Speeches Not Delivered

Tue 31 Oct 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , , | Posted by: Gavin

I’ve written a few acceptance speeches that didn’t have to be given — although in 2015 I did not write one when Monstrous Affections was up for the World Fantasy Award as the ballot was so strong. Ellen had won the award before, George and Gardner had won the year before, Michael Kelly happily won this year, and Long Hidden is a spectacularly good book. I didn’t even notice that Gordon Van Gelder was leading me back from a playdate for our kids to the awards in time for the announcement. Anyway, I was surprised and a little embarrassed to be the person throwing out random words instead of organized.

So this year I got ahead of things and a week before the convention I wrote this speech with Kelly and emailed it to Jeff Ford who kindly agreed to accept on our behalf. The award went to Matt Ottley, for The Tree of Ecstasy and Unbearable Sadness, which looks like a great book. If I have to writer one of these, it’s usually along the lines of thanks to the writers, the readers, the booksellers, and librarians.

This year’s version is here:

First, thanks to the marvelous Jeff Ford for accepting this award for us. And huge thanks to the writers we published over the years, but especially Richard Butner and Robert Freeman Wexler, whose books we published in 2022, and the contributors to 2 issues of our zine Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet.

We are sorry not to be here in person: Gavin never tested positive for Covid but after an brief illness in December 2021 he has now has something which seems to be long Covid/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. This has much diminished his physical capacities. This is also why we are publishing many fewer books. We still wear masks everywhere we go.

We have mixed feelings about missing conventions, this one in particular. Missouri has passed anti-trans and anti-lgbtq laws that mean it is not a safe place for many people. Can we support these inequalities with our tourist dollars? Also, how would we have travelled here? By plane? With climate change we find it harder to justify getting on a plane for anything these days. Even so, we miss being here so a last thanks to this gathering, in person or online, for making community out of some great, very weird books.