About damned time, I say.  Found this post, just as I was filling out my membership based upon my 2014 banner year, in which I made both my third and fourth qualifying short fiction sale.  And now it looks like, as of March 1st, indie-published SF/F authors and those from small, non-qualifying presses may now qualify as pros as long as they published a minimum of 10,000 words at 6 cents a word, or received at least $3000 in royalties+advance.  Man, I got that 20-fold in the last year alone! Like I said, good year.  For the official announcement from SFWA President Steven Gould, go here.

Now, a lot of my compatriots (conservative-ish / libertarian-ish / military sci-fi / red-state-leaning-but-largely-apolitical / indie-hybrid apostates) are largely dismissive or downright hostile toward the SFWA because of the organization’s perceived ideological bent of late (and not without reason), but I find myself leaning toward optimism and traditionalism.  I want to be part of things like the SFWA, the Hugo, the Nebula, and the SF-writers’ community because of what those things are supposed to be, even if the reality of what they are currently rubs a lot of folks raw.  I’m not a controversy type of guy.  I’ve yearned to join the club for so long, that I’m gonna join it, even as others are abandoning it as unwelcome or irrelevant.  Who knows?  Next year, I might agree with them.  But this year?  This year, maybe I can do something to right the ship (should it prove to indeed need righting).

And congrats to all of those on the Sad Puppies 3 and Rabid Puppies slate for their inclusion in the alt-protest list of books and works that often get seemingly excluded from consideration for the Hugo Awards.  There are some seriously good pieces on that list and they absolutely should be considered for a Hugo, ironic inclusion or not.  I imagine that my own nominations will include a lot of those.  There was an outside chance that A Sword Into Darkness or one of my three short stories published in 2014 might have gotten included on the slate, but alas, it was not to be.  Could I still get a Hugo nom even without Sad Puppy backing?  Sure.  Pigs can also fly with a sufficient amount of explosives applied.