Why did Tuttle refuse her Nebula?
Stevens R. Miller
I learned today that Lisa Tuttle was to have been given the
Nebula award (Best Short Story) in 1981, for "The Bone Flute,"
and that she declined to accept it. Anyone know why?
--
Stevens R. Miller http://www.interport.net/~lex/
Mark Stackpole
Stevens R. Miller wrote:
>
> I learned today that Lisa Tuttle was to have been given the
> Nebula award (Best Short Story) in 1981, for "The Bone Flute,"
> and that she declined to accept it. Anyone know why?
It was in protest of the SFWA (the governing body of the Nebula awards)
ex-communicating Stanislaw Lem from their ranks on account of some
opinions Lem voiced on the literary merit of his fellow members' works.
Mark Stackpole
Gary Farber
Geoffrey A. Landis (geoffre...@lerc.nasa.gov) wrote:
<snip>
: (2) SFWA never excommunicated Stanislaw Lem from their ranks. They did,
: however, stop giving him a free membership after his books started
: selling in the U.S. well enough that he had western currency to pay for a
: membership. Lem refused to pay for a membership, and when an anonymous
: SF writer volunteered to pay for his SFWA membership, he refused.
: If you have a reference which states a different story, it would be
: interesting to see it posted.
The above is accurate, but it shouldn't fall out of history that the
trigger for revocation of Lem's "honorary" SFWA membership was indeed that
some members were ticked off by some of Lem's opinions after some of his
letters and essays contemptuously dismissing wide swathes of American sf
were published in English. He was, of course, free to join SFWA on his
own.
Sources? My memory from the time, and numerous articles and letters by
all concerned in various publications, fanzines, and the SFWA FORUM.
--
-- Gary Farber gfa...@panix.com
Copyright (c) 1996 Brooklyn, NY, USA
David Langford
>I learned today that Lisa Tuttle was to have been given the
>Nebula award (Best Short Story) in 1981, for "The Bone Flute,"
>and that she declined to accept it. Anyone know why?
One version of her public statement is quoted in Ansible #25 ...
http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/SF-Archives/Ansible/Ansible.25
--
David Langford
ans...@cix.compulink.co.uk
Geoffrey A. Landis
In article <31EFC3...@oclc.org> Mark Stackpole,
Mark_St...@oclc.org writes:
>Stevens R. Miller wrote:
>>
>> I learned today that Lisa Tuttle was to have been given the
>> Nebula award (Best Short Story) in 1981, for "The Bone Flute,"
>> and that she declined to accept it. Anyone know why?
>It was in protest of the SFWA (the governing body of the Nebula awards)
>ex-communicating Stanislaw Lem from their ranks on account of some
>opinions Lem voiced on the literary merit of his fellow members' works.
(1) If it was, this is the first I've heard about it. It certainly
wasn't the reason she publically stated, which is that she was protesting
the fact that some of the publishers sent out free copies of stories to
the SFWA members, while other stories were not sent out, something which
she considered made the voting process unfair.
(2) SFWA never excommunicated Stanislaw Lem from their ranks. They did,
however, stop giving him a free membership after his books started
selling in the U.S. well enough that he had western currency to pay for a
membership. Lem refused to pay for a membership, and when an anonymous
SF writer volunteered to pay for his SFWA membership, he refused.
If you have a reference which states a different story, it would be
interesting to see it posted.
____________________________________________
Geoffrey A. Landis,
Ohio Aerospace Institute at NASA Lewis Research Center
physicist and part-time science fiction writer
Stevens R. Miller
Mark Stackpole wrote:
> Stevens R. Miller wrote:
> > I learned today that Lisa Tuttle was to have been given the
> > Nebula award (Best Short Story) in 1981, for "The Bone Flute,"
> > and that she declined to accept it. Anyone know why?
> It was in protest of the SFWA (the governing body of the Nebula awards)
> ex-communicating Stanislaw Lem from their ranks...
Upon the advice of Elizabeth Willey, I have read the "Ansible" accounts
of this event. Ansible reports that Tuttle was unhappy about the efforts
some people were making to campaign for particular nominees. George R.R.
Martin is also quoted, in qualified support of Tuttle's right to make her
objections known and to withdraw her story (though he is further quoted
to the effect that he did not agree with her decision to use those rights).
Nothing about Lem appears in the "Ansible" accounts.
Further Web searches by me yielded nothing else.
