Nebula Award News

Sponsorships for the 2024 Nebula Conference Now Available!

The Nebula Conference, the annual highlight of the Science Fiction and Fantasy writing community, couldn’t happen without the help from our sponsors. This year we are planning a hybrid conference with over three days of educational, professional, and social events. We can’t wait to get you involved!

Conference attendees are at the heart of the science fiction and fantasy writing community. We anticipate 300 participants attending in person and another 300 streaming online.

There are limited sponsorship slots available. All opportunities are first-come, first-served and subject to SFWA approval. If you’re interested in sponsoring a panel or event, you can fill out this form or email sponsors@sfwa.org for details on custom sponsorship opportunities.

Books bags are back for 2024!

This year, we’re asking publishers and other community members to donate up to 50 copies per title (we’re happy to accept more than one title!) of any middle grade, young adult, comic book, graphic novel, tabletop game or RPG, science fiction or fantasy book or periodical. ARCs and back stock are welcome. Digital-only works including books, games, and audio may also be distributed on postcards or bookmarks containing instructions for retrieval (via a web site, QR code etc.), and a clearly indicated expiration date. If you would like to donate please email sponsors@sfwa.org for shipping address and other logistics.

Please note: books will need to arrive no later than June 3rd and shipping times will vary.

Sponsor opportunities for 2024 are as follows:

Platinum Sponsor: Support Our A/V

Audio/Visual equipment is the most important aspect of the Nebulas! As a Platinum Sponsor, your logo will be on all Nebula Award and conference email communication to SFWA members and conference attendees. But that’s not all! It’ll also appear in the commemorative program book, on screens during the conference both in-person and online, and on ALL panel webpages! Platinum Sponsors will also receive a table for 8 at the Nebula Awards Ceremony and conference registration for 2, providing individual’s information is submitted no later than April 15th. — $10,000

Gold Sponsor: Support Our Hospitality Suite

The most popular hangout during the conference is the hospitality suite. As a Gold Sponsor, your logo will adorn the doors of each suite! Your logo will also be on all Nebula Award and conference email communications to SFWA members and conference attendees and will appear in the commemorative program book! — $5,000

Gold Sponsor: Support the Finalist Packages

The Nebula Award is one of the finest achievements our finalists can receive in their writing careers. Attending finalists will be given a gift box that you can sponsor. Your logo will also appear in the commemorative program book and in Nebula Award email communications. Be a part of their memorable experience today! — $5,000

Gold Sponsor: Support the Book Bag

2024 is bringing back the book bag! And everywhere you look your exclusive logo will be hanging from everyone’s hand. Don’t miss this chance to have your logo adorn the book bag as well as be included in the commemorative program book and in Nebula Award email communications. Included: 1 Free Conference Membership. — $5000

Silver Sponsor: Support Our Receptions

Forever link your logo in the minds of reception attendees as a Silver Sponsor! Your logo will be proudly displayed at the Nebula Finalist reception, and the Award Ceremony reception. It will also be included on all Nebula Award and conference email communications to SFWA members and conference attendees and appear in the commemorative program book! — $2,500

Silver Sponsor: Support Our Badges

Catch the attention of every in-person conference guest by sponsoring our conference badges! Your sponsorship will help ensure we print high-quality, keepsake-worthy badges that our in-person attendees will wear throughout the conference weekend. Your logo will also be included in the commemorative program book and in Nebula Award email communications. — $2,500

Bronze Sponsor: Support Our Communications

As one of our Bronze Sponsors, your logo will be on all Nebula Award and conference email communications to SFWA members and conference attendees and will also appear in the commemorative program book! — $750

Other Sponsorship Opportunities

Sponsor a Panel

The Nebula conference will feature over 50 panels on writing and professional development for authors. Sponsor the panel of your choice and your logo and promotional information will appear on the webpage for the live stream and recording. The panel moderator will also be asked to thank your organization as the panel’s sponsor. Recordings of our conference panels can be viewed by attendees for up to a year after the event! — $350

Sponsor a Banquet Table

Secure the best seat in the house for the Nebula Award Ceremony by reserving a table at the banquet table for up to eight guests! Menu selections and guests’ names must be submitted by May 1, 2024. — $2000

Sponsor a Book Bag Donation

Be part of this well-loved tradition by stuffing our giveaway bookbag with your promotional materials such as announcements, pre-order info, or order discounts. Your promotional flier/card will be included in all in-person and virtual book bags. — $100*

*Please Note: Any physical book donations to our bookbags are welcome free of charge, only promotional materials require this sponsorship cost. Contact sponsors@sfwa.org to donate books.

