Guest Post: SFWA Changes Entry Criteria for Membership

Here at 101 Reasons, we pride ourselves on bringing you news and opinion about the world of writing, especially the stuff you don't want but have to know. Today we bring you breaking news of particular importance to science fiction writers whose publishing credits are less than stellar. (This is the news that Revolution Science Fiction didn't have the guts to print.)

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SFWA Changes Entry Criteria for Membership
by Edgar Harris

Chesterton, Maryland -- The Science Fiction Writers of America, the long-running organization for professional science fiction and fantasy writers, announced today that it was making drastic changes to how it accepted new members, not to mention how it kept older members within the fold.

"The basic requirements for SFWA membership previously required that a writer have three short stories or one full-length fiction book or a dramatic script appear through professional paying markets," said Caroline Crawford, SFWA spokeswoman. "However, over the late Eighties and early Nineties, we found the organization flooded with members who received their accreditation through sales to Writers of the Future or Pulphouse magazine, and although they never managed to get published again, they had lifetime membership so long as they paid their membership dues.

"So we find ourselves flooded with members who do nothing more than put 'Member, SFWA' on their letterhead and throw tantrums if they don’t get guest badges at local conventions, and voting in SFWA elections against any provisions to remove members unpublished in a decade or more. We had to go to further extremes to enliven the organization and clear out the dead wood."

Those "further extremes" consist of talent competitions completely unrelated to writing. "Simply put," said Ms. Crawford, "any current or incipient member of SFWA must be able to impersonate a cartoon character to the satisfaction of an independently selected jury. No exceptions."

According to the new bylaws of SFWA, each member must be able to impersonate the voice of a particular character in an animated TV show or film, and each character belongs to that author until the author dies or is beaten in impersonation combat.

"Effectively, each fiction writer qualifies for one impersonation. Nonfiction writers get two, and any professional editor gets one to add to his or her total,", said Crawford. "This means that James Arce-Stevens gets one character, while Mike Resnick, being a fiction writer and a pro editor, gets two." Initially, the characters selected would be done on a first-come, first-served basis, but two writers selecting the same character may compete in an arena for that impersonation: the winner remains with SFWA, while the loser has to leave the SF genre entirely unless they have an alternative. "Nonfiction writers get two solely because we can use as many as we can get."

Many extant and former SFWA members jumped on the new rules, with varying results. Harlan Ellison, due to his singular origins (see Harlan Ellison: The Ultimate Literary Warrior Robot), promptly claimed three characters: The Iron Giant, GIR from the Nickelodeon series Invader ZIM, and Bender from Futurama. Said Crawford, "Everybody knows that Harlan goes running around his house on Friday nights impersonating GIR anyway, so this wasn’t too much of a stretch."

Others had more of an effort. "[Former SFWA President] Norman Spinrad and James P. Hogan had a hard time of it, seeing as how they both do an exemplary Olive Oyl, and we needed judges after about three hours. They just wouldn’t break character. Jim finally managed to win, but Mr. Spinrad managed to get back into the game with a Boomhauer impersonation that left us with tears in our eyes. It was just beautiful. It was almost as stunning as Pat Cadigan’s Snow White or Emily Devenport’s Stimpy."

Some new and established writers, unfortunately, found themselves out of SFWA. Kristine Kathryn Rusch, unaware that silent cartoon characters were ineligible for consideration, was quoted as saying "Wait, wait...okay, I’m Odie on Garfield. ...No? Okay, how about Maggie Simpson? Um. How about Claude Cat? Uh, okay, how about Taarna in Heavy Metal? No? Oh, poop." Others found themselves at a decided advantage under the new rules: former Weird Tales editor Darrell Schweitzer expressed his opposition to the plan at last year’s World Fantasy Convention, and was allowed in due to his impassioned and incessant cries of "Timmah!"

