2018 Hugo Awards Eligibility Post & Cool Things I Did in 2017

I’ve been spending a lot of time reminding people to post their works from the previous calendar year & what they’re eligible for since it’s SF/F awards season, so of course I’ve been procrastinating on my own post. Thanks to everyone who reminded me that I need to promote my own stuff, even if I didn’t feel like I did that much in 2017—surprise, that voice in your head (or the voices of others complaining that you promote yourself “too much”) that says you didn’t do anything worth noting? Is a DAMN DIRTY LIAR, don’t listen to it, instead as DongWon Song has advised, shove it into a (metaphorical) an airlock and blast it into the frigid depths of space.

So to get straight to it, here are works that I did in 2017 that are eligible for consideration in various categories for the Hugo Awards.

For Best Related Work I did the following:

• “Two Asian American Women Discuss Ghost in the Shell“ co-written with Dawn Xiana Moon for The Learned Fangirl
• “Volunteers, Professionals, and Who Gets to Have Fun at Cons” for The Bias
• “Hold the #MartialArtsMayo: A Review of Iron Fist Part 1, Part 2, Part 3,” a mini-podcast series co-hosted with Dawn Xiana Moon for The Learned Fangirl
• “Heroes for Hire: A Defenders Audio Review Part 1 and Part 2,” a mini-podcast series co-hosted with Matt Peters for The Learned Fangirl

I am also eligible in the Best Fan Writer category.

I continue to be proud of the work we’ve done on Uncanny Magazine and am pleased to note that the magazine is once again eligible for consideration in the Best Semiprozine category.

Thanks so much for your consideration!

In addition to the above listed, I also had the pleasure of doing the following work in the last year:

• “Finding Yourself in Fandom,” for the Uncanny Magazine Blog
• authored my very first comic strip, “Really Filipino,” with art provided by Jeremy Arambulo, as part of the New Frontiers collection, edited by Jeff Yang & Keith Chow
• Was a guest on The Audio Guide to Babylon 5 for “Episode 71: Into the Fire”
• Was a guest on WBEZ Morning Shift, joining sociologist and author Nancy Wang Yuen for “The Whitewashing of Asians in Hollywood”
• Was a guest on The Skiffy and Fanty Show to talk about Wonder Woman
• Had several Tweet threads* about fandom issues that I’m particularly proud of including:
  • Iron Fist and False Choices
  • Martial Arts Stereotypes and Asian Characters & a follow up thread
  • Iron Fist‘s Origins Were Always Problematic
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Chill-Girlism
  • Criticisms of Iron Fist Aren’t Just Because He’s a White Billionaire
  • Subverting Asian Stereotypes in Storytelling
  • Being a Fish Out of Water and Race
  • Mulan is More Than Girly Martial Arts
  • Sarah Connor and Wonder Woman Aren’t Here for James Cameron
• Completed my fourth year on the Chicago Nerd Social Club Board of Organizers, with this being my first year as board president
• Performed with fire, LED, and other props in five of Raks Geek‘s six shows in 2017, as well as the Artists Against Hate fundraiser (which was co-organized by Raks Geek’s producer Dawn Xiana Moon). AAH raised nearly $4300 for the ACLU and Raks Geek’s three shows at Uptown Underground raised hundreds of dollars for groups like I Need Diverse Games and Lane Tech Computer Science, as well as hurricane relief for Puerto Rico
• Spoke at more panels at cons like C2E2, WisCon, and Chicago Book Expo
• Gave a lecture as part of the Comics, Culture, and Society symposium at the University of Illinois-Chicago
• Talked about the intersections of food, SF/F, and identity at Kultura Festival
• Attended Worldcon 75 in Helsinki (my very first trip to Europe!), met so many amazing people (many in person for the first time!) and got to accept Uncanny Magazine‘s second Hugo Award alongside the awesome & then-Poetry and Reprint Editor Julia Rios.

The best thing about many of these projects/events and many others I didn’t get to listing is all of the amazing creators, fans, critics, and other people who I got to work with and get to know because of them. And if there’s one thing that’s continued to be impressed upon me throughout all of this, is that visibility matters. It matters.

Which is another reason why I think it’s important for those of us who are creating things in the genres we love to celebrate and promote our own work. It’s not just for awards and nominations (although those are rather lovely!), it’s also so that others can see what we’re doing and see that there is space for them, too. And honestly, we should celebrate and be proud of and find joy in the things we’ve done and created for no other reason than we did them in the first place. So please consider putting your own posts/tweets/FB/Tumblr/whatever posts up celebrating the things you did over the past year, whether it’s for awards considerations or not. These days in particular, being able to create something that makes you (and hopefully others) happy is surely something to be proud of.

*Note: These Tweet threads are currently on Storify but since that’s going away in a few months, I’ll be moving them onto the blog.