Stratofanatic's Emporium

Well, shucks ... if this ain't a nice thing to wake up to in the morning! About a year back, I reviewed an article for Science Fiction Film & Television .... and just this morning, Liverpool University Press (who publishes SFF&T ) send me an email, letting me know that the journal's editors nominated me for their 2024 Awards for Outstanding Journal Reviewers . Now, this isn't an exclusive honor, mind you. Each LUP journal apparently has two awardees each, but still, each journal sends out a lot of articles for review, and it's still an honor. Plus these unexpectedly surprises are always the best. Much like my Mary Kay Bray award from SFRA Review two years back, I didn't even realize this one existed.  Moreover, when one agrees to do a review, you agree just because you ought to, but it's really cool to see a random mark of appreciation like this.

I earned a pretty hefty honor last Friday -- the SBS Outstanding Service award . As you might imagine, this is an award for service above and beyond the call of duty, and it's especially meaningful because it's college-wide, not departmental. Particularly with how nasty the last academic year has gone, with contentious in-fighting concerning such basic concepts as labor equity in teaching loads, sort of recognition from the university means a lot. Anyway, since I put excessive time and energy into crafting this self-nomination letter, I'm sharing with you all.

The immediate glow of that Mary Kay Bray award from SFRA is wearing off, and that's when they get you. Gerry Canavan from the SFRA just asked me to serve on their awards committee for the next three years (and chairing the third year). I should have expected that, of course, but characteristically wasn't. Anyway, I said yes. Even though I'm not quite sure how I'll fit it into an already packed schedule, service to the field is important, and it's the least I can do. At least the reading for this award won't overlap with my reading for the Mythopoeic Society Awards. The MKB stuff occurs in mid-winter, whereas my MythSoc stuff won't normally start until the spring.

Ah .... so, a nice moment just now. At the awards banquet in Dresden, the Science Fiction Research Association  has just granted me their May Kay Bray award for best review published in 2022 by the SFRA Review . The review itself is on a biography of the SF writer John Wyndham, the guy who did The Day of the Triffids . I'll post my acceptance remarks below -- they'll also be published in the SFRA Review soon -- but if anyone would like to read the review (it's short! ), it's online and open-access. ACCEPTANCE REMARKS Receiving the Mary Kay Bray Award comes as a huge surprise to me, not to mention a great honor. Normally when one writes a review, you do it as service to the field. They’re a nice break from teaching and heavier types of academic writing, and for myself, at least, I often pick subjects on which I have only passing familiarity. Reviews are therefore good excuses for me to dive into little research tangents, and that’s exactly what happened with Amy Binns’s ...

 Well, it's that time of year again .... February 15th was the deadline for nominations to the Mythopoeic Society Awards , and, as awards administrator, it obviously fell to me to share those lists with the committees yesterday. We have a pretty good range of books across all four awards categories, and I'm excited to start reading them -- the scholarship awards, anyway, as I don't have time to be on the two fiction committees. Thanks to my recruitment efforts, too, we have 14 new members across the four committees, which, if it doesn't double the size of the previous committee members, comes pretty close. Fresh blood is especially important in the scholarship awards, which have traditionally had relatively few members compared with the fiction committees.  Probably this weekend I'll start ordering books from ILL and Amazon. It's going to be a good next three months!

I'm pleased -- ecstatic! -- to report that Fafnir: Nordic Journal of SFF Research has just won a World Fantasy Award. Couldn't be happier about this achievement. For the last three years, I've been Fafnir's (inaugural) reviews editors, and in that time the journal has undergone several major improvements from an already solid foundation. Although neither my name nor Jaana's will go on the actual award**, it's been a team effort all-around, and I'm so incredibly proud of my colleagues. I'm also incredibly proud of all our authors, reviewers, and editorial board members for their immense contributions, which is the real reason the journal has achieved anything over the last six years. This award is also an important coup for open-access publication. As far as we can tell,  Fafnir is only the second academic journal to be nominated for a World Fantasy Award, and the first to win. Adding a special flavor to this achievement is that our sponsoring organizati...

It still hasn't really sunk in yet, but our academic journal, Fafnir , has just been nominated as a finalist for the 2020 World Fantasy Award in the "Special Award: Non-Professional" category! I'm just blown away by this nomination. Sure, we've worked hard the last three years to professionalize Fafnir, and there's been tons of improvements. But . . . honestly, as an academic, it just never even occurred to me that I'd be engaged in something that falls under the World Fantasy Award umbrella. So, needless to say, I'm still processing -- but in a good way.  ;)

So, last year, our Writing Program won a top award from the CCCC -- and that was awesome, of course. Since then, I have myself gotten my Certificate in Online Teaching, mostly so I could teach summer courses -- but then got conscripted for our Online Writing Program. I certainly don't mind that. I'm a "Stick me where ever you want" kind of guy, after all. Still, the following news is certainly awesome: apparently, after only four years of existence, Arizona Online now ranks in the top 10% of programs nation-wide. (See the full story here .) The article references mostly our online graduate technology programs but, obviously, first-year composition is a major part of any undergraduate online experience. So, major kudos to us.

Well, hot dog! A few days ago, I learned that our Writing Program has been awarded the  2017-18 CCCC Writing Program Certificate of Excellence . (The 4 Cs are the major U.S. rhet/comp organization, akin to MLA for literature people.) Since I'm such a recent addition to the university, this award leaves me feeling somewhat bemused -- especially since many lecturers, TT faculty, and administrators have been advocating hard for years to improve this program. Still, this is major, and I'm excited. Please let me gush for a moment. Arizona's massive efforts to improve the working conditions and lives of its lecturers was a major deciding factor in the award, according to the notification we received. Really, I've been awed at the many initiatives our Writing Program has undertaken: A major salary hike a few years ago, Ongoing efforts for shared governance in the English Department (i.e., lecturers voting on departmental issues), a promotion plan, and three-year contract...

I volunteered to be one of the (many) judges for this years awards in two academic categories, and I'm really excited about the long lists. I can't give any details, but I doubt it would violate any ethical standards to note that everything on the lists looks fascinating. Interlibrary loan just got my first round of orders, and hopefully they'll get here soon -- dissertation schmissertation, I can't wait to have at 'em. I haven't read nearly as many of the books as I thought I would have, but that's just part of the fun.

Well, apparently writing literature is no longer a requirement for receiving a Nobel Prize for Literature. Call me an old-fashioned curmudgeon if you will, but this news about Bob Dylan genuinely surprises. Sure, he's a pop culture / protest icon. Sure, give him a lifetime achievement award at the Grammys. Give him two! But the most prestigious prize for literature ?  I've had arguments about this before, but singing/songwriting just doesn't qualify as "literature" (however arbitrarily you define that term) -- it's not even on the same boat. Song lyrics, bereft of their music, just aren't as good line-for-line as lyric poetry . . .  and lyric poetry is itself an inferior art to epic poetry or prose forms of literature. (Yes, William Wordsworth, I'm telling you that you can just go to hell.) No one can really  say much of anything important in a few stanzas. And having lyrics bolstered by music makes writing them so much easier. You can get away with ...