Be Our New Treasurer

We are looking for a new treasurer.  We’re hoping to get them on board this fall; read on to learn more about the job.

The Carl Brandon Society’s mission is to increase racial and ethnic diversity in the production of and audience for speculative fiction.

The Society administers several awards, scholarships, and travel assistance funds. Its largest annual program is the Octavia E. Butler Memorial Scholarship, which enables writers of color to attend one of the Clarion writing workshops, where Octavia got her start. More than twenty writers of color have attended Clarion or Clarion West as Butler scholars since the scholarship was established in 2007.

The Carl Brandon Society has no paid employees; treasurer is a volunteer steering committee position. The budget is about $20,000 annually. Ideally, the treasurer would live in the Seattle area, since that’s where CBS’s post office box and bank are located, but a well-organized person in another location could make this work.

Treasurer’s duties:

  • create simple annual budget for steering committee approval
  • keep a general ledger
  • make bank deposits, including from PayPal, and write checks
  • send thank-you letters or emails to donors
  • file annual tax report (form 990 e-postcard for nonprofits with annual budget under $50,000) to IRS
  • report on Society’s financial position monthly, with formal treasurer’s report to annual meeting each May
  • with other board members, participate in fundraising activities

Regular treasurer’s bookkeeping duties generally take 3-5 hours per month. In addition, the treasurer attends monthly online steering committee meetings, which usually last about one-to-two hours.

Interested candidates should send email to treasurer@carlbrandon.org

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Our glorious 2018 Octavia E. Butler Scholar at Clarion West

On Friday, July 27, Nisi Shawl presented Dennis Staples with the Owl Pendant honoring his status as our Octavia E. Butler Scholar attending Clarion West’s 2018 Six-Week Workshop session.  As she has done since the award’s inception, Laurie Toby Edison provided a beautiful silver pendant cast from a design Octavia commissioned.  The accompanying photos show Nisi approaching Dennis, struggling with the clasp, and applauding his heartfelt speech of thanks, followed by a shot of him being mobbed by his classmates and well-wishers.  Thank you to everyone who made these moments possible.  Long live Octavia and her brood!

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(P.S.: And a huge bundle of thanks to Yang-Yang Wang for providing these photos.)

Halfway to Octavia Birthday Fundraiser Paradise

As of last night–one week into our celebratory donation drive in honor of  CBS member Octavia E. Butler–we’ve raised $5060!  Thank you so much, dear ones, for bringing us so near our $10,000 goal so quickly!  Stay tuned for further encouraged words from previous Butler Scholarship recipients and winners of the Kindred and Parallax Awards–and spread the glad news!

To learn more and donate now, see this earlier post.