A Dribble of Ink

On Saturday, April 19th, the 2014 Hugo Award nominations were announced, and I’m proud to announce that A Dribble of Ink is represented in two categories: Best Fanzine and Best Related Work.

Best Fanzine

Alongside The Book Smugglers*, Elitist Book Review, Journey Planet and Pornokitsch*, A Dribble of Ink is in the running for Best Fanzine of 2013. If you’ve followed my writing for any time, you’ll know that I’ve long been critical of this category for dipping its pen into the same inkwell too often, so I’m thrilled to be included on a ballot that is guaranteed to see a new winner.

On that note, I expect to get crushed by Pornokitsch and/or The Book Smugglers, but it’ll be fun competition between these friends of mine regardless.

Also on the ballot are A Dribble of Ink’s contributing reviewers: Foz Meadows* (Best Fan Writer) and Justin Landon* (Best Related Work).

^{*On my nomination ballot}

Best Related Work

Kameron Hurley’s epic essay, We Have Always Fought, was an out-of-control avalanche last year. As Hurley described, in her own reaction to the nomination:

We can chomp about the evils of the Internet, and how it’s used to manufacture bullshit messages about oppressing people. But I want you all think about this: “We Have Always Fought” is not about silencing others, telling women to get back into the kitchen, or a piece of Nazi sympathizing.

It’s a post that asks creators – fiction writers, screenwriters, game makers, every creative person telling stories – to rethink the tired old narrative that erases women from history, from the present, from the future. It’s a cry for change, and the resonance it generated within the community shocked me. I don’t have current stats, but six weeks after it came out last year, we were already at 50-70,000 hits. And the vast, vast VAST majority of the responses were overwhelmingly positive.

And when the Hugo nomination came out?

My friends, that shit is making the rounds again.

Can’t stop the fucking signal.

‘We Have Always Fought’ is currently sitting at 150,000+ views, so significantly beyond the numbers that Hurley reported in her post. To my knowledge, this is the first time that an individual blog post has been nominated for a Hugo Award. So, congrats to Hurley for making history.

Congratulations to the other nominees! And thank you to everyone who contributed to A Dribble of Ink in 2013, you make this editor look better than he deserves.

Cheers.