Well, gobsmacked is how I’d put it.*
Thank you so, so much to the voting members of the British Fantasy Society and the juries for the British Fantasy Awards for awarding my column for Shoreline of Infinity the Best Non-Fiction Award 2019. This is quite a thing — not least due to the beautiful work of artist Morag Hickman, whose design reminds me very much of my favourite cover of Diane Duane’s A Wizard Abroad, and really captures the metaphors of fantastic fiction as a portal, a gateway to other worlds, worlds within worlds, or as a landskein on the surface of reality. I’m honoured, not only that you thought my work worthy of sitting alongside that of Kameron Hurley and S.T. Joshi, but deserving of such a beautiful and well-conceived work of art.
Huge thanks as well to Award Administrator Kat Fowler (who magnificently wrangled 70 jurors this year!), presenter and BSFA Chair Allen Stroud — and to the effervescent and glorious Muriel Gray for jumping in on MC duties at the last minute. I’m grateful to you all waiting while I hobbled my way to the front and to Allen and Muriel for giving me a wee hand up and down.
I’d also like to take this chance to once again to thank Noel Chidwick and Mark Toner at Shoreline of Infinity for initially approaching me about writing a column back in 2016. Noise and Sparks these days is quite different to the original brief of writing about my experiences as a new writer, but I’m grateful they and Poetry Editor Russell Jones have stuck with me as the column has developed. Thank you again to my weekend writing partner Neil Williamson, who is usually the first reader for Noise and Sparks, and whose honesty I often appreciate when it comes to how many 500-word tangents I can fit into a 1k column. And I’m eternally grateful to the work of the British Fantasy Society, particularly the this year’s Fantasycon (and my glorious Redcloak family) for coming up to Clydebank this year and giving Scottish genre a chance to shine.
I also mentioned in my speech that I’m suffering from some health issues. These have been going on and off for about a year and a half now, and I wish I had a nice, neat description for what’s going on, but it turns out my original diagnosis wasn’t quite right, so I’m currently waiting on a referral. It means that I’m not quite as mobile as usual, which is quite literally a pain in the arse (and hip and, sometimes, leg), and my painkillers have some side-effects that can be difficult to manage on top of my other medication and mental health issues. On the other hand, it means that with this award I prove that the writing by those of us with chronic pain or mental health issues (or indeed, any disability or neurodiversity) is valid, award-worthy, and deserves its place within the Fantasy community.
Edit: If you are disabled and work in the publishing industry (including writers) in the UK, Ever Dundas runs an informal Facebook group called Crip Collective. Ever talks about the group’s aims with Book Machine here. Click here to join.
Huge congratulations to the other 2019 winners, especially my online and offline buds amongst Jen Williams, Aliette de Bodard, Priya Sharma, G.V. Anderson (I was delighted to lose Best Short Fiction to such a brilliant writer), Tasha Suri, Robert Shearman and Michael Kelly, all the folks at Uncanny Magazine and Unsung Stories, the Breaking the Glass Slipper team (who held an excellent live podcast over the weekend you should keep an eye out for), Catriona Ward, Kate Ashwin, Vince Haig, the creators of my favourite 2018 movie Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse — as well as my past editor Ian Whates, who received some well-deserved recognition in the Karl Edward Wagner Award. And to my fellow shortlistees — particularly Tim Majors, FT Barbini and the Evolution of African Fantasy team, Jim McLeod and Ginger Nuts of Horror, and (Captain, my Captain) Alasdair Stuart — I am so proud to have been listed with you!
There are so many more people I’d like to thank here, from friends and family (con or otherwise) to Speculative Spaces and the Glasgow SF Writers Circle. So if I’ve missed you out, just assume that the deep code of this blog knows your name and will spare you come the singularity.
Talking of Noise and Sparks, the new issue 16 is available now from Shoreline of Infinity, this new issue starring Rachel Plummer, my latest column and lots more. And since my next deadline for Shoreline is in just a couple of weeks, I’d best get back to it!
* Thank you to Speculative Spaces podcast and E.M. Faulds for the header image on this post.