Other characters were retired without consideration due to the authors’ reputation. "Fritz Leiber used to do an impeccable Fleischer-era Superman, and ever since he died, everyone else left it alone out of respect for him and his work," said Crawford. Other characters were left alone due to the nasty reputation of the author. "Even though he has no interest in joining SFWA, and we wouldn’t take him if he asked, Paul T. Riddell is known for his Beavis, Zorak [from Space Ghost: Coast To Coast], and Mr. Hanky the Christmas Poo. And they’re right up his alley, so he can have them."

Likewise, some non-American members of SFWA are understandably aggrieved that some of their cultural icons may be appropriated by Americans, and others feel that the battle for impersonations should cross international barriers. On the Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.sf.written, one angry commentator wrote "I don’t have any problems with Brian Aldiss and Andrew Dennis getting Dangermouse and Penfold, respectively, but why does Robert Sawyer get both Terrance and Phillip? What if I can do a better Phillip?" The particulars on the competition, and whether impersonations worked alone or in conjunction with automatic weapons, was not available at press time.

Whatever happens, most members of SFWA agreed that it’s high time for the membership rules change. One SFWA member, who wished to remain unnamed, said: "The way things were going, just about anyone who wrote for a Buffy fanzine could get in, and some people were talking about a cull. You know, Thunderdome. This is better, though, because everyone knows I do a better Daffy Duck than anyone else alive. And since H.P. Lovecraft isn’t here any more to challenge me, that means I’m set."

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Edgar Harris is the former Sports Editor of Science Fiction Age magazine. He now writes a regular column on carnivorous plants for the leading alternative gardening magazine, Mondo Horto.

News: International Slushpile Bonfire Day a 'Blazing' Success

By Stephen Jayson Harris 

Times Square: Crowds gather as thousands of rejected manuscripts are publicly incinerated.

New York (31 May) -- The city's publishing establishment came together this evening in Times Square to celebrate International Slushpile Bonfire Day, an annual festival to purge the industry's ever-growing backlog of unpublishable manuscripts. New York's literary elite mingled with industry professionals to swap stories of the worst of the worst writing to come over the transom, while truckloads of paper holding the creative output of thousands of untalented writers were dumped into a prescribed area and ignited.

NY-based literary agent Samantha Nark, co-organizer of tonight's bonfire, explained the purpose of the event: "Every year the publishing industry is deluged with unsolicited manuscripts, far more than even a motivated human could read in a lifetime. A very few are great works of literature that you'd be delighted to read, and that we're proud to champion into print. But unfortunately, there's always some so stultifyingly bad that you want to un-read them. Every one of these turd pastries I have to read robs me of a little piece of my soul, and they outnumber the great stuff by a ratio of ten to one. International Slushpile Bonfire Day is our chance, as a group, to reclaim some of the sanity we've lost to this puerile dross."

An estimated fifteen thousand manuscripts were consumed in this year's bonfire -- a new record, claimed Miss Nark. "This represents the absolute bottom of a very deep barrel, the sediment of a two hundred and fifty postal days of slushpiles across the city being emptied and refilled. This is the stuff even the shredders won't touch. But the fire does not judge them for their confused and inconsistent tone, language, style and genre, their utter lack of plot, theme, characterization, or emotion, or the absence of any redeeming moral, educational or entertainment value. The fire cares only for the quality of the paper."

Agents and editors in attendance at tonight's event all requested anonymity when interviewed, citing fear of reprisals from unpublished authors.

"Officially, we support everyone who chooses writing as their form of artistic expression, and feel privileged to have the opportunity to help guide their work into print," said literary agent and industry veteran Kirby McCauley of the Pimlico Agency. "Unofficially, and off the record, some of the stuff in that pile was redrafted by being eaten, washed down with tabasco and vindaloo, then excreted onto fresh paper. My agency has had a full client list since I don't remember when, but we still get this putrescence by the barrowload. The kind of person who refuses to correctly interpret 'No unsolicited submissions' is not going to take it well if they find out their precious manuscript was evaluated by a marshmallow on a stick."

