Posted by Nicola Griffith
https://nicolagriffith.com/2025/06/07/thank-you-2/
http://nicolagriffith.com/?p=85994
As you read this I’m on stage in Kansas City accepting the honour of becoming SFWA’s 41st Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master. Traditionally, those few minutes on stage are the new Grand Master’s opportunity to reflect on their career and thank all those who helped them on the way. I’ve chosen to do things a little differently.
First, I did the reflection-upon and lessons-learnt-from career stuff yesterday in a 90-minute conversation and AMA with Kelley and anyone in the room in person or virtually. Second, instead of gabbling a bunch of names without context in an effort to squeeze everyone in before the Nebula nominees expire from irritation and stress as they wait for me to just be done, and go away, so they can find out whether they’ve won, I’m going to thank people here, now. And third (and I’m sure regular readers of this blog will be shocked—shocked!—to hear it), I want to use those few precious minutes with the microphone to say a few things.
But we can talk about all that later. Right here and right now I want to thank people who have helped me in my writing career in ways great and small. There are a lot. I apologise to all those I’ve missed.
The first person who helped me was Carol, my partner for ten years in England, whose love and support were vital in those first years—who never once suggested I was unrealistic in trying to write books that won awards even though a) I didn’t know any writers b) had never studied writing and c) couldn’t even type—and didn’t even know you couldn’t submit manuscripts handwritten in blue fountain pen on lined paper.
The second person is, or perhaps was, a man I never met (and whose name I’m not entirely sure I remember correctly) at a publisher in London.1 When I was 23 or 24 I sent him a handwritten manuscript of a science fiction novel called Greenstorm, and instead of tossing the paper in the bin, or keeping it around to laugh over with his friends, he wrote back to me explaining all the very many things I’d done wrong—and suggesting the name of an editor who might actually like this book. Once it was typed. That was an act of extraordinary generosity. And it made a huge difference, because the name he suggested was Malcolm Edwards.
We’ll get to him in a minute. The next person to help was my mother, Margot Griffith.2 She didn’t approve of this novel-writing nonsense; she wanted me to get a real job. If I had to write, why not be a journalist—steady employment. Nonetheless when I explained that I needed to be able to type my book before I sent it out again, she bought me a secondhand IBM Selectric. And I got a book from the library and taught myself to touch-type.
David Pringle bought my first story, “Mirrors and Burnstone”—that is, the fourth story I’d written and sent him. He supported my career for years, first at Interzone and then by hiring me to write for Games Workshop’s Warhammer Fantasy universe.
Malcolm bought Ammonite—a first, mass market paperback from a complete unknown. That in itself isn’t unheard of; what amazes me is how much attention and how many publisher resources he used to launch it. He got me radio interviews, newspaper reviews, he put me—and my mother—up at the Groucho Club for three nights. And he basically let me suggest the design for that very first cover and found an artist who could realise my vision. And then he bought Slow River.
In between selling “Mirrors and Burnstone” and Ammonite, I met Kelley at Clarion. She’s the one I owe most to, but there isn’t a blog post in the world long enough to list all the ways. Instead, I’ll name the other workshop people I met there. Obviously the friends I made and still see—Mark Tiedemann, Brooks Caruthers, Daryl Gregory—but also all those I lost touch with but still think about sometimes. (If you’re reading this, please say hello!) Then of course there were the teachers. Tim Powers was the one who taught me when to really give your opinion of another writer’s book and when to be blandly polite—also, he brought beer! Lisa Goldstein brought into focus for me what it means to speak your mind at the right time. Chip Delany pretty much saved the experience for me: he found me food I could eat (I was starving), bought it, and brought it to my room; he made me feel less alien (another queer person!); and he introduced to me a writing concept that Kelley and I have refined and now call narrative and emotional grammar. Stan Robinson was the one who told us that writing should not be showy for its own sake: that good prose should be the feather on the arrow that sinks into the reader rather than a feather in the writer’s cap.3 And then there is Kate and Damon. Obviously I owe them the most. Even before Clarion I’d read their work—Damon Knight’s criticism as much as his fiction and soaked it up like a sponge. Kate Wilhelm—despite all her awards—was criminally underrated. But the thing I really owe them was their anger at my waste of talent.
Let me explain. I’ve always been a good writer—and I knew it. But while I knew I was good I never took it seriously: I played with it; I was clever with it; if something didn’t immediately work I gave up and moved onto to something else. And, hey, if writing didn’t work then I’d find something else. (Even going to Clarion itself was a toss-up: I’d also applied for a 4-week women’s martial arts camp in the Netherlands-it was just luck that Clarion wrote back first and offered me a scholarship.) When we had our teacher/student conference they offered me a plastic cup and some wine—a gallon jug of Gallo; I’d never tasted anything as awful in my life, but they thought I was going to need it; they were right—and then tore into me. Minute after minute they smacked me about, coming from different directions with each sentence, but what it boiled down to was this: they were really, really angry that I was wasting my talent. They set aside my submission stories (Mirrors and Burnstone, and Down the Path of the Sun) then lifted the stack of workshop stories and tossed them on the floor. They were disgusted. Why? Why was I writing such unserious crap when I could write stories like Burnstone and Path of the Sun? How dare I? How dare I waste my time, their time, and my talent when there were people in that workshop who would kill for a tenth of what I was just frittering away? On and on, minute after minute—Damon getting louder; Kate red in the face. What, they shouted, was I afraid of? I stood there, quite blank, and then they told me to just go away, and come back when I had something to say.
