(no subject)

Folks are posting eligibility lists for all kinds of awards. I won't do that for my own writing, but it would save me a lot of emails if I did a list of who lives in the right region/has the right nationality for Baggage (I am being asked who lives where, basically).

NZ awards:
Albert & Victoria/Slow Dreams — Lucy Sussex
Macreadie v The Love Machine — Jennifer Fallon (Jenny moved to NZ over a year ago)

Chronos (Victoria):
Telescope — Jack Dann (but it may not be eligible for other reasons)
Manifest Destiny — Janeen Webb
Albert & Victoria/Slow Dreams — Lucy Sussex
Acception — Tessa Kum
(and possibly KJ Bishop's story - I don't know if Victorians living elsewhere count and if they do, how long they can live elsewhere before being ineligible)

Tin Ducks:
none (but we have a South Australian writer and people from all over the east coast, so it isn't lack of spread across the country)

Baggage is also eligible for the Ditmars and the Hugos, of course, but that's purely wishful thinking. The stories, however, are amazing and I thought it would be a shame if they missing getting noticed because readers weren't sure where the writers lived.

(no subject)

I'm in helpful mode tonight.

I get asked lots of questions by writers. Now, as you all know (why do I want to add 'Bob' in there?) I'm dead lazy. I'm always after ways to make my life easier. My firm intention is to live the life of a sybarite and everything I do has that end in mind. Once I've simplified work out of existence, I shall research the life of a sybarite very thoroughly and find out what a sybarite really was and how they lived and made an educated decision on the matter.

Did I say that my mind doesn't work in straight lines tonight? If I didn't, I should have.

Anyhow, in the interests of my eternal laziness (predestined, but not yet here), and because a kind person emailed it to one of my academic lists, I have a present for those who need it.

You will never need to ask me a comparative value of European currency or major commodity again! The data starts in the Middle Ages and goes until quite recently and has information about commodities and markets and coinage and all. You can discover information about Virginian allspice, Vermont ashes (bought by the bushel), Wollongong bread (why is Wollongong bread even in there? friends in Wollongong, what have you been up to?), lots of different kinds of salt, and (sadly) slaves (though only from South Carolina). It's a really handy resource (less and less patchy as time goes by, too, which makes it increasingly handy - just like my life is increasingly sybaritic) for a lot of writers.

Let me admit, I used it to help inform my alternate universe when the database was in an earlier version. The alternate universe with pirates and spies and committees. And you thought it was all Ben Franklin's diaries! This sort of data helped me remember what makes societies tick and really came into its own when I wanted to know what would make a society collapse.