Jerry K. Bush
"Stevens R. Miller" <l...@interport.net> wrote:
>Mark Stackpole wrote:
>> Stevens R. Miller wrote:
This is all from memory, so my facts may not be 100%. At that time, I
was attending high school in a small logging community in Western
Washington state. I discovered that a professional science fiction
writer was substitute teaching an English Composition class for a
teacher who was on leave for an extended period so I transferred into
the class. There I learned the rudiments of short story writing,
professional manuscript format, etc. The relevance? That substitute
teacher was George Guthridge, whose story "The Quiet" was up for that
same nebula. (I got to go to Frank Catalano's apt. in Seattle to help
fold, staple and address ballots for that award. Heady stuff for a
sixteen-year-old-small-town-fan.) Ed Ferman offered to send
photocopies of the story to the SFWA membership if Guthridge would
make them and send them to him. Afterward, George heard that two
other stories from F&SF were nominated, so he figured that was that.
But Ferman told him to send them anyway, and he'd make the same offer
to the other two. One of whom was Ms. Tuttle. She lived in the UK,
so the postage cost was prohibitive. However, just two months before
the deadline for the final ballot to be returned, Locus printed a
letter from Ms. Tuttle mis-characterizing Mr. Ferman's offer and
accusing Mr. Guthridge of being less-than-upstanding in his
promotional efforts. Unfortunately, a snafu at Locus caused Mr.
Guthridge's reply to miss the last issue before the voting deadline.
(And I wish I had the issue with the letter, but Locus was like the
Grail then. A legendary, hard-to-find thing. At least for this
small-town fan.) And Ms. Tuttle's story just barely beat Mr.
Guthridge's in the voting for the award. A margin slim enough to be
attributed to the misleading letter. In the ensuing controversy, she
chose to withdraw her story from consideration. All-in-all, a pretty
snotty performance on her part, IMNSHO. Discouraged and
disillussioned with the SF field over this, Mr. Guthridge went to
Alaska to pursue an excellent teaching career. Writing only an
occasional story. Though recently I see he has had the novel "Child
of Light" (in collaboration with Janet Berliner, and part one of a
trilogy) published by White Wolf. It's been a sore point with me that
Ms. Tuttle's politicking cost the field several years work from a very
talented writer who mentored a small-town SF fan.
BTW- Is there a US mirror for that Ansible article? The UK server
won't respond. And I would like to read it.
Daren Bush (still-aspiring writer)
Lawrence Watt-Evans
In article <4sp9c0$2...@panix2.panix.com>, gfa...@panix.com says...>: (2) SFWA never excommunicated Stanislaw Lem from their ranks. They did,
>: however, stop giving him a free membership after his books started
>: selling in the U.S. well enough that he had western currency to pay for a
>: membership. Lem refused to pay for a membership, and when an anonymous
>: SF writer volunteered to pay for his SFWA membership, he refused.
>
>trigger for revocation of Lem's "honorary" SFWA membership was indeed that
>some members were ticked off by some of Lem's opinions after some of his
>letters and essays contemptuously dismissing wide swathes of American sf
>were published in English. He was, of course, free to join SFWA on his
>own.
This isn't entirely accurate, either.
The category of honorary member in SFWA was invented specifically for J.R.R.
Tolkien, so that SFWA could induct him and support him in his campaign
against Ace's pirate edition of THE LORD OF THE RINGS. As written, honorary
membership can ONLY be granted to someone who isn't eligible for an ordinary
Active membership, which requires professional publication in the U.S.
Tolkien had, at that time, not yet published in the U.S. except in the
aforementioned Ace editions, for which he was not paid.
As soon as the Ballantine edition made him eligible, Tolkien dropped his
honorary membership and became an Active member, and stayed one until he
died.
Once the category of honorary membership existed, it was also given to a
couple of other folks, including Lem, who at the time had not been published
in English.
When he WAS published in English, shortly thereafter, no one noticed that
something should be done about it.
When he published a long article in German in STERN (NOT in English) in
which he denounced American SF in general, and specifically dismissed SFWA
as a bunch of hacks spouting capitalist propaganda at the behest of their
masters in the corporate war machine, someone spotted it, pointed it out to
the officers of SFWA, and asked, "Why are we giving this guy an honorary
membership?"
Much debate ensued, and finally someone pointed out that Lem was no longer
eligible for an honorary membership. This was clearly the case, and also
settled the whole argument nicely; he was sent a polite communication
informing him of the rules and asking whether he'd like to switch to an
Active membership. He didn't.