I went away and spent the afternoon and early evening drinking beer and thinking. They were right. I’m still not sure ‘afraid’ is the right word, but it’s not entirely the wrong one. either. I hadn’t committed; I wasn’t taking the work seriously; uncharacteristically (why?) I wasn’t stretching to my limit, I wasn’t taking risks. I wasn’t reaching with all my will and focus. I wasn’t being brave.4 That conversation changed my trajectory; I owe Kate and Damon a lot.
In UK: two local fans introduced me to the Hull SF community (via a ritual viewing of ST:TNG) they told me about an sf festival in Beverley, where I met Gwyneth Jones and Lisa Tuttle. I also met Brian Aldiss—but that’s a whole other story…
—and then I met some of the Leeds SF community, including Charlie Stross—to whom my first words, sadly (it’s a long story—I’ll tell it some day), “Oh, just fuck off!” (Things improved from there.)
After Beverley where I met so many people who wished there was something like Clarion in the UK, I thought, Well why not make one? And created the first SF writers weekend funded by Arts Council Britain—and invited Lisa and Iain Banks to teach alongside me.
After that I was invited to Mexicon—where the idea for Ammonite fell into my head in the middle of a panel moderated by Sherry Coldsmith—thank you, Sherry!—-about women as aliens—and realising M&B’s ‘aliens’ were, in fact, women.
Then I moved to the US and the immigration struggle began—while I left the country every six months and came back two weeks later on another tourist visa. I started freelancing under the table (because tourist visa) for southern voice. I reviewed. Lot of books. I interviewed Dorothy Allison about Bastard Out of Carolina over the phone (and nothing recorded, so i had to recreate the whole thing from memory) then met her face to face at Charis books—and discovered she not only wrote the best queer fiction, poetry, and essays, she also loved SF. She became my friend and champion ever after. I miss her still.
It was at Charis Books (thank you, Linda Bryant!) that I met Ursula and told her about the Ammonite sale and asked for a blurb (yes I did). And she gave me one—and put me in touch with Vonda McIntyre, who also gave me a blurb.
More than that, Vonda introduced me to her agent, Fran Collin—who got me offer from Gordon Van Gelder at St Martins for a hard/soft deal for Ammonite with Avon. Against all advice, I turned them down (another loooong story, told elsewhere—but it put my name out there) and instead sold Ammonite to Ellen Key Harris at Del Rey.
In 1992 at the Nebulas in Atlanta—that’s when things really kicked into gear because that where Ellen Datlow said, Oh *you’re* Nicola Griffith! Let me introduce you to everyone. And she did—and it’s also where I met Ed Hall—great friend who helped later.
It was right around this time that I also met Dave Slusher, who interviewed me several times for his college radio station.
Meanwhile, at Del Rey, Ellen Harris, a brand new associate editor and me, a brand new writer, threw away the rule book and invented a guerrilla marketing campaign which led to awards right out of the gate, plus what might have been the first review of a mass market paperback original in the NYT—and it was a great review.
One of the awards was the Tiptree, and I went to Readercon for it—where I met a zillion people—and at Wiscon—ditto. Ellen and Delia, Jeanne Gomoll, Ellen Klages, so many more.
My second agent, Shawna McCarthy, sold Slow River to Del Rey (another loooong story) and again to Malcolm.
When I sold Slow River to Del Rey I met the associate publisher, Ku Yu Liang, who, in an extraordinary move, sent me and Kelley (all expenses paid) to ICFA—where I met so many peopleI’d already met (including Brian Aldiss)—and many others such as Gary Wolfe and Joe and Gay Haldeman—for the first time.
All this time the immigration fight was going on, and for that I want to thank Allen Ginsberg, Stan Robinson, and Zell Miller,the then-governor of Georgia (!!) and of ourse the goddess of immigration attorney, Carolyn Soloway. I got my Green Card—but not before having to make new law.
Then we moved to Seattle. And here I met and was helped by so very many people—and time is running short—that I’ll have to just start listing names. Obviously top of the list, the mover and shaker behind everything, is Vonda McIntyre. She made so much possible. Also Eileen Gunn and John Berry, Nisi Shawl, Octavia Butler, Ursula again and more, Robin McKinley, Nancy Kress, Timmi Duchamp, Greg and Astrid Bear, all the folks past and present at Clarion West, Ted Chiang and Marcia, Matt Ruff and Lisa, Neal Stephenson and Ellen, Kathy Cain and Charles Mc Aleese, and so many booksellers: Rick, Tom, Rob, Duane, Fran…
Then there’s Janis Ian, Stacey and Mary, Kate and Liz, Laura and Amy, Jen and Therese, and so many, many more…
But always, the SF community—all those parties at our house, Vonda’s house, Kate and Glen’s house. You know who you are. Thank you.
Somewhere in there I met Colleen Lindsay, and in 2000 she introduced me to Sean McDonald, the an editor at Nan A. Talese. He is my editor still—though now at FSG—so obviously I owe him a great deal.
In 2007 I met Maria Dahvana Headley—and she introduced to my current agent Stephanie Cabot. Stephanie and Sean between them changed my career.
Oh, and now time is really ticking by. So to my family and friends and neighbours and colleagues I haven’t yet named—Anne and Julie, Jennifer Durham (photographer extraordinaire), Liz Butcher, friend beyond price, Angelique and Liliana, Stacey and Mary, Ginny and Lynn, Bob ad Tina, Vicki, all the teams at Gernert and SLA and FSG/MCD, and now—yay!—at Canongate, thank you.
I couldn’t have done any of this without you.
Thank you. And there are still so very many more but right now I have to go get dressed in my nice blue suit and go make a speech…
Thank you!
https://nicolagriffith.com/2025/06/07/thank-you-2/
http://nicolagriffith.com/?p=85994
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
plaidder_tumblr_feed
︎
