Backstories: "SFWA Changes Entry Criteria For Membership"
Ongoing news from the former Sports Editor of Science Fiction Age
(Backstory the First: The reason things have been quiet on the newsletter front lies with the loss of my oldest and dearest friend Paul Mears, who died on July 11. It’s exceedingly hard to describe how hard this hit: we had been friends for nearly 45 years, and just trying to collect a greatest hits of our exploits is both time-consuming and exceedingly painful. This is one of several Backstory installments to help fill in gaps in the main essay, as we almost literally changed history a couple of times, and the final eulogy comes out when it’s damn well good and ready.)
(Backstory the Second: It’s no exaggeration that I would not be the person I am today had it not been for my friendship with Paul Mears, mostly due to his time in the US Navy between 1984 and 1989. Whenever he came back on leave, because I was about the only person from our high school cohort who wanted to get out and DO something other than futz around on the computer or watch the same Next Generation rerun over and over, we’d head out and hit bookstores, music shops, movie theaters, live music venues, and just about anything else that (a) sounded interesting and (b) was open later in Dallas on a Sunday evening, usually while listening to local community radio programs such as the much-missed Hour of Slack on KNON. Both before and after his discharge from the Navy, we’d toodle around to multiple bookstores with large magazine collections, with the idea of finding that one excerpt from an article, essay, or short story that could leave us nearly mute because we were laughing too hard to read it out loud. At the end of 1987, our lives changed when Paul came across an odd little zine titled New Pathways Into Science Fiction and Fantasy in a comic shop, and attempting to read it out on the drive back was dangerous. I was hiccuping more than laughing at one story therein, and Paul went beyond laughter into twitching, to the point of nearly wrecking his car twice.
(A little over a year later, I had my first publication credit in New Pathways, and Paul didn’t let me forget it or any other place where he had the opportunity to take the piss out of me, as the British put it. As far as he was concerned, very few things were so sacred that they weren’t worthy of at least a few good laughs, and he especially loved taking out his sense of humor on the terminally humorless. Hence, when the following article first came out through the online magazine Revolution Science Fiction in 2001, he promptly brought up “Don’t you have any other friends or cohorts in the business who probably won’t talk to you again if you include them?” I remembered his suggestions when it was time for an upgrade in Sean Lindsay’s 101 Reasons to Stop Writing in 2007, and this is the first appearance of the updated version since its original publication in 2007. Please note that many of the participants in 2008 are now deceased, so get hopping if you want to join SFWA.)
Chesterton, Maryland – The Science Fiction Writers of America, the long-running organization for professional science fiction and fantasy writers, announced today that it was making drastic changes to how it accepted new members, not to mention how it kept older members within the fold.
“The basic requirements for SFWA membership previously required that a writer have three short stories or one full-length fiction book or a dramatic script appear through professional paying markets,” said Sara Hewlett, SFWA spokeswoman. “However, over the late Eighties and early Nineties, we found the organization flooded with members who received their accreditation through sales to Writers of the Future or Pulphouse magazine, and although they never managed to get published again, they had lifetime membership so long as they paid their membership dues.
“So we find ourselves flooded with members who do nothing more than put ‘Member, SFWA’ on their letterhead and throw tantrums if they don’t get guest badges at local conventions, and voting in SFWA elections against any provisions to remove members unpublished in a decade or more. We had to go to further extremes to enliven the organization and clear out the dead wood.”
Those “further extremes” consist of talent competitions completely unrelated to writing. “Simply put,” said Ms. Hewlett, “any current or incipient member of SFWA must be able to impersonate a cartoon character to the satisfaction of an independently selected jury. No exceptions.”
According to the new bylaws of SFWA, each member must be able to impersonate the voice of a particular character in an animated TV show or film, and each character belongs to that author until the author dies or is beaten in impersonation combat.