He was apparently under the impression, by the way -- going by his article
and his letters elsewhere -- that SFWA was the U.S. equivalent of the Soviet
Writers Union, i.e., a government-sponsored organization that regulated what
got published by whom. There's no evidence that he ever understood anything
at all about SFWA or U.S. science fiction. After Poland gave up Communism
and he was able to actually see a bit more western SF, he recanted at least
a small part of what he'd said.
And none of this had ANYTHING to do with Lisa Tuttle.
--
For information on Lawrence Watt-Evans, finger -l lawr...@clark.net
or see The Misenchanted Page at http://www.greyware.com/authors/LWE/
The Horror Writers Association Page is at http://www.horror.org/HWA/
Lawrence Watt-Evans
In article <7147cc$b341b.1c3@MYCROFT>, bush...@olywa.net says...
>
>
>This is all from memory, so my facts may not be 100%.
They're pretty damn close. This is very much as I remember it, though
slightly slanted to favor Guthridge, who, frankly, probably would have
lost to Tuttle anyway. I voted for "The Bone Flute" BEFORE I found out
there was any sort of dispute under way, and I doubt I'm unique; it was
the best story up that year.
> Discouraged and
>disillussioned with the SF field over this, Mr. Guthridge went to
>Alaska to pursue an excellent teaching career.
Oh, that wasn't his ONLY reason.
Much as I admire Guthridge's writing, and though I find him to be a
generally sensible person, it's been my impression that he tends to be a
bit hyper-sensitive about some issues, including awards. I believe the
Nebula mess was just one item in a long list.
John Boston
In article <31F085...@interport.net>, "Stevens R. Miller"
<l...@interport.net> writes: > Mark Stackpole wrote:
>
> > Stevens R. Miller wrote:
>
> > > I learned today that Lisa Tuttle was to have been given the
> > > Nebula award (Best Short Story) in 1981, for "The Bone Flute,"
> > > and that she declined to accept it. Anyone know why?
>
> > It was in protest of the SFWA (the governing body of the Nebula awards)
> > ex-communicating Stanislaw Lem from their ranks...
>
> Upon the advice of Elizabeth Willey, I have read the "Ansible" accounts
> of this event. Ansible reports that Tuttle was unhappy about the efforts
> some people were making to campaign for particular nominees. George R.R.
> Martin is also quoted, in qualified support of Tuttle's right to make her
> objections known and to withdraw her story (though he is further quoted
> to the effect that he did not agree with her decision to use those rights).
>
> Nothing about Lem appears in the "Ansible" accounts.
>
> Further Web searches by me yielded nothing else.
If memory serves, it was Ursula K. Le Guin who withdrew her excellent story
"The Diary of the Rose" from the Nebula ballot as a result of the Lem dispute.
Although the latter was supposedly just a correction of a rules violation, the
circumstances and timing suggested to many at the time that it was actually
prompted by US publication of some of Lem's unflattering remarks about
American sf. I believe Le Guin expressed that view, though I am relying on
some rather hazy recollections at this point.
John Boston
Chuck Rothman
>
> >> Stevens R. Miller wrote:
>
> >> > I learned today that Lisa Tuttle was to have been given the
> >> > Nebula award (Best Short Story) in 1981, for "The Bone Flute,"
> >> > and that she declined to accept it. Anyone know why?
>
> This is all from memory, so my facts may not be 100%.
Your account was generally accurate, but Tuttle withdrew her story from
consideration as soon as she heard that Gutheridge's story had been sent
out. She felt that mailing out the stories was a form of campaigning
that SFWAns shouldn't be involved in. However, sice there was no
mechanism to withdraw the story after the final ballot was mailed out,
THE BONE FLUTE remained on the ballot.
I don't believe Tuttle specifically criticized Gutheridge or Ferman
directly; merely objecting to the fact that stories were sent out at all.
Note that for the rest of the time Ferman edited F&SF, it won few
Nebulas, since, after being burned by this, he did not mail out the
nominated stories (one exception was Nancy Kress's "Out of All Them
Bright Stars," but in that case, the book publisher sent out copies of
the story). Asimov's and Omni, OTOH, sent out every one of their
nominees during that period and dominated the Nebulas.
