The 2026 Nebula Awards Conference was fantastic. I attended with my brother Phil. I had driven in a few days ago and spent several days with him before we traveled together to the conference. At the conference, I had only minimal obligations so I could spend most of my time attending the programming and hanging out with Phil. It was equal parts relaxing, interesting, and inspiring. It makes me want to get home so I can start spending more time writing.
The conference was held in the O’hare Crowne Plaza in Rosemont, near Chicago. The hotel was comfortable. There were a lot of stairs, but ramps had been constructed to allow bypassing them in a number of places. There wasn’t really any comfortable place to hang out outdoors at the hotel, which was a little annoying to me since I need to take my meals outdoors to unmask to eat. Phil and I found a “garden patio” which, although it didn’t have any seating, did have a small section of halfwall where we could sit to eat.
There was also an “entertainment district” only 0.3 miles away with a bunch of restaurants with outdoor seating. We visited several times. Crust Brewing, a brewpub had really good thin crust pizza and Fat Rosies served excellent margaritas. There were several other places that looked amazing too. But it was a little too far away to get there and back between program events, so we could only go there a few times.
On Wednesday, I spent the entire day attending a SFWA Board Retreat and Meeting. I spent the entire day taking careful notes of the meeting. I never fail to be impressed by the insight and varied perspectives that our board members bring to the issues. I can confidently say that it’s the best board I’ve ever served on.
On Thursday, the conference proper began and I attended two panels and served on a third. Historical Perspective: the Evolving world in SFF brought Joe Haldeman and Jonathan Brazee, moderated by Dean Wells to discuss the phases of development of speculative fiction. Anthony Eichenlaub moderated a panel with Greg Kasavin, a Nebula finalist to discuss the role of worldbuilding and story in creating engaging games. Finally, I served on an Ask the SFWA Board panel where we introduced ourselves to the membership and let people ask us questions.
On Thursday evening, we attended a reception to recognize volunteers. The president called up each volunteer to receive a surferticket and gave people an opportunity to make a brief statement. She asked me to say something that people didn’t know about me, so I said, “Mi parolas Esperanton.” A guy heard me and found me after the reception to talk about Esperanto. He’d started learning and was excited to hear I had some books of Esperanto haiku in the book service.
On Friday, I attended three panels. The first was about diverse sexuality in worldbuilding for speculative romance with Cecilia Tan and Somto Ihezue, moderated by Jennifer R. Povey. Then Ben Francisco, Michael Solis, Charlie Jane Anders and Gabrielle Byrne talked about creating characters that are outsiders. An interesting distinction that they made was between characters that are new outsiders: still trying to understand how and why they don’t fit in, versus old outsiders, who are only too aware of the rules and made have developed strategies to conceal themselves or pass. A particular treat was a reading of speculative short plays with Alex Kingsley, Mary Robinette Kowal, Russell Davis, Jordan Kurella, Curtis Chen, and David Levine. These were amazing and a lot of fun.
The Grandmaster this year was NK Jemisin who had an hour and a half slot to offer a crash course in creating compelling characters. Instead of presenting, she simply used the entire period for Q&A. I’ll admit was a little disappointed at first to not have a presentation, but SFWA members ask great questions and her responses were insightful and interesting.
In the evening, I got to help with a reception for the Nebula finalists. Each finalist was invited to walk down a purple carpet to receive a certificate, get photographed, and then receive a pin from one of the Board members. In this way, everyone could recognize who the finalists were for the rest of the event.
After the Nebula finalist reception, there was an autographing event with a few VIPs and a bunch of the rest of us. I was seated between Anthony Eichenlaub and Somto Ihezue. I brought some giveaways and a few people took zines, ribbons, and stickers. One brave person ran the Makasete DNA Analysis Tool to fill out their percent human DNA for a ribbon.
A few people even brought me books to sign! Philip bought a copy of A Familiar Problem and the guy who’d expressed interest in Esperanto the day earlier brought copies of Premitaj Floroj and senokulvitre. A bunch of people also brought their programs around and had everyone sign them. Jonathan Brazee, who was a Nebula finalist, brought his surferticket around for people to sign. My fountain pen got a good workout and I didn’t even squirt ink all over anyone.
The next morning, Phil and I attended a presentation by Anthea Sharp about how to be successful on Kickstarter. A lot of authors (and even some of the pro markets) are using Kickstarter to raise funds for projects. She had a bunch of guidelines for how to run your first, small kickstarter. How much to ask for, how long to run it, setting reasonable targets. I took a lot of notes. I might consider using it for a small project just as a test run.
We also attended a panel on speculative screenwriting for plays, comics, and audiodramas. I asked a question in this one: perhaps very basic, about how to structure scenes. I’ve never had any education about writing fiction: I’ve just read a lot of stuff. When I working to intersperse two timelines for The Ground Never Lies, I realized that I really wasn’t writing in scenes at all. I realized then that it was an obvious way I could probably punch up my writing a lot. Daryll Gregory answered my question and recommended a memo by David Mamet about how to heighten drama in scenes, which he shares on his website.
Once again, I was scheduled to play a small role in the Nebula Ceremony as a “floor escort” to lead people to the stage at the appropriate moment for their speaking roles. They called this role a “runner” last year, which I commented that I was willing to try as long as hobbling around with my stick was close enough to running. So they changed the name this year. They ran a rehearsal that gave every speaker and finalist the opportunity to practice making their entrance and exit from the stage. Cat Rambo, a former SFWA president, commented that the team was really nailing down the details to make sure the show would come off smoothly.
In the last evening, Philip and I dressed in our finery to attend nebula awards reception, banquet, and ceremony. At the reception, we mingled a little. Charlie Jane Anders noticed my airship pirate ribbon and, with unconcealed excitement, said she wanted one. I had left a few on the giveaways table, so I grabbed one and a sticker for her.
Phil and I separated when we entered the banquet and I was seated with members of the board. The servers were running a bit late with the food and I had only just been given my plate when I was summoned to start acting as a floor escort. I stuffed a couple of bites of food in my mouth and then was up hobbling around with my stick escorting people to the stage.
The ceremony was fantastic. Tananarive Due did a fabulous job as Toastmaster to warm up the crowd and serve as the master of ceremonies. NK Jemisin’s speech was really outstanding. I encourage everyone to watch it. It starts about 30 minutes in. Many of the other presentations are also excellent. SFWA people can write really well — as one might expect. People are generally overwhelmed when they win, which is charming to see. The ceremony ran for three hours. By the end, I was exhausted and went went straight to bed.
Phil and I departed early the next morning. We’d had a rough time with traffic driving in, so we slipped away right after breakfast to beat the rush. I’ll spend another day here with him and then start my long drive back to Massachusetts.
It was great to see everyone and I look forward to next year in Seattle. But I don’t think I’ll be driving to that one.