Congratulate a Nebula Finalist!

Being a finalist in the Nebulas is a career milestone and the awards evening will be filled with excitement and nerves. Send your well wishes and congratulations to any finalist you wish by filling out the form, which will be available soon at store.sfwa.org! Your note will be delivered to the finalist’s chair before the ceremony begins, providing them good vibes to last through the evening! —$25

SFWA Announces the 59th Nebula Awards Finalists!

 

March 14, 2024 – The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) is pleased to announce the finalists for the 59th Annual Nebula Awards®! Our congratulations go out to each and every finalist for the recognition of their excellent works published in 2023. 

The awards will be presented in a ceremony on Saturday, June 8, that will be streamed live as it is held in-person in Pasadena, CA, as part of the 2024 Nebula Conference Online. Winners in each category will be determined by the vote of Full, Associate, and Senior members of SFWA.

Here is the complete list of finalists:

Nebula Award for Novel

Nebula Award for Novella

Nebula Award for Novelette

Nebula Award for Short Story

Andre Norton Nebula Award for Middle Grade and Young Adult Fiction

Nebula Award for Game Writing

  • The Bread Must RiseStewart C Baker, James Beamon (Choice of Games)
  • Alan Wake II, Sam Lake, Clay Murphy, Tyler Burton Smith, Sinikka Annala (Remedy Entertainment, Epic Games Publishing)
  • Ninefox Gambit: Machineries of Empire Roleplaying Game, Yoon Ha Lee, Marie Brennan(Android)
  • Dredge, Joel Mason (Black Salt Games, Team 17)
  • Chants of Sennaar, Julien Moya, Thomas Panuel (Rundisc, Focus Entertainment)
  • Baldur’s Gate 3, Adam Smith, Adrienne Law, Baudelaire Welch, Chrystal Ding, Ella McConnell, Ine Van Hamme, Jan Van Dosselaer, John Corcoran, Kevin VanOrd, Lawrence Schick, Martin Docherty, Rachel Quirke, Ruairí Moore, Sarah Baylus, Stephen Rooney, Swen Vincke (Larian Studios)

Ray Bradbury Nebula Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation

  • NimonaRobert L. Baird, Lloyd Taylor, Pamela Ribon, Marc Haimes, Nick Bruno, Troy Quane, Keith Bunin, Nate Stevenson (Annapurna Animation, Annapurna Pictures)
  • The Last of Us: “Long, Long Time”, Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin (HBOMax)
  • Barbie, Greta Gerwig, Noah Baumbach (Warner Bros., Heyday Films, LuckyChap Entertainment)
  • Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among ThievesJonathan Goldstein, John Francis Daley, Michael Gilio, Chris McKay (Paramount Pictures, Entertainment One, Allspark Pictures)
  • Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, Dave Callaham (Columbia Pictures, Marvel Entertainment, Avi Arad Productions)
  • The Boy and the Heron,  Hayao Miyazaki (Studio Ghibli, Toho Company)

Author Martha Wells has graciously declined her nomination as a novel finalist this year for System Collapse published by Tordotcom. In 2022, Wells also declined a nomination for novella and felt that the Murderbot Diaries series has already received incredible praise from her industry peers and wanted to open the floor to highlight other works within the community.

We look forward to celebrating all the finalists with aspiring and professional creators in the science fiction and fantasy genres at the 2024 Nebula Conference, June 6-9, 2024.

