Russel Davis’ platform for SFWA president placed a lot of emphasis on re-structuring and getting the organization internally into shape. That restucturing and revamping is coming along, as can be seen from his post to the sfwa livejournal community.

I see they put a lot of thought into redoing the Bulletin. From the little I’ve seen of it, that’s a good thing. It’s a cute little mag, if a bit biased to SF over Fantasy, but some interesting and useful items. The new proposal looks very good though, and the Bulletin’s website has also had a facelift. They’ll be going bi-monthly, rather than quarterly, and the broader focus in coverage can be only a good thing.

One of the handiest things of the Bulletin (in theory, in reality it comes too late) is Cynthia Ward’s Market Reports. If you scroll down the Bulletin’s website front page, you’ll see them. In that horrid pdf format, true, but click on it and take a look. It contains information on what’s happening in the markets world — new markets, new competitions, updated contact information, markets that are dead or closed.

Useful; and in future it will be posted to the website on a regular basis so I’d recommend writers mark it as a regular stop.

On a more amusing note:

back when I was first approached about taking the Nebsite gig and talking to Michael Capobianco to make sure we had the same goals in mind, I spent a lot of time thinking about what I wanted to do, things I thought were worth attempting.

I had one idea in particular that I thought could be problematic to pass. But I did need the consent of the Board and the co-operation of a couple of relevant SFWA personnel. So last week I finally sat down and wrote up an entire novella, stating my argument. I even had backup arguments prepared, just in cases*.

well, there was no opposition to the idea, actually a couple of good suggestions as to how we should do it.

the amusing part? well, scrolling through the forums end of the week, I caught some of the info on the revamped Bulletin and…the same idea. A little different in execution but exactly the same: taking the NAR public, in modified form.

(no number of votes, no names of who recommended it, only title, author and relevant link).

Man, if I’d known others were thinking along similar lines, it would have spared me like an hour of preparing the Book of Argument…

I’m looking for experts (or at least people familiar with) folklore and mythology of different nations and cultures:

Australian; New Zealand Maori; Aztec; Inca; Mayan; Olmec; Russian; Hindu; Chinese; Japanese; Korean; Sumerian; Hittite; Native American, etc.

Anything outside the too familiar Roman, Greek, Egyptian or Scandinavian.

If you know someone – or are that someone – please ask them to contact me or let me know so I can get in touch.

Thanks.

*as seen on Love Actually.

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Tags: competitions, cynthia ward, facelift, fantasy, information markets, livejournal, michael capobianco, NAR, Nebula awards website, proposal, revamping, russel davis, SFWA