Here’s the text of the email we sent out today:
This year we’ve been learning how to operate effectively under constantly changing conditions. While our online programs and meetings continue to help keep the Carl Brandon Society community together virtually, we’ve also taken advantage of a pair of beautiful, breezy summer evenings to present the Octavia E. Butler scholarship pendants in person, outdoors. They went to Shingai Kagunda at Clarion in San Diego, and to Naomi Day and Wen-Yi Lee at Clarion West in Seattle. We have photographic evidence on our blog: https://carlbrandon.org/2022/09/octavia-butler-scholarship-presentations-owls-abound/
We jumped at the chance to co-sponsor the 2022 BlackSpecFic report put together by LD Lewis, a five-year follow-up to her landmark 2017 study of the presence of Black authors in the genre. This much-anticipated report, which covers both long- and short-form speculative fiction, came out November 23. Read it here.
The anthology we’re sponsoring, Ex Marginalia, is scheduled for release from the publisher, Hydra House, on February 21, 2023. At this point we’ve seen Ashe Samuels’ extraordinary cover art, and the authors have approved the book’s galleys, as has editor and 2014 Butler scholar Chinelo Onwualu. Though we could still use donations to cover the cost of its publication, the book is basically ready to go! Read more about it here.
Also in the works for spring 2023 is a brilliant new event: a BIPOC book fair for children. It’s a lot like the Scholastic Book Fairs many of us in the US remember from elementary school, but it’s focused on the science fictional and fantastic stories by authors of color. We’ll have in-person author visits, and each kid attending will receive two free books. Already, we’ve received a wonderful gift of $10,000 for this project’s inaugural session.
In another move toward expanding our activities, we’re adding new categories to the two Carl Brandon Society literary awards. For years we’ve given trophies and prizes of $1000 each to the winners of two literary awards: the Carl Brandon Parallax Award for imaginative fiction by an author of color, and the Carl Brandon Kindred Award for imaginative fiction which expands and explores our understanding of race. Now we’ve decided to recognize one long work and one short work for each award. We’re doubling the number of possible winners! Visit our awards page to submit your nominations.
And once again in 2022, we’re the fortunate beneficiaries of a Humble Bundle campaign. As of the moment we write this, the Pathfinder and Starfinder Humble Bundle has raised over $15,000 for us, with eight more days to go! By the time you read this that campaign will be over—which means you can donate independently and make your own individual difference in our evergreen efforts to improve representation.
The frontiers of imagination. That’s where we’re working. We’re excited about what we’ve been able to accomplish there in the past few years, and we look forward to doing even more, now and in the future, with your help.
Please make a donation.
Sincerely,
The Carl Brandon Society’s Steering Committee
K. Tempest Bradford, Maurice Broaddus, Candra K. Gill, Jaymee Goh, Kate Schaefer, Nisi Shawl, Yang-Yang Wang
P. O. Box 23336
Seattle, WA 98102
The Carl Brandon Society is a qualified 501(c)3 organization, and all donations to it are tax-deductible. Our federal tax I.D. number is 27-0140141.