for sixth. Many thanks to all the Interzone readers who enjoyed the stories and voted for them.

This marks the second straight year I've won the Interzone Readers' Poll. My story "When Thorns Are The Tips Of Trees" (PDF download) won the 2008 Interzone Readers Poll.

I should note "Sublimation Angels" was originally published in Interzone's Sept./Oct. 2009 issue and is also a finalist for this year's Nebula Award and on the long list for the British Fantasy Award.

Again, many many thanks to all the readers who have enjoyed and supported my Interzone stories. And many congrats to Eugie Foster, Chris Butler, and Rebecca J. Payne for rounding out the top four in the poll. I'm also a little shocked Eugie's story "Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast" didn't win--it was one of my favorite stories of 2009 and well-deserves the many honors it has received, including being a finalist for the Nebula and Hugo Awards.

Living in a world where most writers suck

I received an email last week from an editor of a well-known online magazine. Said editor was venting about online submissions, and how the slush pile was overwhelming her because it was "too easy" for horrible writers to send in their stories.

The worst part, she said, were all the submissions from new writers who couldn't write. According to this editor (and here I'm paraphrasing), these new writers have not been taught proper grammar, can't be bothered with correct spelling, believe video games and bad movies are plausible inspirations for plots and characters, and see fanfic as not only fun but a legit way to become an author.

I should note this editor was venting in private, and said I could write about our conversation as long as I didn't identify her or her magazine. I also don't agree with her assessment--her critique treads too much toward an over-generalized complaint about younger generations being bad writers. I find bad writing to be cross-generational and not caused by someone loving video games or fanfic. If you turned Shakespeare loose on gaming or fanfic, he'd likely come up with some great stories.

He'd also come up with some horrible stories--don't forget that before Shakespeare wrote Hamlet he penned Titus Andronicus, a play so bad Harold Bloom claimed it could only be enjoyed if directed by Mel Brooks. Which is the other reason I'm not overly worried about the writing ability of new writers. A new writer who produces bad stories might simply need more practice before blossoming into a 21st-century Shakespeare.

Still, this is an interesting insight into the mind of an editor selecting stories for publication, and actually ties in with something I blogged about last month, which is that if you write a very good story you have a decent chance of having it published. The truth is most fiction submissions suck like a gasping chest wound. Editors usually only read a few paragraphs of such suck before flushing these abominations down the rejection drain.

Don't believe this? See Sturgeon's Law for a refresher course in crud.

But if you actually write a good story, odds are you'll eventually land a publication. And this applies to new writers, established writers, and every writer in between.

This also makes be wonder about the writers who simply don't get it. Those whose writing doesn't improve with practice. Who embrace the truth of Sturgeon's Law like a long-spurned lover. When I worked as an editor I met and read the stories of far too many writers who believed they had the right stuff. Never mind that these "writers" couldn't tell a cliche like "right stuff" from the wrong stuff, and wrote as if their secret desire was for their readers to commit ink-stained seppuku. But each one was still absolutely certain he or she was destined for literary greatness.

We've all met writers like these. They're on every writing forum and in every writing group. When they discover you write fiction, they pull out their self-published epic fantasy about a humble garbageman discovering a ring of power ... and ask if you'll review it. You try cutting them down with the machine gun of criticism and they overwhelm you like a hoard of librarian zombies out for literary brains.

And I think that's what my editor friend was getting at. As someone on the front lines of publishing, she feels overrun by writers who refuse to learn sound storytelling techniques. Who don't try to improve with every story they write. Who dabble in the cliched and the hack-worn, and look at honest feedback as a poisonous snake about to strike.

Naturally I pointed this out to my friend. I mentioned Sturgeon's Law. I said this was how fiction writing had always been. That's most writers simply suck. That this fact would never change, and she had to get over it.

Her response? That thanks to the internet, these bad writers have the ability to spam her with their horrible visions of suckiness, so she doesn't care if they've always been around. She simply wants the pain to stop!

As you can imagine, the conversation between me and my editor friend never reached a hand-holding, huggie-huggie moment. Personally, I love online submissions, but it's obvious my friend thinks they open the door to a great stinking mass of bad writing. I also subscribe wholeheartedly to Sturgeon's Law. While my friend understands the law, I suspect she'll only be happy after personally shooting every bad writer in the world for wasting her time with submissions.

