Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Science Fiction Writers of America, or SFWA (pronounced "siff-wah" or "seff-wah"), was founded in 1965 by Damon Knight. The organization has since changed its name to Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Inc., but continues with the acronym SFWA after a very brief use of the acronym SFFWA.

SFWA is a non-profit association of science fiction and fantasy writers. Most members live in the United States. Membership is limited to professionally published authors; the minimum qualification is the sale of one novel or dramatic script, or three short stories to venues with certain minimum circulations or pay rates. The "America" in the organization's title refers to the fact that authors (regardless of nationality or residence) must be published in the U.S.A. in order to qualify as SFWA members. SFWA boasts approximately 1,200 members as of 2001.

SFWA presents the Nebula award each year for the best short story, novelette, novella, novel, and script. It also gives the Andre Norton award each year for Best Young Adult novel, the occasional Bradbury award for best dramatic presentation, the Author Emeritus recognition to a senior writer whose major impact was long ago or overlooked, and the Grand Master Award for a lifetime's extraordinary achievement in science fiction or fantasy.

SFWA maintains a web site that has a lot of information for writers. One popular feature of the site is Writer Beware, which catalogues various publishing-related scams and has alerts about author mills.