“Effectively, each fiction writer qualifies for one impersonation. Nonfiction writers get two, and any professional editor gets one to add to his or her total,” said Hewlett. “This means that James Arce-Stevens gets one character, while Mike Resnick, being a fiction writer and a pro editor, gets two.” Initially, the characters selected would be done on a first-come, first-served basis, but two writers selecting the same character may compete in an arena for that impersonation: the winner remains with SFWA, while the loser has to leave the SF genre entirely unless they have an alternative. “Nonfiction writers get two solely because we can use as many as we can get.”
Many extant and former SFWA members jumped on the new rules, with varying results. Harlan Ellison, due to his singular origins (see Harlan Ellison: The Ultimate Literary Warrior Robot), promptly claimed three characters: The Iron Giant, GIR from the Nickelodeon series Invader ZIM, and Bender from Futurama. Said Hewlett, “Everybody knows that Harlan goes running around his house on Friday nights impersonating GIR anyway, so this wasn’t too much of a stretch.”
Others had more of an effort. “[Former SFWA President] Norman Spinrad and James P. Hogan had a hard time of it, seeing as how they both do an exemplary Olive Oyl, and we needed judges after about three hours. They just wouldn’t break character. Jim finally managed to win, but Mr. Spinrad managed to get back into the game with a Boomhauer impersonation that left us with tears in our eyes. It was just beautiful. It was almost as stunning as Pat Cadigan’s Snow White or Emily Devenport’s Stimpy.”
Some new and established writers, unfortunately, found themselves out of SFWA. Kristine Kathryn Rusch, unaware that silent cartoon characters were ineligible for consideration, was quoted as saying “Wait, wait…okay, I’m Odie on Garfield. …No? Okay, how about Maggie Simpson? Um. How about Claude Cat? Uh, okay, how about Taarna in Heavy Metal? No? Oh, poop.” Others found themselves at a decided advantage under the new rules: former Weird Tales editor Darrell Schweitzer expressed his opposition to the plan at last year’s World Fantasy Convention, and was allowed in due to his impassioned and incessant cries of “Timmah!”
Other characters were retired without consideration due to the authors’ reputation. “Fritz Leiber used to do an impeccable Fleischer-era Superman, and ever since he died, everyone else left it alone out of respect for him and his work,” said Hewlett. Other characters were left alone due to the nasty reputation of the author. “Even though he has no interest in joining SFWA, and we wouldn’t take him if he asked, Paul T. Riddell is known for his Beavis, Zorak [from Space Ghost: Coast To Coast], and Mr. Hanky the Christmas Poo. And they’re right up his alley, so he can have them.”
Likewise, some non-American members of SFWA are understandably aggrieved that some of their cultural icons may be appropriated by Americans, and others feel that the battle for impersonations should cross international barriers. On the Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.sf.written, one angry commentator wrote “I don’t have any problems with Brian Aldiss and Andrew Dennis getting Dangermouse and Penfold, respectively, but why does Robert Sawyer get both Terrance and Phillip? What if I can do a better Phillip?” The particulars on the competition, and whether impersonations worked alone or in conjunction with automatic weapons, was not available at press time.
Whatever happens, most members of SFWA agreed that it’s high time for the membership rules change. One SFWA member, who wished to remain unnamed, said: “The way things were going, just about anyone who wrote for a Buffy fanzine could get in, and some people were talking about a cull. You know, Thunderdome. This is better, though, because everyone knows I do a better Daffy Duck than anyone else alive. And since H.P. Lovecraft isn’t here any more to challenge me, that means I’m set.”
Edgar Harris is the former Sports Editor of Science Fiction Age magazine.
Want more hints as to the history of St. Remedius Medical College? Check out Backstories and Fragments. Want to get caught up on the St. Remedius story so far? Check out the main archive. Want to forget all of that and look at cat pictures from a beast who dreams of his own OnlyFans for his birthday? Check out Mandatory Parker. And feel free to pass on word far and wide: the more, the merrier.