Questions about the awards or the upcoming conference may be directed to the SFWA Events Team at events@sfwa.org.

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March 14: Nebula Finalist Announcement, Early Bird Rate Ending, & Scholarship Application Deadline

 

Finalist Announcement

Please help us celebrate the announcement of our 2023 Nebula Award finalists (to be presented this year in Pasadena) with a presentation beginning on our SFWA Youtube channeltomorrow, March 14, starting at 5PM PT.

Once again, we’ll be calling upon a talented group of SAG-AFTRA narrators to take us through an evening filled with a variety of outstanding speculative fiction works.

It’s sure to be a night to remember! We hope you’ll join us!

Early Bird Rate Expiring 

Tickets are selling fast to the SFWA Nebula Conference, which is why we’re encouraging those of you who are on the fence about attending to register now. The early bird registration deadline is tomorrow.

Register Here

Join us to engage in professional development and foster community among SFF aspiring and industry professionals. And of course, we’ll celebrate our Nebula Award finalists and honorees throughout the weekend, but most especially at the Nebula Award ceremony. That includes recognizing the inspiring work of our newest Grand Master, Susan Cooper.

In-person registration includes all online access. With every conference ticket, you can watch and listen to all recorded panels and presentations that took place over the weekend. If you or someone you know needs a scholarship to participate in the conference, please keep reading!

Scholarship Deadline

SFWA will once again be offering scholarships for members of under-served communities to attend the Nebula conference! The 2024 Nebula Conference will take place June 6-9 in Pasadena, CA and online. If you or someone you know may benefit from these scholarships, please apply here or share this link:

https://airtable.com/appqxO86fh6JpPBNR/shrjMcYbZyuTxhwVH

Scholarship applications must be completed on this form by March 14th, 2024. The scholarship recipients will be selected from the applicant pool by lottery. Applicants may be considered for more than one scholarship if they identify with more than one of the following groups.

Here are the categories of scholarships we’re offering and the number of online conference scholarships available for each:

  • Scholarship for Black and/or Indigenous Creators: This scholarship is open to Black and/or Indigenous creators in the United States and abroad. (quantity: 15 online scholarships)
  • Scholarship for AAPI Creators: This scholarship is available to Asian creators, Asian American creators, and creators from the Pacific Islands. (quantity: 15 online scholarships)
  • Scholarships for Hispanic/Latinx Creators: This scholarship is available to creators with backgrounds in Spanish-speaking and/or Latin American cultures. (quantity: 15 online scholarships)
  • Scholarship for Writers Based Outside of the U.S.: This scholarship is available to creators who live outside the United States. (quantity: 15 online scholarships)
  • Scholarship for members of the LGBTQIA+ Community: This scholarship is available to creators who identify as LGBTQIA+. (quantity: 15 online scholarships)
  • Scholarship for creators with disabilities: This scholarship is available to creators who identify as having a disability. (quantity: 15 online scholarships)
  • Scholarship for creators who face financial barriers: This scholarship is available to creators whose financial situations may otherwise prevent them from participating. (quantity: 15 online scholarships)
  • Scholarship for in-person registration are available in limited quantities for creators who identify with one of our online scholarship groups. This scholarship does not include funds for travel, lodging or other related expenses to attend the conference, only for registration.

Our support of underserved communities isn’t possible without your help. If you are able, please consider making a donation at sfwa.org/donate to help us fund additional scholarships in the future.

We hope to see you at the Nebulas!

The SFWA Events Team

Tanith Lee Announced as 2024 SFWA Infinity Award Recipient

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) is proud to announce the recipient of the 2024 SFWA Infinity Award. In the second presentation of this honor, the organization would like to recognize the works and career of Tanith Lee (1947–2015) at the 59th Annual Nebula Awards® Ceremony on June 8.

 

The SFWA Board voted to create the Infinity Award to posthumously honor acclaimed creators who passed away before they could be considered for a Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award. This new award aims to recognize that even though those celebrated worldbuilders, storytellers, and weavers of words are no longer with us, their legacies will continue to inspire.