Guess that's enough rambling about all this.  In fact, I can't even say what the point of this essay is, except to note that we live in a world where most writers suck. And if you let that get to you, you are in for a long, painful spell of slush pile hell.

Interzone and GUD magazine giveaway

Today I saw copies of Interzone 227 (March-April 2010) in a local Barnes & Noble bookstore. It's been over two years since a U.S. bookstore chain has carried this great British SF/F magazine, so I strongly suggest people pick up a copy and see what we Americans have been missing. And at only $7.50, the price can't be beat.

In celebration of my story in the next issue of Interzone, I have two copies of Interzone 227 to give away. I also have a copy of Greatest Uncommon Denominator, issue 5, for a lucky winner. GUD is a wonderful cutting edge literary journal. Back in March I reviewed both of these magazines. 

If you want to receive one of these magazines, simply post a request in the comment section below. Be sure to tell the world why you have lived a deprived life without these magazines to embrace and read.  : -) Anyone in the U.S. is eligible to win, and I'll give people a week to post their requests. I'm going to let my children pick their favorite comments as the winners, so feel free to release your inner kid below.

Note: Please do not post your address below. When you comment, include your email address in the requested box. If you win, I'll email you for your mailing address.

I need some Million Writers Award help!

Nope, I don't need help with reading 190 f&!#ing stories. (Note: I'm actually enjoying thereading, but it's fun to gripe about it.)  And we don't need help with the prize money, which thanks to our generous donors is looking great.

No, my problem is with the public vote for the overall winners. I recently discovered the survey tool I've always used before is dead and buried, so I need another way to conduct the public voting.

I'm considering Survey Monkey, but I'm not sure how secure they are. Anyone have experience with them? Is there a way to set up their paid system so people can only vote once? Are there any other reliable and reasonably priced online polling and/or voting systems I should consider?

Teaser for my upcoming story "Plague Birds"

IZ228Issue 228 of Interzone will be out in early May and features my story "Plague Birds." At right is a preview of the cover.

Interzone's editor Andy Cox was nice enough to send me the title spread for my story, and wow, it is amazing. The artwork was created by Darren Winter, who captures the essence of "Plague Birds" with his damn-beautiful art. Anyone interested in seeing the opening spread can download it in a PDF format.

Just FYI, "Plague Birds" is a far-future science fiction tale set on an earth suffering from extreme genetic manipulation. Humanity is now a hybrid mix of animal and human genes, resulting in extremely violent cultural and personal interactions. To control this violence, a subset of humanity called plague birds patrol the land, wielding the one punishment everyone fears: The most painful death imaginable.

Thanks to Andy for letting me share this teaser page. If you want to read the full story, subscribe to Interzone now.

Bowing to the reality of reading 190 stories

I haven't posted much in the last two weeks for a very simple reason: I have 190 stories to read for the Million Writers Award!

Unfortunately, I'm not on track to make my self-imposed May 1st deadline for posting the top ten stories and starting the public vote for the best story. If anyone wants to know why, the delay is due to a mix of work overload, family hijinks, more work overload, and oh, did I mention the 190 STORIES I HAVE TO READ!

I'm now planning to have the top ten stories up by May 15th.

And in some good news, we have another $50 donation to add to the prize money. The donation is from Zahir Publishing, so be nice and check out their wonderful speculative fiction magazine. Just FYI, in January of this year Zahir transitioned from a print magazine to purely online.

Is Online Genre Fiction All Powerful?

I received an interesting email the other day from Tom Dooley, the editor of Eclectica Magazine. After Tom crunched his own statistics around this year's Million Writers Award—arriving at similar if slightly different numbers as Robert Laughlin, whose stats I reported on last week—he noticed something interesting. Among the top 18 magazines with the most notable stories in this year's Million Writers Award, genre magazines held the top five spots, and overall landed 33 of those magazines' 69 notable stories (or 48%).

