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My OryCon schedule

OryCon starts today! Here’s where you can find me:

Friday, November 8
3:00pm-4:00pm @ 166 B
Be a Writer? Yes You Can!

Saturday, November 9
1:45pm-2:45pm @ 166 A
Gender sex sexuality and expression. Breaking it down for the layperson

Saturday, November 9
3:00pm-4:00pm @ Autographs
Autograph Session 5

Saturday, November 9
5:30pm-6:30pm @ 166 B
Writing Trilogies

Sunday, November 10
10:00am-11:00am @ JBs Night Club
10 am Sunday Kaffeeklatch

Sunday, November 10
1:00pm-1:30pm @ Readings
David D. Levine Reading

I have had an Adventure

I have had an Adventure this morning, but all is well.

While hurrying to catch the train to the airport on my way to Montreal for Scintillation, I stumbled on the platform and face-planted on the concrete. I broke a tooth and cut my lip. There was quite a bit of blood. I kept telling the train driver to go on and not hold up the whole system for me, but he kept the train in the station until paramedics came.

The paramedics checked me over and offered me an ambulance to the ER, but although I was technically in shock my neuro signs were stable and I declined. I considered continuing to Montreal with a broken tooth… for about one minute. Then I hailed a Lyft to my dentist. On the way there I started messaging with the airline about changing to a later flight.

The dentist got me into the chair almost immediately. And twenty minutes later I had a new plastic tooth nearly indistinguishable from the old one. Dr. Dotson at Smiles Northwest in Beaverton gets my highest rating.

I got out of the chair to find that the airline needed my credit card to pay the small fee for the new flight (most of the fees were waived due to a medical emergency). But I still had an hour and a half before my flight. I decided to decline the new flight and try to make my original flight.

Lyft to the airport, TSA pre-check, and I arrived at the gate with five minutes to spare. But I did find square dance friend Don Hicks there, who was at the airport for another flight and came over to my gate when he heard them repeatedly paging me. (They needed to check my passport.)

So. Here I am with a new tooth and a split lip, just about to depart for JFK on the way to Montreal. Whee!

The picture below is the After pic. If you want to see the horrific and gruesome Before photo, it’s here: https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B0w5ON9t3tn6Xm

After the ordeal

My Worldcon schedule

I’m heading for Ireland tomorrow (ack!), where I will be attending in the World Science Fiction Convention. Here’s my convention programme schedule:

Stroll with the stars: Friday
16 Aug 2019, Friday 09:00 – 09:50, Ground Floor Foyer (CCD)
Zen Cho, David D. Levine, Michelle Sagara, Kate Heartfield, BE Allatt, Paul Cornell

Autographs: Saturday at 13:00
17 Aug 2019, Saturday 13:00 – 13:50, Level 4 Foyer (CCD)
Michael Carroll, David D. Levine, Alexandra Rowland, Leah Bobet, Micah Yongo, Dr Kristina Perez

Why are so many romantic aliens humanoid?
18 Aug 2019, Sunday 13:00 – 13:50, Wicklow Hall 2A (Dances) (CCD)
There is a wealth of human/alien romance but, although they might have scales or extra arms, aliens are mostly depicted as humanoids. Are there any romantic aliens with other forms, or does it become too difficult to create a believable attraction? The panel will discuss how the SF romance genre portrays alien life and the possible reasons for those portrayals.
Laurel Anne Hill (M), K.M. Szpara, David D. Levine

Kaffeeklatsch: David D. Levine
18 Aug 2019, Sunday 14:00 – 14:50, Level 3 Foyer (KK/LB) (CCD)
David D. Levine

Why isn’t humour taken seriously? Comedy in SFF
18 Aug 2019, Sunday 16:00 – 16:50, Wicklow Room-4 (CCD)
Writing humour takes a lot of skill, but it’s rarely recognised during awards season. Writers and fans of humorous fiction discuss their favourite funny novels and the status of humorous fiction in SFF.
Heide Goody, Gail Carriger, Jay Key, Mark Galarrita, David D. Levine (M)

I am now officially a Nebula Award winner!

So, a couple of weeks ago the official SFWA Twitter account posted this:

My immediate reaction was a snarky grin and I prepared to tweet a gentle correction. Everyone knows that the Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy is not a Nebula. It said so in the Nebula Rules at the time I won the award (“14.a. The Andre Norton Award for Outstanding Young Adult Science Fiction or Fantasy Book, established in 2006, is awarded in tandem with the Nebula Awards. This award is not a Nebula, but shall follow all Nebula rules and procedures except as follows.”) Except that I am a pedant, and I wanted to check my sources before tweeting.