Charles Ardai, editor of Hard Case Crime, agrees. "Unpubs, as we call them, are a fickle lot at the best of times, but some of them are downright psychotic. They either think that their book is the best thing written since the Bible -- sometimes including the Bible -- and we should lick their boots for letting us read it, or they think it's a pile of garbage too awful to be read quietly in a roomful of dead dogs, but they still expect us to read every damn word of it and reply with encouraging platitudes. If any of them knew I was here torching their babies, I can't imagine the volume of nasty letters, emails, voicemails and conference accostings I'd get. I mean honestly, what part of 'Hard Case Crime' suggests we'd be interested in a passionate love story between two middle-aged greengrocers on a cooking holiday in Tuscany? I started a retro-themed crime imprint specifically because I never wanted to read the phrase 'gay Hobbit' in a query letter."

Author Tom Wolfe was on hand to chronicle the event for the New Yorker. "I call this event the 'Bonfire of the Inanities'. My editor told me that if it didn't have 'by Tom Wolfe' on it, my last novel would've ended up here.'

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Stephen Jayson Harris covers the New York literary scene for Guns & Ammo magazine. He once mailed himself to Random House to test their response time to unsolicited submissions. He was returned unopened.

Breaking News: First ISBD Reports

Wellington, New Zealand: WETA Workshop, the special effects company behind the Lord of the Rings film trilogy and the recent King Kong remake, have constructed a "bigature" scale model of Mount Doom from over three thousand pounds of unsolicited fanfic and slash manuscripts their office has collected over the last five years.

"We appreciate the passion with which fans of Tolkein's books have embraced our films, and our merchandise," said WETA representative and Academy Award-winning effects supervisor Richard Taylor. "But our work on Lord of the Rings has long since ceased, and we have no practical use for stories exploring the sexual dynamics of a love triangle between Arwen, Grima Wormtongue and Sting the sword. I mean, even if the copyright issues could be resolved, Peter [Jackson] is too busy to make a seven minute erotic fantasy film. And I don't want to spend my days gluing a prosthetic penis to Brad Dourif."

"We copped a lot of flak from the hard-core fans about the liberties we took with Tolkein's story," said screenwriter Fran Walsh. "But that doesn't mean we need hundreds of full-length screenplays showing us how we should have handled it. We are just not going to reshoot the movie with Danny de Vito as Sam Gamgee, or to retell the story from the orc's point of view. "

The photorealistic model of Mount Doom will be lit at 8pm this evening. Rings director Peter Jackson will be on hand to supervise the burn, and to film some pick-up shots for the upcoming SuperUltraMegaWeta DVD boxset re-release of the film trilogy.

News #1: Local Man Has Great Idea For a Novel

Since I've been unable to update 101 Reasons on a regular basis recently, an old friend has kindly offered to help out, allowing me to post his news articles about writing and publishing a few hours before they hit the wire service.

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Local Man Has Great Idea For a Novel
by Stephen Jayson Harris
15 March 2007 0831 AEDT

Brooklyn, N.Y. -- Jeffrey "Jeffty" Talese announced today that he had what he described as a "really terrific idea for a novel", and was seeking a publisher to bring his idea to bookstores.

"I reckon it's a sure-fire bestseller," said Talese. "I've got about a page of notes so far, and there's more where that came from if someone comes up with the right number."

When asked where he got his idea, Talese initially declined to answer, stating that "the Creative Muse is a fickle little bitch." He went on to explain the circumstances of his inspiration: "Me and my wife were arguing about what movie to watch the other night. The kids wanted to watch Harry Potter and the Something-Something on Fire, and Janey wanted to watch The Da Vinci Code, 'cause she likes that Tom Hanks. Me, I wanted Dead or Alive, but I could see that wasn't going to happen. So anyways, Janey says both movies used to be books, and that they made like a gazillion dollars off of them. So I gots to thinking, and then it just came to me. And now I want my gazillion dollars, on one of them big checks." 

