I thought we'd get a difference when Catherine Asaro was elected. She seemed to understand that SFWA could be a more effective advocate for professional writers, and had a plan for moving it in that direction: but, from what I could see on the outside, she was tainted by association with romance writers and never got her plans off the ground.
I felt the association with romance writers was a plus, personally. They have a more pragmatic approach to things, overall. It isn't 100% perfect, but there were things we could've learned. Things they could've learned from us.
There was also the usual Other Stuff Going On, which always goes on.
The thing is, a lot of folks are saying SFWA is broken. But none of them seem willing to try to fix it by running a different sort of slate at a time when people would likely be very open to it.
And they all forget that the last, write-in slate only ran after like a third of the members had already voted, and so doesn't really indicate anything at all. (This last is driving me buggy--you can't consider a late write in candidacy like that a failure of the system, yet so many people do ...)
The thing is, a lot of folks are saying SFWA is broken. But none of them seem willing to try to fix it by running a different sort of slate at a time when people would likely be very open to it.
People were saying SFWA was broken/in a state of flux when I joined back in 1998. It's been chewing on its leg for a long time. How do you go about changing it when you're going to be confronting the same attitudes and personalities that have been keeping it on the boil for 10 years?
The thing is, I think this current election cycle, if a completely new group of people ran, they could win, if they did it right, given just how high ill feeling is running. This would be the time to give it a try, really.
But if no one tries that, we'll never know whether things could have been saved or not.
(Not that I'm saying it should be you necessarily if you don't want it to be. I'm saying that this is the time to try, if anyone is going to.)
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winterfish
no subject
Date: 2007-11-30 07:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-30 08:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-30 09:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-30 08:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-30 08:19 pm (UTC)There was also the usual Other Stuff Going On, which always goes on.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-30 08:45 pm (UTC)I"LL PAY YOU!!!
:)
no subject
Date: 2007-11-30 10:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-01 02:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-01 03:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-01 03:17 am (UTC)The thing is, a lot of folks are saying SFWA is broken. But none of them seem willing to try to fix it by running a different sort of slate at a time when people would likely be very open to it.
And they all forget that the last, write-in slate only ran after like a third of the members had already voted, and so doesn't really indicate anything at all. (This last is driving me buggy--you can't consider a late write in candidacy like that a failure of the system, yet so many people do ...)
no subject
Date: 2007-12-01 04:52 am (UTC)People were saying SFWA was broken/in a state of flux when I joined back in 1998. It's been chewing on its leg for a long time. How do you go about changing it when you're going to be confronting the same attitudes and personalities that have been keeping it on the boil for 10 years?
no subject
Date: 2007-12-01 05:14 am (UTC)But if no one tries that, we'll never know whether things could have been saved or not.
(Not that I'm saying it should be you necessarily if you don't want it to be. I'm saying that this is the time to try, if anyone is going to.)