What the Hell Is Going On With SFWA?
Next year will be the 60th anniversary of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA), the world's largest professional association of science fiction and fantasy writers. However, recent staff turnover has many people wondering if SFWA is in danger of imploding, similar to what recently happened with the Romance Writers of America.
I'm a long-time member of SFWA and in recent years ran their annual fundraising auction. I also serve as a mentor in the SFWA Mentoring Initiative, helping newer writers move their careers forward. I believe SFWA has done a lot for the genre writing community, so these recent issues troubled me and made me determined to learn what the hell was going on.
To do this I conducted a number of interviews with SFWA insiders including current and former presidents, board, staff, and volunteers. Because of overly broad non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) signed by many people at SFWA – an issue that will be covered in this report – many of these interviews were conducted on background, meaning I could use the information they shared but not reveal who said it. Some interviews were totally off the record. Others were the reverse.
Based on these interviews and other information shared with me, it appears SFWA is suffering from serious managerial problems, with staff and volunteers not empowered to actually deal with issues. There is also a serious lack of communication between volunteers, staff and the board, with members of the board frequently not looped into what's going on. In addition, SFWA has NDAs that are overly broad and restrict communications with members and the public. Finally, all of this has combined with some toxic workplace encounters to result in burnout among staff, board members and volunteers.
However, the good news is that – despite speculation from some people in the genre – there are no financial issues with SFWA or any embarrassing scandals that the organization is covering up. In addition, everyone I spoke with still firmly believed in SFWA's overall mission and vision along with the work the organization does. They also believed that the organization can overcome these issues. Finally, it appears SFWA's new interim president and the new members of SFWA's board are already working towards making this happen.
Managerial Problems Result in Massive Staff Turnover
The problems with SFWA emerged to the public on August 1 when Jeffe Kennedy resigned as SFWA's president, a role she'd held for three years.
As Kennedy wrote in her resignation email to members,
"The last several months have been particularly demanding in my personal life, and I have come to the realization that I can no longer provide the focused attention SFWA needs from its President. Without going into too much detail, I continue to be the sole caregiver and financial support for my disabled husband, whose progressive condition is worsening. In addition, my stepfather of twenty years passed away suddenly, widowing my elderly mother for the third time, and I am in the process of taking over all of her finances and care. These family obligations will require far more attention than I could have anticipated when I accepted the nomination to serve a second term as SFWA President."
Chelsea Mueller, the organization's vice president, became interim president upon Kennedy's resignation. However, two weeks later Mueller also stepped down, stating,
"My husband was in a major motor vehicle accident a couple of months ago. The journey after that, as well as caring for our small child, has severely limited my bandwidth. I had intended to forge on and make as much time for this organization as I could. However, I am out of spoons, and must use those I have to care for myself and my family."
The resignations of two leaders in two weeks took SFWA members and the genre community by storm. However, what wasn't stated in public but shared with me by people I interviewed is that prior to Kennedy's resignation, some SFWA board members and regular members were pushing the board to hold a vote on no-confidence on her work.
The catalyst for this push was SFWA's deputy executive director, Terra LeMay, giving 90 days notice that she was leaving. This notice was given on June 30.
As reported by File770, in LeMay’s resignation letter she expressed her intent to continue working until that 90 days was up "to ensure as smooth a transition as possible." However, two weeks after giving notice LeMay "was abruptly locked out of SFWA email and other work accounts, which were all needed for job purposes." When LeMay asked about this on the SFWA Discord, "someone (it's not clear who) deleted the messages and banned the employee from the server. The first that most board members heard about this is when people started to demand it be addressed, so it definitely seems like someone in a position of power in the organization was acting on their own, without these being approved board actions."
(Note: In the File770 report, this incident was ascribed as happening to an unknown "employee," but sources I spoke to confirmed this incident specifically happened to LeMay.)
SFWA members were outraged that LeMay, who is well loved and had worked for the organization for many years, was treated this way. At this point it is still unclear if the board will adhere to the termination clause in LeMay's contract.
But what many SFWA members didn't realize was that LeMay was only the most recent paid staff member to leave.
Beth Dawkins, SFWA's volunteer coordinator, resigned on July 1 while Kathleen Monin, SFWA's event coordinator, resigned in mid-July. In addition, SFWA's communication director Rebecca Gomez Farrell resigned in late 2023 but her position has still not filled. A similar thing happened with the organization's comptroller position, with Oz Drummond giving notice nearly two years ago that she planned to leave but SFWA not making any effort to fill the position. Drummond has continued to work for the organization even as her replacement has yet to be hired.
Some of these positions were paid staff, other paid contractors, but the end result is that all of SFWA's staff have now left or are on their way out the door except for Kate Baker, SFWA's executive director.
Any time so many staff leave an organization in a short time frame, there's usually something that causes everyone to leave. And that's what appears to be happening with SFWA.
In interviews with SFWA insiders – which again, were for the most part "on background" due to the NDAs – I was told that leadership was frequently "unresponsive and pushing issues down the road" and that there were "too many barriers to communications" between the SFWA president and executive director and other staff members and volunteers.