This general pattern also holds over the last two years. However, if one looks at the overall notable story stats for the entire seven years of the award, then genre fiction doesn't do as well. Only three of the top 13 magazines with the most notable stories over that seven-year span are genre magazines, and their stories only account for 44 of those magazines' 236 notable stories (or 19%). This means non-genre magazines used to do much better in the Million Writers Award.

As Tom said, "The statistics show the MWA has come to be dominated by genre fiction. What they don't show, or at least, what THESE statistics don't show, is why."

I should note that Tom isn't condemning genre fiction, nor is he complaining. His magazine regularly publishes high-quality genre fiction alongside non-genre stories. He's also long been a vocal supporter of the Million Writers Award, which is open to both genre and non-genre stories and tries to be a level playing field where different stories compete against each other. After reading Tom's email and looking at his stats, I was also curious whether or not genre fiction now dominates the Million Writers Award—and by extension online fiction in general.

To figure this out, I counted the magazines with notable stories in this year's award. There are approximately 108 magazines on the notable story list, with 81 of those being "non-genre" and 27 being magazines focused on SF/fantasy/horror/crime or other mixes of genre fiction. Please note these estimates are rough. I could have miscounted, and I'm sure I didn't slot some magazines into the proper category. There are also magazines like Eclectica which, while counted as non-genre, also publish genre fiction. The simple truth is it's sometimes difficult to divide magazines and fiction into convenient categories.

But assuming my counts and category cramming are close to correct, that means about a quarter of online magazines on the notable list are genre magazines, while around 75% are non-genre or more general "literary" magazines. And if the MWA notable story list is truly representative of online fiction today—I know, another assumption, but one I believe is likely true—that means genre magazines probably make up a quarter of all online fiction magazines.

Yet here are online genre magazines holding down the top spots in this award for the last two years, a fact out of proportion to the number of genre magazines out there. Why is this happening?

I think the reason is simple: The best genre fiction magazines now occupy an equal weight to genre print magazines.

For example, when you look at this year's list of genre magazines with the most notable story selections—Fantasy Magazine, Clarkesworld Magazine, Strange Horizons, Subterranean, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Thuglit, and Apex Magazine—it is interesting to note that almost all of these are professional-level speculative fiction magazines (with Thuglit instead being a crime magazine). Why so many spec fic magazines on this list? I believe it is because this genre has, to a large degree, accepted online magazines as a legitimate place to publish and read short fiction.

In the speculative fiction genre, there are a handful of English-language professional print magazines with large circulations, such as Analog, Asimov's, Black Static, Fantasy and Science Fiction, Interzone, Realms of Fantasy, and Weird Tales. There's also another handful of great print magazines like Greatest Uncommon Denominator, Necrotic Tissue, and On Spec which are also extremely professional but have slightly lower circulations and distribution.

My point? I just named what many people would consider the top speculative fiction print magazines. But there are an equal number of professional online magazines in this genre. By professional, I mean these online magazines publish works by top writers, pay professional rates, have top editorial standards, and have large readerships. That means over half of all the professional-level magazines in speculative fiction are now online magazines. Because of this, they publish some of the best stories online, carry critical weight both inside and outside their genre, and are very hard to compete against.

Compare this to non-genre or literary magazines, where the majority of top magazines are still in print. While there are great online magazines like The Barcelona Review, Eclectica, Storyglossia, and Word Riot, if you want to read the vast majority of fiction influencing today's literary world you must turn to The New Yorker, The Southern Review, Granta, The Paris Review, The Atlantic Monthly (through their annual fiction issue), and so on. Yes, some of these print magazines also cross-publish online, but in most ways they still consider the web a mere afterthought. And while some non-genre online magazines like Blackbird and Narrative are seen as the equal of The New Yorkers of the world, proportionately they make up a much smaller percentage of the top-end literary fiction market than in the speculative fiction genre.

Please note this is not an attempt to put down online literary magazines like The Barcelona Review or Eclectica, which for my money often publish better fiction than The New Yorker. But the simple truth is that despite all the changes of the last decade, the world of non-genre or literary fiction still considers print as superior to online publishing.

