So I'd said awhile ago that I'd won the James Tiptree Award, presented at the WisCon convention in Madison, Wisconsin.  It's an award for depiction and exploration of gender, particularly in science fiction.  I was delighedt to have won it and very bummed that I couldn't fly to Madison to pick up the award.  I did try, but the scheduling was impossible.

Well the Tiptree people decided to do just the nicest thing instead.  One of the coordinators of the award, Debbie Notkin, came to London over the weekend and asked if I'd come to a little get-together with her and her partner and some key people associated with the award and the convention, and be presented with the award there instead.

That happened at lunch yesterday, and it was just a relaxing delight.  I've always said sci-fi people are the best company in all of publishing, and I'm right.  A table full of smart, funny, interesting, broad-minded (and may I say again, smart) people nattering away over a very good pub lunch on Fleet Street.  Really, really great stuff, and such a generous idea of theirs to do it.  A pleasure all around.