SFWA President Jeffe Kennedy remarked, “Tanith Lee was writing combinations of science fiction, fantasy, romance, horror, queerness, and sex long before the current trends. She was a true trailblazer in multiple cross-genres and influenced so many of today’s authors. It’s a sorrow to me that she passed before we could celebrate her as she should have been, but a bittersweet joy to at least be able to give her this honor today.”

Photo: © Daughter of the Night

An aspiring writer from the age of nine, Lee’s first professional sale was “Eustace,” a ninety word vignette which appeared in The Ninth Pan Book Of Horror Stories (1968), edited by Herbert van Thal.

While working as an assistant librarian, Lee wrote a children’s story which was accepted for publication. A number of additional stories were also purchased, but none of them were ever published, due to a slump in the publishing firm’s sales. In 1971, Macmillan published The Dragon Hoard, a children’s novel, followed by Animal Castle, a children’s picture book, and Princess Hynchatti & Some Other Surprises, a short story collection (both 1972).

DAW published The Birthgrave in 1975, beginning a relationship that lasted until 1989 and saw the publication of 28 books altogether. Following the publication of her second and third books from DAW, Don’t Bite The Sun and The Storm Lord (both 1976), Lee quit her day job to become a full-time freelance writer.

Tanith Lee has won or been nominated for a variety of awards, including the World Fantasy Award, the August Derleth Award and the Nebula. She has appeared as Guest of Honour at a number of science fiction conventions, including Boskone XVIII in Boston in 1981, and the 1984 World Fantasy Convention in Ottawa.

Rather than a physical award, SFWA will make a donation to a cause that an Infinity Award honoree supported or that their loved ones request. This year, it has been requested by the family that the donation be split between two charitable causes, Pasadena Humane and the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. 

Nebula Awards Showcase 56 nearing completion

The Nebula Awards Showcase 56 is nearing completion! All contributor contracts have been signed, manuscripts have been edited, and we’re finalizing the cover layout. The last big item on our “to do” list is completing the anthology’s interior graphic design, and then we’ll be ready for publication! (Once this anthology is complete, we’ll be working on the next one in the series!)

James Hosek to Receive 2024 Kevin O’Donnell, Jr. Service to SFWA Award

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) is pleased to announce that the 2024 Kevin O’Donnell, Jr. Service to SFWA Award will be presented to James Hosek at the 59th Annual SFWA Nebula Awards® for his outstanding work on behalf of the organization.

The Service to SFWA Award recognizes a volunteer of SFWA who best exemplifies the ideal of service to their fellow members. In 2012, the award was renamed in honor of author Kevin O’Donnell, who dedicated 20+ years of volunteer service to the organization.

James Hosek, who was known to those in the community as Jim, first volunteered for SFWA as an assistant to the Nebula Awards Commissioner in 2016, helping to vet works on the Nebula Reading List and other tasks as necessary. In 2017, when Dawn Bonnano, then Nebula Awards Commissioner stepped down from the role, Jim Hosek was recommended as a replacement and graciously stepped up and served as SFWA’s Nebula Commissioner for seven years. Jim stepped down from the role in September 2023 due to ill health and passed away on December 3, 2023.

Deputy Executive Director (and former Nebula Award Commissioner) Terra LeMay says about Jim: “It is often the case that SFWA’s programs are driven by volunteers who serve countless hours behind the scenes, and this is certainly true of our Nebula Awards, which depend on the tireless work of the Nebula Awards Commissioner (NAC). Elucidating the positive qualities that made Jim Hosek the perfect NAC—he was hard-working, ethical, level-headed, kind, scrupulously fair, and so much more…—would take far more space than I’ve been granted here. I am honored to have had the opportunity to work with him and glad we were able to notify him of his selection for this award before his passing. He was one of SFWA’s very best.”

For his years of dedication and excellence in undertaking this essential volunteer work for the organization and the SFF community, SFWA is proud to present the 2024 Kevin O’Donnell, Jr. Service to SFWA Award to James Hosek. He will join many distinguished recipients of the award, including Connie Willis, Victoria Strauss, Julia Rios, Bud Sparhawk, Lee Martindale, Vonda McIntyre, and Jim Fiscus.