That's why I believe genre fiction is doing so well these days, both online and in the Million Writers Award. It's like a professional baseball team competing against a college team. While the college team may have some great players who play at a professional level, overall they'd have a tough time against the New York Yankees. And at the moment the Yankees of the online fiction world are speculative fiction magazines.
 

Note: Below are some of the Million Writers Award stats referenced in this post.

2009 Notable Story Leaders
(genre magazines are bolded)

Fantasy Magazine, 7 notable stories
Clarkesworld Magazine, 5
Strange Horizons, 5
Subterranean, 5
Beneath Ceaseless Skies, 4
Blackbird, 4
Kill Author, 4
Thuglit, 4
Writers' Bloc Magazine, 4
Agni Online, 3
Apex Magazine, 3
Eclectica Magazine, 3
Kenyon Review Online, 3
Knee-Jerk Magazine, 3
Prick of the Spindle    3
Storyglossia, 3
Toasted Cheese, 3
Word Riot, 3

2008-09 Notable Story Leaders
(genre magazines are bolded)

Fantasy Magazine, 13 notable stories
Strange Horizons, 11
Narrative Magazine, 9
Clarkesword Magazine, 9
Blackbird, 8
Storyglossia, 8
Eclectica Magazine, 7
Agni Online, 7
Subterranean, 7
Carve Magazine, 7
Word Riot, 6
Thuglit, 6
Apex Magazine, 6
Beneath Ceaseless Skies, 6

All Time Notable Story Leaders
(genre magazines are bolded)

Eclectica Magazine, 38 notable stories
Pindeldyboz, 31
Strange Horizons, 27
Narrative Magazine, 24
Agni Online, 22
Word Riot, 22
Blackbird    19
Storyglossia, 19
Clarkesword Magazine, 17
failbetter    17
Fantasy Magazine, 5
King's English, 15
Mississippi Review, 15

Shooting for that 1 in 350 chance

There's a fascinating thread at Clarkesworld Magazine people should read, where editor Neil Clarke comments about submissions. According to Neil, out of the last 4180 submissions they received, their acceptance rate averaged around 1 in 350 submitted stories.

What fascinates me is Neil stating that "near misses" (which I take to mean submissions that almost made the cut) number about 1 in 35. That means for Clarkesworld, out of every 350 submissions there is one acceptance and 10 near misses. Everything else didn't have a chance in hell for some reason, be it bad writing, bad plots, wrong story for the wrong market, and so on.

It's often said that submitting fiction is a numbers game, and this proves it. But these numbers likewise show that if you write a great or very good story which meets the guidelines for a particular market, you actually have decent odds. Because what these numbers tell me is that the vast majority of submitters to Clarkesworld have no chance of landing an acceptance or a near miss. Instead, they are so out of the ballpark that they aren't even competing in the same game as the writers Clarkesworld usually publishes. And based on my editing experience, this is probably true with most magazines.

Flash fiction selections from the Million Writers Award judges

When the preliminary judges sent me their selections for the Million Writers Award notable stories, there were three flash fiction stories I couldn't include. The award rules specifically state eligible stories must be longer than 1000 words. So while I hated removing these stories from the list, I had no choice.

Since the judges thought these stories were worth selecting, I wanted to mention them here. They are:

Each of these stories is well worth the read, so check them out.

Serving some more generation change with the Hugo Awards

I mentioned back in February that the Nebula Award finalists were a giant scream of generational change. Well, the Hugo Award finalists are out and guess what, the change continues.

I'm thrilled to see The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi in the list, along with the novelettes "Eros, Philia, Agape" by Rachel Swirsky and "Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast" by Eugie Foster. This novel and two novelettes were among the best stories I read last year, and are well deserving of this honor.

I'm also thrilled to see so many other exciting writers like N. K. Jemisin, Kij Johnson, Will McIntosh, Cherie Priest and John Scalzi on the list. Online magazines are well represented, as is the ever-great StarShipSofa in the Best Fanzine category. All of this reinforces my view that change is bubbling through the genre these days. And I'm not the only one to pick up on this.

Anyway, congrats to all the Hugo finalists!

More Million Writers Award stats

From Robert Laughlin comes an in-depth analysis of this year's Million Writers Award notable stories.

