Hooray!!!! It’s BACK people! Doctor Who has once again graced our screens, and we at Verity! couldn’t be happier about it. Join Deb, Erika, Kat, and Lynne as we squee and chat and theorize and squee some more over Matt Smith, Clara, motorbikes, the TARDIS and much more.  (Ok, so it’s not 100% squeeful, but the squee factor is high for this ep. You’ve been warned.)

^E

Also covered:
David Tennant and Billie Piper will return for the 50^th!
South Park’s Funnybot is a hat-tip to Daleks!
Introducing a newb to Doctor Who!
Doctor Who needs more female writers!

Download or listen now (runtime 57:46)

Fiction
“The Lure of Devouring Light” by Michael Griffin
“Dawn and the Maiden” by Sofia Samatar
“Build-A-Dolly” by Ken Liu
“Hurt Me” by Daniel Abraham

Poetry
“Ψάπφοι Σελάννα” by Sonya Taaffe

Nonfiction
“Blood on Vellum: Notes from the Editor-in-Chief” by Lynne M. Thomas
“Science Fiction Poetry: Worlds of Potential” by Amal El-Mohtar
“An Interview with Daniel Abraham” by Maggie Slater
“Words from the Publisher” by Jason Sizemore

A 2013 Hugo Award nominee for Best Semiprozine!

Cover art “Untitled” by Naoto Hattori.

Go. Read. Subscribe!

While I’m posting this on April 1, I promise, this is not a joke.

The announcement of the Hugo Award Nominations went out on Saturday.

I’m nominated in three categories. THREE. O_O

Apex Magazine is  nominated for Best Semiprozine.

SF Squeecast is nominated for Best Fancast.

Chicks Dig Comics is nominated for Best Related Work.

Each of these projects is a collaboration, which is by far my favorite way to work: let’s get together and create something awesome! They have given me the opportunity to work with some of the best folks in the business, and I am so very, very proud of the work we have all done together. It has been a joy and an honor. None of it would have been possible without you, and the awesome that you bring to the table.

Not only that! Look at the company I’m keeping in all three categories:

Best Semiprozine (404 ballots)

Apex Magazine edited by Lynne M. Thomas, Jason Sizemore and Michael Damian Thomas
Beneath Ceaseless Skies edited by Scott H. Andrews
Clarkesworld edited by Neil Clarke, Jason Heller, Sean Wallace and Kate Baker
Lightspeed edited by John Joseph Adams and Stefan Rudnicki
Strange Horizons edited by Niall Harrison, Jed Hartman, Brit Mandelo, An Owomoyela, Julia Rios, Abigail Nussbaum, Sonya Taaffe, Dave Nagdeman and Rebecca Cross

Best Fancast (346 ballots)

The Coode Street Podcast, Jonathan Strahan and Gary K. Wolfe
Galactic Suburbia Podcast, Alisa Krasnostein, Alexandra Pierce, Tansy Rayner Roberts (Presenters) and Andrew Finch (Producer)
SF Signal Podcast, Patrick Hester, John DeNardo, and JP Frantz
SF Squeecast, Elizabeth Bear, Paul Cornell, Seanan McGuire, Lynne M. Thomas, Catherynne M. Valente (Presenters) and David McHone-Chase (Technical Producer)
StarShipSofa, Tony C. Smith

Best Related Work (584 ballots)

The Cambridge Companion to Fantasy Literature Edited by Edward James & Farah Mendlesohn (Cambridge UP)
Chicks Dig Comics: A Celebration of Comic Books by the Women Who Love Them Edited by Lynne M. Thomas & Sigrid Ellis (Mad Norwegian Press)
Chicks Unravel Time: Women Journey Through Every Season of Doctor Who Edited by Deborah Stanish & L.M. Myles (Mad Norwegian Press)
I Have an Idea for a Book… The Bibliography of Martin H. Greenberg Compiled by Martin H. Greenberg, edited by John Helfers (The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box)
Writing Excuses Season Seven by Brandon Sanderson, Dan Wells, Mary Robinette Kowal, Howard Tayler and Jordan Sanderson

This is an amazing group of friends and colleagues whom I respect and admire. I am humbled to be considered worthy of this kind of company. Truly.

This goes double especially for Michael, who has his first nomination this year for his work on Apex with Jason and me. He has toiled tirelessly behind the scenes on of my SF/F projects, making so much of it even possible. I’m thrilled to see his work recognized and honored. He deserves it more than anything.

This… this is amazing.  I’m still having trouble parsing it, really, which is why it has taken me so long to blog about it.

I’m thrilled, and terrified, as this puts me into a rather exclusive club of something like 20 people who have had 3 or more nominations in a single year, and that club includes some of the biggest, most well-known names in SF/F.

And now me.

My heart just skipped a beat when I wrote that.

You see, I’m not always very good at accepting compliments or positive feedback.  I was raised to be super-modest about success, to put it mildly. I squirm a bit when praised, particularly in person.

Okay, a lot.

So let me say it, here, from the bottom of my heart. Because I don’t always do it right in person.

Thank you.

