My novel Little Brother has won the Campbell Award for best sf novel of the year (sharing the award with Ian MacLeod’s “Song of Time”). The award’s given out over the July 9 weekend at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, KS, and includes free events that are open to the public. Also in attendance will be Ian MacLeod and James Allan Gardner, whose “The Ray Gun: A Love Story” won the Sturgeon award for best short story.

(Funny thing: there’s another Campbell award, given out with the Hugo Awards, for best new sf writer. I won it in 2000, and as near as anyone can work out, I’m the only writer to have won both!).

Hope to see you in Lawrence on July 11/12!

James Gunn, director of the Center for the Study of Science Fiction at the University of Kansas, has announced winners of the 2009 John W. Campbell Award for the best science fiction novel of the year and the 2009 Theodore Sturgeon Award for the best short science fiction of the year.

The Campbell award is shared by Cory Doctorow’s “Little Brother” (Tor Books) and Ian MacLeod’s “Song of Time” (PS Publishing). James Alan Gardner’s “The Ray Gun: A Love Story” won the Sturgeon award. The authors will accept their awards July 10 at KU and will be featured at the Campbell Conference on Saturday, July 11, and Sunday, July 12.

The Campbell Conference will discuss “What’s Old, What’s New: The New Space Opera, the New Hard SF, the New Weird.” In the afternoon session the three winners will open a discussion on what’s new in publishing and its effect on writing and reading.

Science fiction writers earn awards for best novels, short story of the year

Bill Massiola, who adapted my novel Little Brother for a critically acclaimed stage-play running in Chicago right now at the Griffin Theatre Company performing at the Athenaeum Theatre, sent me these three video clips from the production. I’m coming through Chicago on July 9 to see the play (it runs until July 19); based on these clips I’m incredibly excited to see more!

Little Brother stage play

I’ve been waiting to announce this for months now, while the paperwork went back and forth and now I finally can! Don Murphy, producer of such films as Natural Born Killers and From Hell, has bought a film option on Little Brother. I’ve talked it over with Don and feel confident that if he makes the movie that he’ll do it justice — I’m guaranteed a spot as a consultant to ensure that it all comes out right, too!

For the uninitiated, a film option gives a producer the exclusive right to try to sell the film to a studio, signing up actors, a director and writer, and so on. For every film produced, many are optioned. But all that said, every film that gets made starts out as an option deal. Bottom line: a Little Brother movie isn’t a lock, but it’s a lot more likely than it was yesterday.

Love this short video review of Little Brother from Rebecca on Five Awesome YA Fans!

Chicago’s Griffin Theatre has mounted a live production of my young adult novel Little Brother, adapted by William Massolia. This is incredibly exciting; Time Out Chicago gave it four stars, saying, “Doctorow raises many worthy points about the relationship between our safeties and our freedoms, and in Milne’s bracing production, newcomer Mike Harvey as Marcus makes a confident tour guide.” Bill Shunn, writing in Sci-Fi Wire, said, “Little Brother is an exciting and thought-provoking production, imaginatively staged on a bare-bones set with some multimedia elements stirred in.”

I’ve managed to wrangle a trip to Chicago to see the play on July 9 — I hope to see you there! And if July 9 doesn’t work for you, I hope you can catch it on another night.

LITTLE BROTHER: Griffin Theatre, Chicago

Time Out: Little Brother

Sci Fi Wire: Review: Cory Doctorow’s revolutionary novel Little Brother comes to the stage

Chicago Sun-Times: ‘Little Brother’ tackles big issues

Production photos

Pavol Hvizdos just posted a Slovak fan-translation of my book Little Brother — Maly brat. Man, I love the cool stuff Creative Commons licenses lets people do with my books!

Cory Doctorow: Maly brat