I was planning on addressing HWA’s recent awards announcement, Dragoncon’s award announcement and WSFS’s announcement about Hugo Award ballots breaking all records today.
There’s a lot of online discussion on these topics, generally centered on issues of free expression and assembly (like, isn’t removing the juror for things not related to horror literature discrimination of an unpopular viewpoint? Short answer – “No”); or like, can an award call itself a popular award when the popular vote can be ignored by a jury? Or like, will the large increase in nominations for the Hugos prevent slates from appearing this year (and aren’t slates just another cry in the wilderness from an oppressed minority – short answer “No”)?
But. I have the unhappy news of announcing that cancer has visited itself upon my immediate family (details withheld out of a sense of propriety that I hope is respected) and we’re kind of running around here in a state of shock and fear.
(It’s not me, btw.)
So you’ll forgive me, I hope, as I try to find my feet over the next few days; we should have all the details and a treatment plan by the end of the month (scheduled, now just waiting).
I’m hoping that I’ll be able to muddle through here and with our announced project of publishing a special edition, and I want to be positive about everything, but I think we all have (unfortunately) too much experience with this kind of thing to know that things change and can change quickly.
Needless to say, I’m not really interested in exploring issues of free speech right at the moment.
