And the winner of the 2010 Nebula Award for Best Novella…

Rachel Swirsky!!

Rachel Swirksy!!!!!

That’s right,

Rachel Swirksy!!!!!!!!!!!!

Rachel (known in these parts as Mandolin) just won the Nebula Award for her novella “The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers Beneath the Queen’s Window.

Let me mention that the competition in Mandolin’s category this year was AWESOME. Paolo Bacigalupi, J. Kathleen Cheney, Ted Chiang, Geoffrey A. Landis, and Paul Park were the other nominees. That’s an amazing group to be in, and a hard, hard competition to win.

I cannot possibly describe how thrilling it was sitting with Rachel when the award was announced. (As John Scalzi was reading the nominees, Rachel leaned across to me and mouthed “I know I didn’t win.”) I really wish I had a camera and the means to upload a photo, because lemme tell you, Rachel’s Nebula is gorgeous. (Every individual Nebula Award is unique, not identical to any other). I’m sure we’ll get photos up eventually!

This is a big, big deal. Congratulations, Mandolin!

(Oh, and since people will wonder if I don’t mention it, I didn’t win in my category — Terry Pratchett did. Hard to complain about losing to Terry Pratchett!)

This entry posted in crossposted on TADA, Mandolin's fiction & poems. Bookmark the permalink. 

24 Responses to And the winner of the 2010 Nebula Award for Best Novella…

  1. 1
    Grace Annam says:

    Wow. That’s beyond awesome. Congratulations, Mandolin! Words fail me.

    (I have exchanged e-mail with a Nebula-award-winning author. Before she won the Nebula. Someone pinch me. No, don’t. I want to savor it.) :)

    Grace

  2. 2
    Jake Squid says:

    Congratulations! That is the awesomest of awesomey, awesome-like things!

  3. 3
    Robert says:

    That’s pretty staggeringly awesome. Great job, Mandolin, and congratulations. Your story was genuinely outstanding.

    (Pulls out own life to examine it. Decides choices were necessary. Resolves to get own Nebula one day.)

  4. 4
    Elusis says:

    Congratulations!!!

  5. 5
    Eva says:

    Mazel Tov!

  6. That is absolutely fantastic news! Congratulations!

  7. 7
    mythago says:

    GRATZ!

  8. 8
    Sharon Cullars says:

    Congratulations!

  9. 9
    Simple Truth says:

    Congratulations!! :D It must be so thrilling!

  10. 10
    SherryH says:

    Well done! And totally deserved. Congrats, Mandolin!

  11. 11
    Manboobz says:

    Congrats!!!

  12. 12
    Ampersand says:

    Rachel is going to be traveling for the next week, by the way — so although I’m sure she’ll eventually read this thread, it may be a while.

    Meanwhile, photos of her accepting the award — here, here and here. I wonder what John Scalzi is whispering to her?

  13. 13
    Ampersand says:

    By the way, the person many people expected to win the best Novella Nebula this year was Ted Chiang. Mr.. Chiang, an utterly fantastic writer, has published only 12 stories, an incredible five (!) of which have been nominated for Nebula awards.

    This year is the first time he’s been nominated for the Nebula Award and not won.

    Rachel is also the first writer under 30 to win a Nebula award in 20 years. The previous writer under thirty to win a Nebula award was… Ted Chiang, in 1990.

  14. 14
    Myca says:

    Holy crap, Mandolin, congratulations! This is wonderful, and you completely deserve it. Yay for you!

  15. 15
    paul says:

    Wow. Congratulations. I feel cool just for having read it.

  16. 16
    RonF says:

    Fantastic! Well deserved. Congratulations!

  17. 17
    nm says:

    Congratulations! I loved the story.

  18. 18
    Radfem says:

    Congratulations!

  19. 19
    embergirl says:

    Well done. :)

  20. 20
    Ampersand says:

    Oh, one more statistic: Rachel is the first writer born in the 1980s to win a Nebula. :-)

  21. 21
    Jeff Fecke says:

    I don’t think any words beyond “congratulations” do this justice. So…congratulations!

  22. 22
    Mandolin says:

    Thanks, everyone! I really did not expect to win. I also did not expect to forget how to talk. :-P

    It’s really amazing and hard to believe. The weekend was full of lots of squee, both before and after I won. It’s still really cool that I get to play in the same sandbox as these incredible writers; I feel like I’m a toddler being allowed to sit at the big kids’ table. It’s incomprehensible, and it’s awesome, and dude, did I mention awesome?

  23. 23
    Stefan says:

    Congratulations, Mandolin.
    Must be awsome to be counted along with Arthur C. Clarke and the others.

  24. 24
    RonF says:

    Mandolin, I think that this means that any table you sit at is the big kids’ table.