Thank you for getting excited about the things that I get excited about. Thank you for sharing your squee, and for doing what you can to put more joy into the world. Thank you for recognizing my hard work, and the hard work of my beloved friends, colleagues, and my husband, for three projects that I care very deeply about.

*hugs everyone*

Thank you.

Now. TIME TO GO DRESS SHOPPING!

With new episodes of Doctor Who on the horizon, Deb, Erika, Kat, and Tansy take some time to reminisce about series 7a and speculate about series 7b (not to be confused with serial codes 7A and 7B from “Trial of a Time Lord”). We also discuss costuming, cosplay, the rarity (or not) of watching Doctor Who in order, Big Finish audios, and perhaps most importantly, tapas.

Resources for watching Doctor Who in order:
WHO-50 (Tansy’s Doctor Who blogging project)
The Chronic Hysteresis
Running Through Corridors
Adventures with the Wife in Space
(This is a non-comprehensive list! Please feel free to add more suggestions in the comments.)

^E

Also covered:
Doctor Who Yahtzee!
Prisoners of Time!
Doctor Who Magazine Jon Pertwee Interview!
Big Finish Sixth Doctor audios!  (The Marian Conspiracy)

Episode title: ALL HAIL THE SENTIENT CHICKENS

This episode features Lynne M. Thomas, Elizabeth Bear, Catherynne M. Valente, and special guest Charles A. Tan!

In this episode we discuss:

• American Horror Story (Shared by Catherynne M. Valente)
• A Wrinkle in Time (Shared by Lynne M. Thomas)
• In the Forest of Forgetting by Theodora Goss (re-release by Papaveria Press) (Shared by Charles A. Tan)
• ELMER by Gerry Alanguilan (Shared by Elizabeth Bear)

And Charles answered our silly questions, too!

Go on, go have a listen.

It’s a new episode of Verity! We discuss The Curse of Fenric. Oddly enough, I have OPINIONS.

It’s official! We have finally made our way back to the classic series. This week Deb, Erika, Liz, and Lynne discuss the virtues (and possible lack thereof–though not according to Liz) of The Curse of Fenric. It’s new to Deb, it might as well be new to Erika, and it’s clear Liz and Lynne have seen it a few times.  Just a few…

^E

Also covered:
Ice Warriors!
Doctor Who 50th Celebration, ExCeL London!
Calgary Expo!
Long Island Doctor Who!

Go over there and give us a listen!

Issue 46 — March 2013

Our trek through the Doctors’ eras finally breaks free of the confines of new Who, though we’re technically not yet back in the welcoming arms of classic Who. This week, Deb, Erika, Liz, and Tansy natter on about the Eighth Doctor at such length that we run out of time to talk about his non-TV offerings. But fear not!  Next week we promise you’ll have a nice juicy Extra! filled with lots more Eighth Doctor goodness.

^E

Also covered:
Gallifrey One!
Big Finish: Lady of Mercia, Fourth Doctor Adventures!
Scream of the Shalka DVD release!
An Adventure in Space and Time: News! and Pictures!
Gallifrey One 2013 – The End of the Line! (with crowd noise!)

Download or listen now (runtime 1:09:40)

There was a lively Twitter discussion over my lunch hour about Michael Stephens’ Library Journal Office Hours column this week, “Essential Soft Skills.”

He talks in particular about “soft skills” for new graduates: communication, initiative, continuous learning, sensitivity and understanding,  professional responsibility, and “further skills.”

I think he’s spot on, so I’ll just point you over there.

I’m seeing search committees very much value those “soft skills” more and more.

As a potential colleague, on an individual level, they make so much of our work go so much more smoothly.

These skills can be learned and practiced! The Twitter conversation mentioned Toastmasters, and I found library leadership training that I attended in 2008 similarly helpful.

Anecdotally, when I came into the field, I had the impression that there was a history of people who didn’t want to have to work with people being the majority of practitioners. This went double for special collections, where I have heard multiple anecdotal histories of special collections being the ‘dumping ground’ for ‘difficult’ staffers on the theory that they work with fewer members of the public there.

Those days are loooong gone, so far as I can tell. There is more and more emphasis on outreach, working with the public, working with donors, and working with colleagues than every before. Grant applications almost always require collaboration; most major institutional projects encourage us to work across departments at the very least. Many, many Rare Books and Special Collections professionals work with Friends groups, fundraisers, and donors routinely.  Those of us in academic environments are also often  required to present at conferences or to groups in addition to publishing, especially if we have faculty status.

I’m not saying it’s always comfortable or easy to develop those skills. What I am saying is that possessing those skills is as much of a professional asset as being on the cutting edge of implementing RDA or leveraging linked data or grantwriting or any other professional competency you can think of. Possibly more so.

Hooray! Another Verity! Extra! That means lots of exclamation points! And also a fun little discussion! Deb, Erika, Liz, and Lynne chat about tat—toys, TARDIS keys, action figures, posters, playsets, and much, much more.

What’s your favorite piece of tat?  Or are you like Erika and dislike “stuff”?  Let us know!

^E

Download or listen now (runtime 24:38)