Monday, July 02, 2012

Caviar



I'm very pleased to announce that my story, 'The Choice', has won the 2012 Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award.  Congratulations to Charlie Jane Anders, and to Ken Liu, whose stories 'Six Days, Three Months', and 'The Paper Menagerie', won second and third place.  The winners are selected each year by a jury of experts, from stories nominated by a wide range of reviewers, serious readers, and editors.  I'm thrilled that they've chosen my story this year.

I won't be able to go to the award ceremony, over in Lawrence, Kansas, but Sheila Williams, the editor of Asimov's, which published 'The Choice', will accept on my behalf.  I've been to Lawrence once before, way back in the twentieth century, when Fairyland won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award.  It's a pretty intense experience.  As well as the award ceremony, there's a short-story workshop, panels, and a visit to the University of Kansas's huge science-fiction library (enlarged since my visit by, amongst other things, Sturgeon's manuscripts and books).  Fred Pohl, who's a jury member, and his wife, Betty Anne Hull, gave me a lift back to the airport.  As we drove through endless fields of Kansas corn, I got Fred to sing a verse of 'Oh, What A Beautiful Mornin'' - you know, the one about corn being as high as an elephant's eye.  Science fiction takes you to places stranger than you can imagine.

If you're interested, you can read part of 'The Choice' for free, here.  It's available in various Best SF collections, too, and will be including in an upcoming audio-book anthology.

5 Comments:

Anonymous Keith Ferrell said...

Bravo, Paul and Bravo again! So very well deserved and,even better, so very well earned.

And for your follow up?

Cheers,

Keith

July 03, 2012 12:28 am  
Anonymous talkie_tim said...

Congratulations Paul! A well deserved award. The Choice was the reason why I subscribed to Asimov's on my Kindle. It is genuinely a beautiful story, with just the right amount of depth and other-worldly weirdness. I think I have now tracked down all of your published Jackaroo stories, and I'm always looking out for more.

Unfortunately, i have recently found that Amazon deletes Kindle periodicals after six more issues come out, so I have lost my copy already! Maybe I'll be able to scare up funds for one of those collections.

July 03, 2012 1:47 pm  
Blogger Paul McAuley said...

Hi Keith,
If I had a follow up that would imply some kind of plan. But I do not have a plan.

I did not that about Kindle and magazines, Tim. Hmm.

July 03, 2012 7:20 pm  
Blogger Wm. Luke Everest said...

Congratulations, Paul!

You're the best short story writer around today, and every accolade is well deserved. Every time I see you in a collection or a magazine (let alone see that you're the winner of one of SF's most prestigious awards!) I run to tell my fiancé how lucky I was to work with you. You have my eternal gratitude for, and admiration of, your excellence in the art.

Now, I must run upstairs and give somebody a grin!

July 08, 2012 7:05 pm  
Blogger Paul McAuley said...

Thanks, Luke. I'm pleased too.

July 09, 2012 4:54 pm  

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