Nebula Awards 2008
This year the Nebula Awards took place in Austin, TX on April 24-27. Being in Texas, the award ceremony had to have some Texas flavor, and that was amply supplied by the MC John Moore and the toastmaster Joe Lansdale. Moore started by explaining Texas dialect to the out-of-state folks. He said, "in Texas you don't say 'I'm going to have a glass of wine', you say 'I'm fixing to mosey down to Hospitality Suite and rustle up a Shiner Bock'. And right now I'm fixing to introduce our toastmaster. He's a kick-ass Texas writer, and I mean it literally: he founded a school of martial arts."
Joe Lansdale's speech was the highly anticipated highlight of the award ceremony. Everyone in the Texas fandom knows Lansdale is pretty damn funny. And his speech was funny indeed, although a bit rambling. I managed to remember a couple of anecdotes Joe told; for the sake of brevity, I'll compress the details which, in my opinion, didn't add much to the story. (Though what do I know? Perhaps readers adore Joe Lansdale precisely because of those details I consider rambly.)
His point was that Texas is such a weird place it can't help but inspire science fiction. Here is an incident that happened to him and an even stranger one, to another Texas writer. Lansdale also listed his rules for the attendees of science fiction conventions.
Michael Moorcock, who was bestowed a title of SFWA grandmaster, had his own funny stories to tell about life in Texas -- and why he likes it here.
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Date: 04/25/2008
Owner: Elze
Size: 20 items
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CIMG9340 Michael Marano and Kamela Dolinova
at the Nebula Awards 2008, Austin, TX
Date: 04/25/2008
Views: 240
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CIMG9343 Kasey Lansdale
daughter of Joe Lansdale, AFAIK
Date: 04/25/2008
Views: 224
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CIMG9345 Connie Willis, Barry and Regina Longyear
Date: 04/25/2008
Views: 280
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CIMG9347 Cheryl Ducoin an Bruce Sterling
Date: 04/25/2008
Views: 217
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CIMG9351 Kij Johnson
at the Nebula Awards 2008, Austin, TX
Date: 04/25/2008
Views: 187
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CIMG9353 Stina Leicht and Patrice Sarath
at the Nebula Awards 2008, Austin, TX
Date: 04/25/2008
Views: 196
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CIMG9354 Connie Willis and Barry Longyear
at the Nebula Awards 2008, Austin, TX
Date: 04/25/2008
Views: 200
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CIMG9348 Nancy Jane Moore, Jennifer Pelland, Vera Nazarian
at the Nebula Awards 2008, Austin, TX
Date: 04/25/2008
Views: 179
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CIMG9357 Michael Moorcock, John Picacio
An unidentified woman, Michael Moorcock, and artist John Picacio at the autographing at the 2008 Nebula awards
Date: 04/25/2008
Views: 203
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CIMG9340 Michael Marano and Gabrielle Faust
at the Nebula Awards 2008, Austin, TX
Date: 04/25/2008
Views: 180
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CIMG9363 Ardath Mayhar
at the Nebula Awards 2008, Austin, TX
Date: 04/25/2008
Views: 173
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CIMG9364 Geoffrey Landis
at the Nebula Awards 2008, Austin, TX
Date: 04/25/2008
Views: 165
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CIMG9370 Finger wrestling
An unidentified guy and a girl from Books On Board at the Nebula Awards 2008, Austin, TX
Date: 04/25/2008
Views: 152
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CIMG9371 Paul Abell and wife Amy
at the Nebula Awards 2008, Austin, TX
Date: 04/25/2008
Views: 207
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CIMG9375 Michael Moorcock and John Picacio
at the Nebula Awards 2008, Austin, TX
Date: 04/25/2008
Views: 246
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CIMG9377 Sara Felix and Keith
at the Nebula Awards 2008, Austin, TX
Date: 04/25/2008
Views: 172
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CIMG9374 Chris Roberson and Diana Gill
at the Nebula Awards 2008, Austin, TX
Date: 04/25/2008
Views: 178
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CIMG9381 Chris Nakashima-Brown
at the Nebula Awards 2008, Austin, TX
Date: 04/25/2008
Views: 158
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CIMG9386 Sara Beth Durst
at the Nebula Awards 2008, Austin, TX
Date: 04/25/2008
Views: 169
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CIMG9389 Two unidentified girls
A girl with a nearly-illegible name tag (Erin Johnston?) (left) and a nametag-less girl from Books On Board
Date: 04/25/2008
Views: 223
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