Of the 190 Notable Stories, 74 came off the editors' list, 30 came off the readers' list and 5 were on both lists. That leaves 81 stories that weren't nominated by either editors or readers and were picked solely by the preliminary judges.

Robert also worked up a list of journals with more than one notable story not submitted for competition by either readers or editors. Here are the "cult favorites" of the judges (titles followed by an asterisk had no nominations submitted by either readers or editors).

  • 5 stories--Subterranean*
  • 4 stories--Strange Horizons, Thuglit*
  • 3 stories--Prick of the Spindle*, Toasted Cheese*, Word Riot*
  • 2 stories--Apex, Blackbird, Carve*, ChiZine*, Clarkesworld, Fantasy, Flurb*, Hot Metal Bridge*, Identity Theory*, kill author, The King's English*, Literal Latte*, Mississippi Review Online*, Stirring: A Literary Collection*, Storyglossia, Web Conjunctions* (Note: I tired of cutting and pasting links, so see the notable stories page for links to these magazines.)

It's also worth noting wunderkind Roxane Gay had only one notable story chosen from outside the editor and reader nominations. Four of her stories were nominated by editors, and one was nominated by an editor and a reader.

Finally, Eclectica Magazine still has not lost its lead as the all-time notable stories champion. Here is a breakdown of the online magazines with the most notable stories since the Million Writers Award began in 2004:

Many thanks to Robert for pulling together all this information.

A few Million Writers Award stats

Here are a few stats on this year's list of Million Writers Award notable stories. Thanks to Robert Laughlin for pointing out the first two.

  • Roxane Gay is this year's Tom Hanks of the online writing world for landing so many nominations. As people may remember, I granted Kyle Minor that title last year when he landed four stories on the notable list (and I should note Kyle returns this year with the story "Ill Nature" from Plots With Guns). Well, Roxane does two up on Kyle, having six stories picked for this year's list. These are "Gravity at the End of the World" from Knee-Jerk Magazine, "Things I Know About Fairy Tales" from Necessary Fiction, "The Mark of Cain" fron Night Train, "Between Things" from Pindeldyboz, "This Program Contains Actual Surgical Procedures" from Twelve Stories, and "Bone Density" from Word Riot. Considering that Roxane published all these stories with different magazines, and they were picked by different judges (with some landing nominations from more than one judge), this is an amazing accomplishment. Check out her fiction. And if I was an agent or publisher, I'd consider snapping up this hot young writer.
     
  • There are 190 stories on this year's notable list, making it the longest in Million Writers Award history. It's worth noting that there are also more online magazines publishing quality fiction than ever before. Among the impressive new magazines starting up last year were Kill Author, Cerise Press, Knee Jerk Magazine, and Slush Pile.
     
  • Among the previously honored magazines which stopped publishing last year were Baen's Universe, Lone Star Stories, and Farrago's Wainscot. I was sorry to see all of these magazines go, but Farrago's Wainscot was a true loss. As people may remember, Farrago's Wainscot won our best new magazine award a few year's back.

Million Writers Award notable online stories of 2009

The Million Writers Award notable stories of 2009 have now been posted. Check them out here. A big congratulations to all the authors on the list. And an equal congrats to the magazines which won this year's overall awards:

Obviously I have a lot of reading ahead of me. I plan to select my top ten stories by May 1st; the public vote for the best story will start at that point. I want to thank the editors and readers who nominated stories. And a big thanks to the preliminary judges who screened the nominations and/or nominated their own favorites: Beverly Akerman, Forrest Anderson, Thom Didato, Roxanne Halpine, Rusty Keele, Travis Kurowski, Dorothee Lang, Judah Mahay, Erica Naone, Karen L. Newman, Nick Ripatrazone, Alexis Enrico Santí, Beth Staples, D. Antwan Stewart, Wayne E. Yang (along with several judges who wished to remain anonymous).

Finally, thanks to our donors, whose support enables us to give away the following prizes:

  • First place: $400, plus the $100 ThinkGeek gift certificate and a one-year Greatest Uncommon Denominator subscription;
  • Runner-up: $200, plus PDFs of GUD magazine;
  • Honorable mention (third place): $50, plus PDFs of GUD magazine.