As for the Stanislaw Lem case:
For a variety of reasons, SFWA gave Lem an honorary (i.e., free)
membership. At one point, though, Lem said that he wasn't that
interested in SFWA and thought little of the organization and its
members. Several big name SFWA members got indignant; these were people
who supported the organization over and above the call of duty and didn't
see where Lem got off, especially since he was given a free ride. The
SFWA president (I think it was Jerry Pournelle) reread the bylaws and
discovered that 1) honorary memberships were to be given only to those
who did not qualify under the regular rules of membership and 2) Lem,
having had his books published in the U.S., qualified under the regular
rules. Therefore, Lem's honorary membership was withdrawn, though he was
welcome to join as an active member and pay his regular dues. Lem did
not.
So, technically, the honorary membership was given by mistake and the
mistake rectified. In reality, it was in reaction to a perceived insult,
and, the president (quite rightly) didn't want to anger the people who
helped build SFWA and who the organization depended on.
--
Chuck Rothman
http://www.sff.net/people/Rothman/
Join Albacon '96! E-mail for info.
Robert J. Sawyer
> Lisa Tuttle declined to accept [her Nebula Award].
Geoff Landis is right. Lisa Tuttle was interviewed a couple of years
ago on the "Awards" installment of TVOntario's series about science
fiction, "Prisoners of Gravity." She explained that she felt it was
unfair that one author had gotten his publisher to do a mailing of his
competing short story to the whole SFWA membership. These days, such
mail-outs are routine. Tuttle was absolutely charming and very
good-humored about the whole thing during the interview, by the way.
|------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| R O B E R T J . S A W Y E R | http://www.sff.net/people/sawyer/ |
|------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| NEBULA AWARD Winner and 1996 HUGO Finalist for THE TERMINAL EXPERIMENT |
| (Look for it in the FICTION section if you can't find it in SF) |
|------------------------------------------------------------------------|
Stevens R. Miller
Mike Berro wrote:
> Awards in general have the advantage of being good PR for the genre,
> and the disadvantage of being based (more or less) on politics rather
> than merit. (IMHO) I have never let them influence my reading
> decisions, but I'm sure others have.
My thanks to everyone, particularly Elizabeth Willey, who responded to
my original question. Remarkably, I believe the net (and the net alone)
has provided me with as much solid info on this event as I could use.
Remember these days, my friends; we are at the dawn of a new age, and
our children will want to know what it was like.
Mike's speculation raises another interesting question: how much do
the Hugo and Nebula awards influence reading choices? At one time, I
read as many of the compilations of the award winners as a I could
find. Today, I'm not so driven about it, but I still look to these
two awards for guidance on the best and the current.
What do others think? Do you give a damn if a piece won one award or
the other? Do you have a preference? (I tend to think of the Nebula
as the index of literary merit, the Hugo as the index of diversionary
merit.)
Mike Berro
Software awards are now preceded by mass mailings of product to the
voting membership (a nice perk.) Entertainment awards are preceded by
mass advertisements in the trades.
Awards in general have the advantage of being good PR for the genre,
and the disadvantage of being based (more or less) on politics rather
than merit. (IMHO) I have never let them influence my reading
decisions, but I'm sure others have.
---Mike
Monty Ashley
"Stevens R. Miller" <l...@interport.net> wrote:
>What do others think? Do you give a damn if a piece won one award or
>the other? Do you have a preference? (I tend to think of the Nebula
>as the index of literary merit, the Hugo as the index of diversionary
>merit.)
Only to the extent that, if I haven't read any of the nominees, I
assume I haven't been paying enough attention that year. And if I
haven't *heard* of any of the nominees, I assume I must have been
doing something else at the conventions.
-Monty Ashley
Al von Ruff
Stevens R. Miller (l...@interport.net) wrote:
: Mike Berro wrote:
:
: > Awards in general have the advantage of being good PR for the genre,
: > and the disadvantage of being based (more or less) on politics rather
: > than merit. (IMHO) I have never let them influence my reading
: > decisions, but I'm sure others have.
: My thanks to everyone, particularly Elizabeth Willey, who responded to
: my original question. Remarkably, I believe the net (and the net alone)
: has provided me with as much solid info on this event as I could use.
: Remember these days, my friends; we are at the dawn of a new age, and
: our children will want to know what it was like.
:
: Mike's speculation raises another interesting question: how much do
: the Hugo and Nebula awards influence reading choices? At one time, I
: read as many of the compilations of the award winners as a I could
: find. Today, I'm not so driven about it, but I still look to these
: two awards for guidance on the best and the current.
