Happy Sunday, everyone! Ana is away on vacation, which means I have full control of the blog!
Ahem. Really, I won’t do anything crazy with my newfound power. Promise.
Arthur C Clarke Nominees (and Christopher Priest)
As you may have heard, the shortlist for the Arthur C Clarke Award have been announced. And the nominees are:
Greg Bear, Hull Zero Three (Gollancz)
Drew Magary, The End Specialist (Harper Voyager)
China Miéville, Embassytown (Macmillan)
Jane Rogers, The Testament of Jessie Lamb (Sandstone Press)
Charles Stross, Rule 34 (Orbit)
Sheri S.Tepper, The Waters Rising (Gollancz)
The shortlist of nominees has been received with mixed reactions – most notably from author Christopher Priest, the author best known for The Prestige (which later was adapted to film by Christopher Nolan). In his post, Mr. Priest expresses his dismay with the shortlist picks, and calls out the jury in charge of selecting the nominees. While some of the remarks towards the jury are perhaps unduly harsh, Mr. Priest’s arguments for and against the shortlisted titles are fascinating and informed. Many people have posted their own take on the fallout following his blog post – we recommend you check out The Guardian‘s rundown for general background, and fantasy author Catherynne M. Valente’s truly awesome take on the post.
Women in SF&F Month from Fantasy Cafe
Kristen, the wonderful blogger behind the always fantastic Fantasy Cafe is dedicating the month of April to the women who write science fiction and fantasy – a direct followup to Lady Business’s findings regarding review coverage, gender, and women in SFF. With a stellar lineup that includes guest authors the likes of Nancy Kress, Elizabeth Bear, and Carol Berg, we cannot wait for the month-long event.
BEA Blogger’s Conference & The Unconference
In other news, you may have seen that BEA has announced blogger panelists for the forthcoming BEA Bloggers Conference. We are thrilled to be a part of the conference as panelists (well, Thea is a panelist, Ana has yet to get over her stage fright!) for the third year running! This year, Thea will be on the “So You Want to Make Money?” panel, which discusses syndication, monetization and affiliate programs for bloggers (maybe not the sexiest panel, but an informative one…right?!). Fellow panelists include Rita Arens, (Senior Editor, Blogher.com), Ron Hogan (Beatrice.com), and the lovely Sarah Pitre of Forever Young Adult! (Sidenote: This marks the second year Thea and Sarah are on a panel together. We are super excited.) Check out the full lineup of panelists online HERE.
While the BEA Bloggers Conference is occurring, many other bloggers have voiced their dissatisfaction with the conference and have created their own UNconvention (in the style of the book^2 camp gatherings). On the same day, at the same time as BEA’s Bloggers Conference, the uncon will be taking place at The Center for Fiction in Midtown Manhattan. Here’s the rationale behind the uncon:
For many of us, though, the event will not focus enough on the actual book blogging. We want a forum where we can share our experiences, trade ideas, and have a whole room of other bloggers with whom we can discuss new ideas. One commenter envisioned it as a giant twitter chat, but with everyone in the same room. With snacks.
While we totally LOVE the idea of an unconference and think it’s an incredibly valuable resource for the blogging community, we likely won’t be attending the unconference this year. We think it’s an amazing thing that the publishing industry at large is finally taking notice of book bloggers and listening to what we have to say, and we think it is of vital importance that we attend the conference and represent the blogging community to publishers. (Publishers, we might add, that can be amazingly uninformed and clueless towards book bloggers.)
Whichever conference you attend, dear readers, we hope to see you at BEA. Let us know if you are going to the convention! We would love to meet you in the flesh (and are thinking of hosting a cocktail hour, if anyone is interested – author, blogger, reader, etc! Let us know in the comments!)
This Week on The Book Smugglers
Down to business! On Monday, we are thrilled to have the wonderful Kate Noble over for an Inspirations & Influences post about her new book, If I Fall – plus a giveaway opportunity to win the new book.
On Tuesday, Ana is back with a review of historical, medieval YA novel The Wicked and the Just by J. Anderson Coats.
Wednesday, Thea reviews one of her most highly anticipated novels of the year, the fifth book in Michael Grant’s phenomenal SF series, Fear.
On Thursday, Thea’s back with a review of YA fantasy novel The False Prince by Jennifer A. Nielsen.
Friday, we close out the week with a review of the highly anticipated thriller I Hunt Killers by Barry Lyga. We also have a truly FANTASTIC interview with Barry, and a chance to win the book. Don’t believe us about the ‘truly FANTASTIC’ part? Stick around and check out our Tumblr for a sneak peak at the awesomeness in store.
That’s it for now! Until tomorrow, we remain…
Via EW
~ Your Friendly Neighborhood Book Smugglers
5 Comments
AnimeJune
April 1, 2012 at 7:41 amLooking forward to seeing you guys at BEA! Yes, I’m going to the BEA blogger con – firstly, because I already went to exceedingly difficult lengths to pay for it, and secondly, because this is my first experience going to a blogger con or BEA and I figured I won’t have anything to compare it to! Plus the panels still sound interesting and so many cool authors are going to be there to talk to, as well!
Lisa (starmetal oak)
April 1, 2012 at 8:30 amI’ll be going to the Blogger Convention as well as BEA, and think it’s a great idea to have some kind of cocktail hour!
Kristen
April 1, 2012 at 8:50 amThanks for mentioning the April event!
I will be at the Blogger Convention and the first two days of BEA this year. 🙂 Thanks for the heads up about the panelists being announced since I had missed that.
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