I debated on posting this because I’m really not into posting stuff not directly book-review related on my blog but I’m sure my faithful readers will forgive me this once.
I’ve been asked to be a judge for a new literary award called Independent Literary Awards. Now, normally this is something I wouldn’t take part in but I am seeing it as a sort of social experiment and I think it’ll be interesting to be part of it (and see the fruits which are harvested from it) for numerous reasons:
1) It will keep me reading books I probably will have never heard of otherwise
2) It promotes reading
3) It’s independent, by the people, for the people
4) It’s new and grassroots and I’m reading the books anyway so I might as well do something with them (besides review here).
Here’s the deal. I’ve been selected to be the judge over the Speculative Fiction section and now I’m trying to find 3-5 panelists. I’ve already selected one person who has agreed to be on it. Now I need more and I am TERRIBLE about asking people to do things (unless I’m getting paid to boss you around) so I figured I’d post this blog and let you come to me. Since speculative fiction is a very broad scoped category, I’d like to have panelists who either read broadly within the genre or specifically focus on certain areas (ie: science fiction, fantasy, steampunk, urban/contemporary fantasy and etc). Depending on the reading flavors of people who volunteer, you may or may not make the list of panelists. If I get a lot of broad scoped readers, I’ll keep the panel like that. If I get a lot of specific readers, I’ll try to balance it out as good as I can so everyone gets an equal voice for the award.
The job of a panelist isn’t that hard, but there are some stipulations:
1) You need to have an active blog where you review books (if you are new to blogging I’m willing to work with you).
2) You need to keep track of all the books in this genre you’ve read that have been PUBLISHED in 2010. This doesn’t mean you can only read books published in 2010. Just keep reading like normal and keep track of the ones you do happen to read that are published this year.
3) If you get paid to review, I can’t have you on the panel. Sorry.
3) If you get paid to review, I can’t have you on the panel. Sorry.
And that’s pretty much it as of right now. If you are interested, leave me a comment with your email address or go to my “about me” or “The Great Index of Reviews” section (at the top of this blog) and dig my email address out of there and give me a hollar. Please let me know your reading tendencies (IE: are you a broad spec. fiction reader, or specific? Do you have a blog? If so, what’s your address and how long have you been doing it?)
If you are NOT into this kind of thing, please just ignore this entry and move on.
Thanks!
7 Responses
This sounds pretty cool, I'd be interested in giving it a shot. My email is JNMGibbs[at]gmail[dot]com. I'm a fantasy reader primarily, but I do dabble in sci-fi now and again. I run a fantasy blog at http://mithrilwisdom.blogspot.com, and I'm the fantasy book reviewer for http://www.prinkipria.com. I've been running Mithril Wisdom since December 2009, and I've been with Prinkipria since June this year. Thanks for posting up the offer 🙂
Jamie,
Awesome!! I'll check out your blogs and send you an email sometime this afternoon.
No prob, I'll join in.
seaklos(at)gmail.com
I keep an active Goodreads account so I always know what's been published in 2010. I'm pretty broad, as in I like to mix it up every now and then, but mostly I focus on epic fantasy. I know that probably helps a ton right. 🙂
You did say just keep reading what you're reading right?
Congratulations! I'm sure you'll do a very good job…
I'm very happy to help, if you need still a hand! (And want vaguely international flavor?)
editor at pornokitsch.com
Seak, Jared and Jaime, I'm really excited about you three!! I'm sorry I didn't email you yesterday. I had some stuff come up but you WILL be getting an email from me this afternoon for sure. 🙂
Gah, Jamie, not Jaime.
I might be interested, but I'd need to know more about what being a panelist entails. My blog is over at evilhat.blogspot.com, and I read fairly widely within speculative fiction.