: What do others think? Do you give a damn if a piece won one award or
: the other? Do you have a preference? (I tend to think of the Nebula
: as the index of literary merit, the Hugo as the index of diversionary
: merit.)
My obsession with finding Hugo/Nebula winning stories led to me creating
lists, which led to a small awards database, which led to a books database,
which led to ...
Aberrant behavior beside, I don't think that a specific award win leads
me to read a particular work anymore. I read enough reviews that I'm
usually ahead of the curve these days, reading the good stuff before it
becomes nominated.
A more important effect for the awards is name recognition. Even if a
Hugo win or nomination doesn't compel you to rush out and buy a
particular work, it *does* familiarize you with the author's name.
Take an author like Geoffrey A. Landis; he concentrates on the
short story, publishing high-quality short fiction in magazines and
anthologies - and has never published a novel or collection that I am
aware of. I didn't really notice Landis' work until he began
to accumulate award nominations and wins. Other authors that I bumped
into in this fashion were: Maureen F. McHugh, Jack Cady, Terry Bisson,
Lucius Shepard, and Howard Waldrop.
If an author accumulates a couple of nominations a year for a couple of
years, someone is going to see their name while browsing the bookshelves,
and think: "Hmmm, maybe I ought to check this author out."
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Al von Ruff avon...@prairienet.org
Speculative Fiction Database: http://www.cu-online.com/~avonruff/sfdbase.html
Loki
In ashen ink, Mike Berro (mi...@massmedia.com) inscribed:
: Software awards are now preceded by mass mailings of product to the
: voting membership (a nice perk.) Entertainment awards are preceded by
: mass advertisements in the trades.
That's great, as long as it's applied across the board. From the little
reading I did, it sounded like Tuttle was displeased with the mass
mailing of one piece.
- Loki
--
+------------------+----------------------------------------------+
| Geoffrey Wiseman | http://tdg.uoguelph.ca/~ontarion/users/geoff |
+------------------+----------------------------------------------+
"It was the day my grandmother exploded. I sat in the crematorium,
listening to my Uncle Hamish quietly snoring in harmony to Bach's
Mass in B Minor and I reflected that it always seemed to be death
that drew me back to Gallanach."
Loki
: more likely (even a little) to win an award. As usual, I do NOT have
: a solution.
Well, in the case of making sure the voters get a chance to see all the
items, that makes perfect sense. That is, if you're an SFWA member and
didn't see all the short stories that are up for vote, you might not have
an easy time of finding t hem to read if they aren't sent to you.
If you don't read a story, you'll vote for something else that you have read.
I think it would be good for voters to receive a simple, non-advertising
copy (that is, not three pages of promo with each story) of the works
up for vote, to give them a -chance- to read them, at least.
However, if the process isn't universal, it seems unfair.
Mike Berro
>: voting membership (a nice perk.) Entertainment awards are preceded by
>: mass advertisements in the trades.
>That's great, as long as it's applied across the board. From the little
>reading I did, it sounded like Tuttle was displeased with the mass
>mailing of one piece.
No, it's not across the board in either software or entertainment;
it's up to the publisher/studio to determine how much money to spend
on giving out product or advertising.
I think it's a darned shame that spending more money makes something
more likely (even a little) to win an award. As usual, I do NOT have
a solution.
---Mike
Gary Farber
Lawrence Watt-Evans (lawr...@clark.net) wrote:
: In article <4sp9c0$2...@panix2.panix.com>, gfa...@panix.com says...
: >Geoffrey A. Landis (geoffre...@lerc.nasa.gov) wrote:
: ><snip>
: >: (2) SFWA never excommunicated Stanislaw Lem from their ranks. They did,
: >: however, stop giving him a free membership after his books started
: >: selling in the U.S. well enough that he had western currency to pay for a
: >: membership. Lem refused to pay for a membership, and when an anonymous
: >: SF writer volunteered to pay for his SFWA membership, he refused.
: >
: >The above is accurate, but it shouldn't fall out of history that the
: >trigger for revocation of Lem's "honorary" SFWA membership was indeed that
: >some members were ticked off by some of Lem's opinions after some of his
: >letters and essays contemptuously dismissing wide swathes of American sf
: >were published in English. He was, of course, free to join SFWA on his
: >own.
: This isn't entirely accurate, either.
<snip>
You gave a very fine expanded version of the history here, Lawrence, for
which I thank you, but I'm not clear as to what was inaccurate about my
addendum to Geoffrey's post.