Literary agent Samantha Nark is offering to represent Talese's idea. "With the amount of queries I receive every day from publishing hopefuls just like Jeffty, it usually takes months just to respond. But Jeffty played it smart, ignored all the 'submission guidelines' we just use to weed out the gullible, and called me directly to pitch the idea. I was like 'Whoa, where do I sign up!' I mean, this idea's got guaranteed-super-ultra-mega-seller written all over it. I've already ordered a yacht."

When asked to comment on the idea, Nark said, "Oh, he didn't tell me the whole idea. Jeffty's too smart for that. He's keeping quiet about everything after the first act, because he's worried about people stealing the idea. I totally respect that. But what he's told me, well, it's kinda new and different, but really familiar, like a book you've already read. Originality is so out right now. Honestly, it's gonna sell itself, but I'd be real happy about making fifteen percent of a gazillion dollars, especially for doing almost nothing."

Judy Regal, senior editor at publishing company Fandom House, admitted that she has seen most of the idea, and that her company is bidding "in the neighborhood of a gazillion" for the publishing rights. "Talese has done a brilliant job of sidestepping all the hurdles, catch-22's and general BS the publishing industry has spent a hundred years developing to make the submission process impossibly hard. I mean, you would not believe how many people write an entire novel before sending it to us. What a waste of time! We have monkeys to do that. People only skim-read these days anyway. You think anyone in Hollywood reads the whole book before they drop a B-52 full of cash for the movie rights?"

Bestselling author Stephen King thinks Talese is onto something. "Writing a novel is a really long, boring process. I can only write four or five a year, and I write a few hours every freaking day. It's like a part-time job. I used to blow my entire advance on cocaine, just to stop from falling asleep at the keyboard. Now we've got the Internet, and I've got six monitors on my desk showing baseball and porn twenty-four-seven, and it's still boring as hell. If it weren't for the gazillions of dollars they keep bringing to the house in dumptrucks, I don't think I'd bother any more."

But author James Patterson says this is nothing new. "I haven't written a word of original fiction since 1993. I just take an idea -- it doesn't have to be mine -- write it down on the back of my IHOP breakfast receipt, fax it to my agent, and that afternoon there's a suitcase of diamonds on the doorstep."

Talese's family and friends are ecstatic at the news of his impending success. His grandmother, Jemima "Nan" Talese, says Jeffty was a born storyteller. "When Jeffty was five, he used to tell lots of stories. His teachers called them lies, but where are they now? Do they have an idea for a bestseller?"

Although Talese says he's "still counting the zeroes on the offers" and hasn't released details of the idea, online bookseller Amazon.com is already taking advance orders for a book titled Frankie Porter and the Burning Grail of Fire. The synopsis reads:

Frankie Porter thought he was an ordinary kid, until a mysterious albino told him he was the last descendent of Jesus. Now he must attend Father Hoggarts Seminary of Holy Warriory, to prepare for his destiny: fighting the threat of world domination from creepy historian Phil D. Mort.

Talese admits he still has work to do before the idea is complete. "Last night I really wasn't sure who the bad guy should be, and what to do about the ending. But then Janey rented the new version of The Omen. And it just came to me."

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Stephen Jayson Harris has been writing about the publishing industry since his first novel, The Eyes That Blind, was rejected by 157 publishers, six college professors and thirteen hot poetry chicks. He covered local industry news and book signings for the Weehawken Gazette before his exposé on the abuse of publicists by touring bestselling authors received national attention. He went on to pioneer the "pre-emptive review", now a widely used technique. His in-depth reviews of emotional self-help books are syndicated worldwide, although he has been banned from re-converting to Judaism any more. He is currently writing a book about the Judith Regan/OJ Simpson scandal, entitled She Did It!