Mary Robinette Kowal, who intended to run for SFWA President in 2017, has withdrawn after learning Cat Rambo will seek re-election.
Well, this is awkward… But here’s the thing. When I decided to throw my hat into the ring for SFWA president, I thought Cat Rambo wasn’t running again. I think contested elections are good, because it allows members to make decisions about the direction an organization is headed. Cat and I?
The fact is that she and I are politically aligned on where SFWA should be heading. We’re both interested in keeping things moving in a more inclusive and supportive direction. She’d already created a committee to start looking at getting health insurance for SFWA members, headed by board member Sarah Pinsker.
She’s the one who has been driving the changes to the Nebula Conference.
So… After a good deal of conversation, I realized that if I signed up to be on the health insurance committee and keep doing the programming for the Nebula Conference, that it allows me to focus my full attention on both of those things, while leaving Cat to handle the board and all the minutiae of making the organization run.
Kowal indicated she might be interested in running again in 2019.
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My impression as a non-member is that Cat Rambo has been doing a very good job as SFWA president. I think MRK would also make an excellent SFWA pres, and it would be good to see her run for pres when Rambo steps down.
(I used to be a SFWA member–also an RWA member–but these days my m’ship is strictly with Novelists, Inc. (NINC) of which I was a founding member some 25 years ago, as well as a past-president and current monthly columnist.)