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Now that the Hugo voter packet is out, I wanted to once more urge people to consider voting for Sheila Gilbert, publisher and editor at DAW Books, who is on the final Hugo ballot for Best Editor, Long Form. For transparency, let me say that yes, she is my editor (and has been for over a decade now). I have had several editors over the several decades in which I’ve been writing and publishing, at most of the NYC publishing houses -- and the reason that I have been nominating Sheila as Best Editor ever since my first book for DAW is that I have never met an editor who displays more dedication and interest in making certain that every book is the best one I can possibly write at the time. For that matter, under the direction of Betsy Wollheim and Sheila, DAW Books is the most supportive and engaged publishing house I’ve ever had the pleasure to work with, and I hope that the voters see fit to honor Sheila with a Hugo (as they’ve done previously with Betsy).
As to the whole Sad Puppy/Rabid Puppy mess, all I can say is that Sheila has been placed on the final ballot in this category for the previous two years. I strongly suspect that she would have again made this year’s final ballot without the unasked-for ‘support’ of the puppies. I know for a fact that Sheila was not asked to be placed on their slate, and as an editor has championed books that are the polar opposite of those the SP/RP people would seem to prefer. Sheila isn’t an online ‘presence’: she has no website, no blog, and only in the last few months has ventured tentatively onto Facebook. She has no connection with the puppies whatsoever.
Yes, the puppies have significantly affected many categories on this year’s Hugo ballot, and I understand the impulse to vote NO AWARD over the puppy candidates, especially in the fiction categories. But the Long Form Editor category isn’t for a work published in the last year; it’s more a category where you vote for a person and their body of work within the genre. Look at DAW Books and the long list of writers Sheila has worked with and published. Look beyond the puppies. Look at someone who richly deserves recognition for all she’s done in the field.
I hope you’ll give Sheila your vote.
As to the whole Sad Puppy/Rabid Puppy mess, all I can say is that Sheila has been placed on the final ballot in this category for the previous two years. I strongly suspect that she would have again made this year’s final ballot without the unasked-for ‘support’ of the puppies. I know for a fact that Sheila was not asked to be placed on their slate, and as an editor has championed books that are the polar opposite of those the SP/RP people would seem to prefer. Sheila isn’t an online ‘presence’: she has no website, no blog, and only in the last few months has ventured tentatively onto Facebook. She has no connection with the puppies whatsoever.
Yes, the puppies have significantly affected many categories on this year’s Hugo ballot, and I understand the impulse to vote NO AWARD over the puppy candidates, especially in the fiction categories. But the Long Form Editor category isn’t for a work published in the last year; it’s more a category where you vote for a person and their body of work within the genre. Look at DAW Books and the long list of writers Sheila has worked with and published. Look beyond the puppies. Look at someone who richly deserves recognition for all she’s done in the field.
I hope you’ll give Sheila your vote.
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As I said above, Sheila's been on the short list twice before. Yeah, MAYBE she'll be on again, but maybe the puppies have now tainted her with their unwanted and unasked-for placement of her name on the slate. Sheila ABSOLUTELY deserves a Hugo, in my opinion. If she wins one this year, I don't believe it will be tainted at all. It certainly won't be in my eyes, nor in the eyes of her many writers, nor in the eyes of anyone who takes a dispassionate look at publishing history.
But as I said, you have to vote as your conscience tells you to vote; I won't fault you for that, nor think less of you. On this, as they say, we'll have to agree to disagree.
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"While I have no desire to politicize the Hugo Awards any more than they already have been in this incredibly contentious year, I would just like to go on the record and state that I have no involvement with sad or any other kind of puppies. No one ever contacted me about placing my name on any listing, and I didn’t even know that it had happened until one of my authors mentioned it to me long after the nominating period had closed.
"I thank the Hugo committee for providing Hugo packets to everyone who is eligible to vote and who would like to download these materials. I am including excerpts from one novel written by each author whose work I published in 2014. I hope that you take a look at these excerpts as well as all of the other works included in this packet, and then make up your mind about who and what you want to vote for not based on angry rhetoric from all sides but on the actual works themselves. That is all anyone could ask for, and I believe that if every voter does that and casts a ballot from knowledge rather than emotion, then this year’s Hugo Awards will be fully as meaningful as those given in previous years."
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If anyone has doubts about her not knowing about the puppy slates until after the nominating period was closed, remember that Sheila is _not_ online much at all. Heck, I browse around relatively frequently, and _I_ didn't know anything about this idiotic puppy business until after the nominations were over and the internet storm erupted.
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