So I checked the current Nebula Rules. And that phrase is no longer there. (“15.1. The Andre Norton Award for Outstanding Young Adult Science Fiction or Fantasy Book, established in 2006, is awarded in tandem with the Nebula Awards. This award shall follow all Nebula rules and procedures except as follows.”) However, other phrases in the rules, such as “The winners of the Nebula Awards, Bradbury Award, and Andre Norton Award shall be announced at an annual Nebula Awards ceremony” implied that the distinction still exists.

Suddenly I was Schroedinger’s Award Winner. Was I a Nebula winner or not? That depended on whether the change was deliberate and whether it applied retroactively. Not that it really mattered, of course. The award trophy is the same, and it means exactly as much or as little as it did before. But, for me, it would be huge if I could call myself a Hugo- and Nebula-winning writer. I always wanted to, and I had been disappointed to discover after winning the Norton that I couldn’t. But now I could. Or could I?

So I wrote to the Nebula Award Commissioner for an official ruling. It took a week, but here it is:

From: Nebula Award Commissioner <nac@sfwa.org>
Date: Sun, Apr 7, 2019 at 1:50 PM
Subject: Congratulation
To: David D. Levine <david@daviddlevine.com>

David,
Just got confirmation back from the higher ups at SFWA.
Congratulations, you ARE a Nebula Award winning author.

Jim Hosek
Nebula Award Commissioner
Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America

There it is, in black and white. (On my screen, anyway.) I am now a Nebula Award Winning Author! And so are Sam J. Miller, Fran Wilde, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Nalo Hopkinson, E.C. Myers, Delia Sherman, Terry Pratchett, Cat Valente, Ysabeau S. Wilce, J. K. Rowling, Justine Larbalestier, and Holly Black. Congratulations to them!

David’s Index for 2018

Novel words written: 19,905
Short fiction words written: 34,859
Notes, outline, and synopsis words written: 29,064
Blog words written: 3,145
Total words written: 86,973

New stories written: 1

Short fiction submissions sent: 1
Responses received: 1
Rejections: 0
Acceptances: 1 (pro)
Other sales: 3 (1 reprint, 1 translation, 1 media)

Short stories published: 2 (reprint)

Award nominations: 0

Novels completed: 0
Novel submissions: 0
Novels published: 1

Happy new year!

What I published in 2018

I published one thing this year: Arabella the Traitor Of Mars, the conclusion of the Adventures of Arabella Ashby trilogy. It hasn’t gotten a lot of critical attention, but many people have told me they think it’s the best of the three.

And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that the “Adventures of Arabella Ashby” series is eligible for the Best Series Hugo.

Well, I had surgery after all.

We were hoping that wouldn’t be necessary, but it turned out that it was. We waited for four days for the blockage to clear by itself, but on Monday it became obvious that the tentative positive signs we had seen on Sunday were in fact only tentative. So I went right into surgery at 9:30am Monday.

I do not remember the procedure at all. The last thing I remember was the anesthesiologist telling me he was going to give me something to calm me down. In the recovery room they told me the blockage was caused by a single band of scar tissue, so it was about as uncomplicated as could be. There’s no explanation where that scar tissue came from, though. And my guts were pretty angry from the blockage, so it’ll be at least several days until I can eat.

Right now my pain is pretty well managed at a level 4-5 on a scale of 10. We have to wait for my intestines to start working again before I can go home, but I hope to start walking around today and that should help that happen. I’m still in room 833 at Providence Portland Medical Center on NE Glisan.

Thank you all for your kind words and good wishes. Orycon is iffy but we’ll see.

Why you aren’t seeing me at that event

I had a lot of events planned this week and next — Scares & Squares, Charm City Spec, World Fantasy Con. Instead I am in the hospital.

It started last Thursday night, with severe abdominal pain. I took myself to the emergency room about midnight and they admitted me in short order.

I have had a bunch of obnoxious tests and the diagnosis is Small Bowel Obstruction. They put a tube in my nose and down to my stomach (the single most horrible experience of my life) to try to drain the fluid above the obstruction in hopes that when the pressure is relieved it will unkink itself. If that doesn’t work I’ll have to have surgery. :-(

I’m at Providence hospital on NE Glisan, room 833. I’m not very good company — I haven’t eaten or drunk anything in three days. I sleep a lot. But if you’d like to come by for a visit you’d be welcome.