So here's a question for y'all -- should the SLF keep offering
the Fountain Award? Some arguments for/against:
Con
- there's a new award for the best short story from a small press done by the Washington DC SF society (Peter Beagle won the 1st one), so this may duplicate our efforts somewhat
- it's a huge chunk of our budget
- our spending money on grants might make more impact in the field -- that $1000 could go for two more older writers' grants, or we could start up one of the other grants we'd talked about, the young writers' grant (for high school students) or the small press development grant
- Karen Meisner, our administrator, is stepping down after three hard-working years in the position of award administrator
- it's a very high workload position, so it may be difficult finding someone new competent and with enough time to administer it
Pro
- it's a little sad to stop doing something we've been doing
- we may do a better job of searching out both genre and non-genre markets that the Washington DC group
- the original reasons for offering the award still apply
What do you guys think? Do we try to keep it going, or shut the award down and refocus our efforts on more grants?
