From: pnh@panix.com (P Nielsen Hayden)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.fandom
Subject: Re: Tinky Winky Does Stand-up (then sits down, honks, and rolls around laughing)
Date: 4 Nov 1997 08:52:43 -0500
Organization: fwa
Lines: 70

 

Thanks to several people for their kind words about the World Fantasy Award.

It was a strange experience. I've lost five Hugos, so I'm entirely
accustomed to the idea of being a runner-up. Moreover, while the World
Fantasy Award rules prohibit the same anthology series from winning two
years in a row, mostly to keep the excellent Windling/Datlow annual from
winning every year, this was one of the years it was eligible (and
nominated), so I completely expected it to win.

Also, my mind was much more focussed on Jonathan Lethem, whose story
collection THE WALL OF THE SKY, THE WALL OF THE EYE (which I published in
softcover at Tor) was up for Best Collection. I had been asked by the
awards administrators to strongly suggest to Jonathan that he might want to
attend the con (hint, bludgeon, hint), and at the last minute, sitting there
at the banquet with Jonathan, I had a moment of terror: what if he _doesn't_
win? What if it's all a big misunderstanding? The nominees were read off,
Jonathan was announced as the winner, he went up to the dais and made a very
graceful acceptance speech, and I breathed a sigh of relief. Nothing to
get through now except the usual -- lose in the category I'm nominated in,
applaud for all the remaining awards, mill about for a while, and go home.
("Home" being back to Rob and Avedon's place in East Ham, in this instance.)

So Dennis Etchison, presenter for the anthology category, read out the four
nominees, opened the envelope, said "The winner is STARLIGHT 1," and I was
so startled I just about went over backwards in my chair. Jane Yolen, who
was sitting next to me, said I levitated six inches.

I gather I managed to get up to the dais and gabble out thanks to my editor
Claire Eddy, my publisher Tom Doherty, our marketing director Linda Quinton,
my sometimes first reader Tom Weber, and my essential co-conspirator Teresa,
plus of course the twelve writers in the book who wrote twelve of their best
stories for it. I recall David Hartwell having an almost feral ha-ha-gotcha
smile as he pumped my hand up at the podium. I mostly remember getting back
to my seat with the award in hand, and literally -- not a figure of speech
-- wondering, am I dreaming? Did I just misunderstand? Surely this was
some kind of mistake? Did I just go up to the podium and do something
really dumb? The kinds of thoughts we always read in fiction about people
having, but we rarely actually experience them ourselves. For about five
minutes, I really -- no exaggeration, no figure of speech -- wasn't sure
this had just happened. Perhaps this is why they give award winners a big
heavy chunk of metal, to drive the reality home.

Anyway, when I came back to myself, they were reading off the Best Novella
nominees, and although Jane Yolen and I had been marking the winners in my
copy of the pocket program as the ceremony progressed, I had to lean over to
her and say "Uh, who won Best Short Story?" "Jim Blaylock," said Jane.
"Ellen Datlow went up and accepted for him." "Oh," I said.

My only wail is that, although the committee quite wittily set out
London-souvenir snow globes at every banquet-table setting -- and I had been
delighted to find that mine was a Houses of Parliament snow globe! -- after
the ceremony, I was still so bumfuddled that I left mine behind, sniff.

Anyway, I'm terribly flattered, and pleased on all sorts of levels, not
least because trying to get an original anthology series going is an uphill
battle all the way, since anthologies famously don't sell and (as any
bookseller will tell you) publishers are always trying to push more of them
than readers actually want to buy. Being able to bill STARLIGHT 2 as "the
next volume in the World Fantasy Award-winning series" won't sell the series
all by itself, but it sure won't hurt. Mostly, though, I'm just plain old
little-kid delighted. Perhaps if I ever win another major SF or fantasy
award, I'll begin to develop Langfordian savoir faire. Right now I'm still
jumping up and down. Holy moley. Jeezo peezo. Hot damn.

And you know something? If you put a sock on its head, a World Fantasy
Award really _does_ look like Jacques Costeau.

-----
Patrick Nielsen Hayden : pnh@panix.com : http://www.panix.com/~pnh