Some Places You Can Vote For Me! Also, Helping a Buddy Out…
It’s been a whirlwind of a last couple days, but all good things must come to an end. Not counting today, I was on six airplanes in five days, passing through four cities, giving four readings at four very different, but nonetheless awesome, bookshops. I drank cocktails in a steampunk bar beneath a shrine of Emperor Norton I. I participated in napkin-wrapped sushi smuggling. I saw Holy Boise Chalk Art Batman and crashed (well, walked past, but it sounds better if I say crashed) a forty-person river baptism. And then there was Portland, home of the second-largest copper statue in America, and the only one that looks like it’s about to stab you in the face with a trident. Not to mention the beer, and the enormous and topologically complicated bookstore.
But I’m back, which is great, because there are lots of things that I needed to do at home. Before I ka-pwing (nautical term) off to my work, though, I wanted to engage in some of that Blatant Self Promotion that I’m so bad at!
First, tomorrow voting closes on for the John W. Campbell Best New Writer award, along with the Hugos—if you’re not already registered for the award, you can’t vote, sadly, but if you are registered, get yourself over to the Hugo Ballot and vote! I’m the only person nominated to be in his first year of eligibility, so, you know. Stick up for the little guy. Also my book’s great, so there’s that!
EDIT: Wait a second, it looks like you actually can still register to vote for the Hugos & the Campbell Award! I misremembered. The link to register is here. Register now, though, so you have time to receive your voter PIN before the ballot closes on the 31st.
And here’s the Hugo Ballot Link
Also, I’m on the long list for the David Gemmell Legend Award, the voting for which closes tomorrow. You don’t need to have registered to vote on this—just go to the link below, read the list of nominees, and vote. The Legend Award itself, were I to win, is a scale model of Druss the Legend’s axe, laser-engraved with the winner’s name and novel, so you can imagine how excited I am to be nominated! There are a lot of great novels on the long list, but dude. Axe.
David Gemmell Legend Award Voting Link
The last link has nothing to do with me winning something, but rather with helping a friend. My grade school friend Andrew Booker has had a lot of health trouble—a nasty combination of epilepsy, diabetes and a suite of autoimmune disorders—and he’s trying to raise money to get himself a service dog. Any contributions to the fund over the cost of the dog will be donated to Retrieving Independence, the organization that trains the service dogs (warning: cute puppy pictures on the other side of that link). There’s 36 hours left in the campaign; if you have extra change lying around, drop on by.
