Editorial – March 2024

Awards are funny things. I was very disappointed that Glenda Larke’s The Tangled Lands did not make it onto the Aurealis Awards short lists. I still think it is a brilliant book. I was less surprised, but also disappointed, that the Green Man books did not make it onto the Best Series short list in the Hugos. I was not feeling particularly confident about awards. And then The Green Man’s Quarry went and won Best Novel in the BSFA Awards. Reader, if you heard a shriek of delight emanating from South Wales at that moment, it was me.

Obviously huge congratulations are due to Juliet, who absolutely deserves what is her first major award win. Also congratulations to Toby Selwyn, the editor, and to Ben Baldwin, the cover artist. Both of them have been with the Green Man books from the start, and both do superb work. For this particular book, Juliet also thanks Shona Kinsella, the Scottish cultutral consultant, and Liz Williams for help with ritual practice.

I am utterly boggled.

This is also a good time to mention the annual Locus fundraiser. There is no way that Locus can do what it does on the basis of subscriptions alone. It is therefore reliant on these fundraisers to fill the gap in the finances. There are just 5 days to go, and while it is a flexible goal so they will get some money, they currently have less than half of what they need. I’d much rather people subscribed, because that’s what magazines need, but there are a whole lot of creator-related goodies up for grabs should you be so inclined. Our field would be much the poorer without Locus, so do please donate if you can. Full details here.

Next weekend I will be off to Malta for my once-every-two-years dose of Assyriology. After that it is straight off to Luxembourg for Luxcon. There will be trip reports in the next issue, and hopefully I will get a lot of reading done while on planes.