Outer Alliance Spotlight #43: Cheryl Morgan July 30, 2010
Posted by juliarios in : interviews , trackbackWelcome to Outer Alliance Spotlight #43. Each week the Spotlight features an ally who writes, reviews, publishes, or is in some other way involved with LGBTQI speculative fiction. Our guest this week is Cheryl Morgan, founder of Wizard’s Tower Press.
Cheryl Morgan has been active in SF fandom for many years. She edited the Hugo winning fan magazine, Emerald City, and won the Hugo for the Best Fan Writer category in 2009. Currently she’s the non-fiction editor for Clarkesworld Magazine, and part of the team behind Science Fiction Awards Watch, Convention Reporter, and the Science Fiction and Fantasy Translation Awards.
Her newest project, Wizard’s Tower Press, just went live this month, and aims to publish e-books as well as a non-fiction magazine, and some print anthologies. The magazine, Salon Futura, will launch its first issue in September at WorldCon, and Wizard’s Tower Press’s first anthology, Dark Spires, will be released in November to coincide with BristolCon.
Cheryl mirrors her blog on LiveJournal, and maintains a Twitter feed. She lives near Bath, UK.
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OA: Wizard’s Tower Press just went live a couple of weeks ago, and it looks pretty exciting. Why did you choose to focus on the e-book publishing format, and what is you vision for WTP’s future?
CM: E-books are interesting for a number of reasons. Firstly I have little experience of making physical books. I do, however, know a fair amount about web sites, and an e-book, internally, is pretty much the same. Also e-books allow you to sell easily to people all over the world without having to pay printing and shipping costs. That’s very much how I like to work. And as someone whose library of physical books is scattered in numerous locations on two continents, and whose current home has no room for bookcases, I can see the attractions of the portability of e-books. This doesn’t mean to say that we are e-book fanatics. Everyone at Wizard’s Tower loves physical books too, and we will be publishing some. We just have to be a lot more careful with them, because the economics are much more risky.
As to the future, I’ll be very happy if I can connect lots of good books with eager readers, and avoid bankrupting myself in the process
OA: You’ve mentioned wanting to help out midlist writers with this venture. How do you hope to do that?
CM: The big publishers and bookstores are becoming more and more focused on a small number of best-selling writers, and on looking for the next big name. Midlist writers are getting squeezed out. Many of them have extensive backlists that are out of print. If we can put those books out as e-books then those authors have a potential new stream of income, and readers have a plentiful supply of books that have previously been hard to find.
OA: The first issue of WTP’s non-fiction magazine, Salon Futura will come out in September to coincide with WorldCon. What kinds of things can readers expect from that, and are you open to submissions for later issues?
CM: We are open to submissions now, both for issue #1 and future issues. The plan with Salon Futura is to provide a quality literary review magazine focused on genre literature. Clarkesworld has been very successful paying good rates for really good stories. I want to show that you can do the same with non-fiction. Of course there will be some surprises as well, but you’ll have to wait for issue #1 to see them.
OA: Dark Spires is WTP’s first planned anthology, due out in November. Can you tell us more about it?
CM: I’m part of a group that runs a small convention in the south-west of England, BristolCon. Last year Colin Harvey edited an anthology called Future Bristol that featured SF by local writers. He wanted to do something similar this year, and when I decided to get into publishing I offered to help him. Dark Spires will speculative fiction stories inspired by the locations of Thomas Hardy‘s Wessex, all written by local authors. The cover, as with Future Bristol, is by local artist Andy Bigwood.
OA: You’ve been very active in SF fandom for some time. You’re on the teams responsible for Science Fiction Awards Watch and Con Reporter, and you’re the non-fiction editor at Clarkesworld. You even won the Hugo for Best Fan Writer in 2009. How did you first get into fandom, and how did your involvement in fannish circles get to be so big?
CM: Back in the 1980s I got a job programming microcomputers for use in hotels. I was heavily into role-playing at the time, and my boss, Martin, suggested that I might enjoy science fiction conventions. He introduced me to his best friend, Dave. These people were Dave Langford and Martin Hoare (the guy who collects Dave’s Hugos at Worldcons when Dave can’t afford to attend). I guess I got lucky.
As to why I have got so involved, I guess I’m just hyperactive. If I see something needing doing I tend to try to do it.
OA: Has your involvement in fandom taken you to geographical places you might never have thought to go otherwise? How is fandom similar and different in non-English language locales in your experience?
CM: I have traveled quite a bit with my day job, but it was fandom that took me to Finland. I met a lady called Irma Hirsjärvi at an academic convention in Florida, and she invited me to attend her local con. I have been back every year since. Finland is beautiful in the summer (though I’m not sure I’d like the winters much) and the Finns are wonderfully hospitable. They are also magnificently well organized. The country has a population smaller than that of many US cities, and yet they run conventions that are bigger and better run than most I have seen, and are free to attend because the Finns are so good at getting sponsorship. Also there is sauna.
Fans are pretty much the same all around the world. We like the same sort of books, and the same sort of geek toys. What tends to distinguish local fan cultures is how ambitious and inclusive they are. In some countries fan groups tend to be small and tightly focused on specific areas of fandom; in others fan groups are very diverse and enjoy reaching out the general public through big events.
OA: You’re part of a team of people working to launch the Science Fiction & Fantasy Translation Awards, recognizing translations of foreign language work into English. The first awards ceremony is scheduled to take place at the Eaton Conference in Riverside, California next February. Why is this award important, and how can people submit work for consideration?
CM: In running Science Fiction Awards Watch I noticed that almost every country that has awards for SF&F literature includes an award for work published in translation to the local languages. The only exceptions were English-speaking countries. So I decided to start a set of awards for SF&F translated into English. Fortunately I have some very capable friends who are helping me make it a reality. There are hundreds (possibly thousands) of genre novels and stories published every year in languages other than English. By the law of averages, some of them are going to be brilliant. But without encouragement they will never get translated and most of us English-speakers won’t get to read them. I hope the awards will help change that.
There is no formal submission process. The number of works published in translation is quite small and we did not want to put any barriers in the way of considering potential nominees. However, if publishers with eligible works could write to us and let us know about their books (info [at] sfftawards.org) that will make sure we don’t miss anything.
OA: A lot of people would like to see greater diversity in SF, and I get the feeling you’re no exception, but how would you like to see the SF community embrace the diverse? To that end, what advice, if any, would you give to a new fan just entering the scene? What about old and entrenched fans, writers and editors?
CM: If people want to embrace diversity then it is pretty easy to do these days. There is a big Internet out there. My regular blog reading includes writers from Brazil, India, France, Ghana, South Africa, Malaysia, Israel and Indonesia. The biggest problem is finding time for all of the good material out there.
Of course you can’t force people to embrace diversity. If people want to stick to what they know then you have to persuade them of the benefits of stopping doing that. But something that readers, writers and editors all tend to say they are looking for is new ideas; something different. One of the best ways to get that is to read outside of your comfort zone.
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Thanks, Cheryl! Join us next week for another Spotlight, and in the meantime, check out Wizard’s Tower Press!
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