The award will be presented at the 59th Nebula Awards® Ceremony.

Susan Cooper Named 40th Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) is proud to announce that Susan Cooper has been named the 40th Damon Knight Grand Master for her contributions to the literature of science fiction and fantasy.

Susan Cooper is most recognized for her fantasy sequence for young adults, The Dark is Rising, which has just reached its 50th anniversary. Her other books for children include The Boggart and its sequels, several works of historical fiction, and multiple picture books, most recently The Word Pirates and The Shortest Day in 2019.

Reflecting on the work of the newest Grand Master, SFWA President Jeffe Kennedy shared that “Susan Cooper possesses the rare gift of being able to write for young people with a resonance that endures all through their adult lives. I feel as if The Dark Is Rising books have always been a part of my life. I memorized poems and passages from those books, which I can still recite today. When I first began writing fantasy of my own, I slipped in images and names from her stories in homage and celebration. It’s truly a great honor for me to name Susan Cooper as the 2024 Grand Master, a writer so foundational to the fantasy genre, for both readers and readers who became writers.”

The 40th Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master award will be presented to Susan during the annual SFWA Nebula Conference and the 59th Nebula Awards.

Visit sfwa.org to read the full press release.

Registration for the 2024 Nebula Conference is Open!

Register Here

This year’s Nebula conference will take place at the Westin Pasadena and online! In-person registration includes all online access. With every conference ticket, you can watch and listen to all recorded panels and presentations that took place over the weekend. In addition, you’ll have access to ongoing special events and panels throughout the year, including our Narrative Worlds series, writing dates, and more!

Register for the conference before March 14th to receive our early bird tickets price!

If you or someone you know needs a scholarship to participate in the conference, find more information here.

Suggest Panels for the 2024 Nebula Conference

The Nebulas programming team is collecting proposals for panels and other session ideas!

We rely on submissions to this form to ensure our program is full of content which our community members will find valuable, relevant and interesting. Complete this form to submit your ideas by February 16th for us to consider your panel for the conference!

Have more than one idea? Feel free to share multiple submissions!

Bring Back the Book Bag!

We’re working on bringing back our collectable SFWA bookbag program for in-person conference attendees! If you have any publishing contacts who might be interested in distributing any of your titles your peers, colleagues, agents, and editors in attendance this year, please let us know at events@sfwa.org. The more publishers and authors who participate, the bigger the bag!

See you at the Nebulas!

The SFWA Events Team

2024 Nebula Conference Dates Announced

Join us June 6-9th in Pasadena, California or online! Registration will open soon at events.sfwa.org.

After an exhaustive, cross-country search that involved dozens of hotel proposals, the 2024 Nebula Conference and Awards will be held both in Pasadena California at the Westin and online! The team has already begun preparations and we hope to once again welcome you no matter which way you decide to attend! Registration will be opening soon, but before it does, we’re looking for both programming ideas and for volunteer speakers!

Share Panel Topics and Other Programming Ideas

The Nebulas programming team is collecting proposals for panels and other session ideas! We rely on submissions to this form to ensure our program is full of content which our community members will find valuable, relevant and interesting. Have more than one idea? Feel free to share multiple submissions! Complete this form to submit your ideas!

Volunteer to be a Speaker

The Nebula Conference depends on volunteer speakers to contribute their hard-won experience, professional expertise, and wisdom. If we add you to our list of potential speakers, you will receive a survey in the coming weeks to help match you to a speaking opportunity. Follow these instructions to be considered for our list of potential speakers!

Speakers do not need to be SFWA members, but all speakers must register to attend the conference.

SFWA Nebula Award Nominations Now Open

Full, Associate, and Senior members of SFWA are eligible to submit a nomination ballot for the Nebula Awards. Ballots must be received by the deadline of February 29, 2024 @ 11:59pm Pacific Time.

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