I was also told that people left because they felt "poorly treated," and that the poor communications resulted in people feeling "afraid to tell the board negative information," or that any problems or issues they raised with senior management would be dismissed.
As one person told me, "There was no real accountability and that trickled downhill. There was also not enough empowerment to get the job done."
People also spoke of an at-times toxic workplace environment. While all of the specific incidents from these conversations can't be shared because of SFWA's NDAs, one example can be given because it took place in public.
At this year's Nebula Conference, SFWA's then volunteer coordinator Beth Dawkins was sitting on the hotel patio with a number of the volunteers she worked with. Jeffe Kennedy came out and, after listening to a story told by Dawkins, repeated what Dawkins said. However, while doing this Kennedy spoke in what people who witnessed the incident described as a mocking version of Dawkins's southern accent. Kennedy also evidently corrected Dawkins's grammar.
When asked about this incident, Kennedy said "I felt terrible that she was upset like that. I thought we were being playful, but that's not an excuse on my part. I'm certainly going to pay much more attention to that in the future. My eyes have been opened and I'm going to do better."
A final point many of the people I interviewed shared is that all of these issues have resulted in burnout among staff and volunteers. However, one former staff member I interviewed pointed out that it was important not to use this as a way to ignore the larger managerial problems at SFWA.
"Don't blame all of this on burnout," the former staffer said. "The problem is with the work culture and not supporting each other."
Overly Broad NDAs and Poor Communications
Another thing people repeatedly said was a major issue in SFWA is that the non-disclosure agreements staff, board members, and some volunteers sign are currently overly broad and inhibit communications. These NDAs have also appeared to create an overall unwillingness to discuss problems with SFWA members and the public.
It's understandable for SFWA to use NDAs to prevent people from publicly discussing issues related to the organization's emergency medical fund, which helps members with unexpected medical problems. Or with details from Griefcom cases, where SFWA assists members with publishers who are not honoring the terms of their contracts. Or even to keep people from sharing the personal contact information of members.
However, instead of the NDAs merely stopping the public discussion of such confidential information, the ones currently in place are so broad that the first instinct from staff and board members is to believe that SFWA can't discuss anything.
As one SFWA volunteer told me, "One big problem seems to be that SFWA has built up a culture of obfuscation and opacity in the name of staff and volunteer safety and operational ease. The names of board directors and employees are not listed anywhere official on the website, and there is no way to find out who is on committees or even who is a member outside of emailing the SFWA Office."
As this volunteer stated, there are legitimate reasons for SFWA to protect volunteer safety and member privacy. For example, SFWA's member directory has been used before to send out spam to members or even to attempt to dox people. And there have been threats made against SFWA board members, staff, and volunteers by people who oppose the organization's work.
However, the organization has taken things too far. One result of both the NDAs and poor overall communications is that SFWA staff and the board can be slow to respond to issues, such as during this current crisis. The lack of good communications results in SFWA members being unsure what is going on while allowing bad actors outside the organization to spin their own narratives about what is happening.
We have witnessed this in recent weeks as certain people have implied that SFWA is going under because of DEI or because of some unknown secret that's being covered up. Or alternately, that the organization is doomed due to bad financial decisions or any of a number of other bizarre theories.
Based on my interviews and research, none of that is true. In particular, SFWA's financials appear to be solid. However, because of SFWA's current culture of secrecy, rumors and conspiracy theories about what is happening continue to spread.
Growing Pains Raise Questions about SFWA's Leadership Model
One recurring point people made in my interviews was that today's SFWA is not the same organization it was a decade ago, and that one possible reason for the current issues is growing pains within the organization.
Under the work of past presidents including John Scalzi, Steven Gould and Cat Rambo, SFWA changed significantly from what was frequently perceived as a social club for select SF/F writers to an organization that advocates for and supports all SF/F writers. As part of this change, the organization moved to California and reincorporated as a 501(c)3 nonprofit. In addition, the organization changed its name from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America to the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association to better reflect the increasingly international reach of its membership.
As a result of these changes and additional work accomplished by the organization, SFWA grew from 1,200 members a decade ago to 2,500 today.
But despite this growth, the organization still essentially manages itself as it did years ago. The SFWA president isn't paid despite the position being a fulltime job, and all the other officer and board positions are also done on a purely volunteer basis. And even though SFWA added more paid staff in recent years, including a full-time executive director, it appears the management style and work culture at SFWA has not kept pace with the organization's growth.
Some of the people I interviewed about what happened at SFWA directed criticism at Jeffe Kennedy and Kate Baker in their roles as president and executive director. However, it's worth noting that people also said they didn't believe the two of them were the exclusive cause of these problems, and didn't want their criticism to deflect from the issues with SFWA's overall work culture and managerial processes.
Mary Robinette Kowal, who served as SFWA's president for two years starting in 2020 and before that served as secretary and vice president from 2008 to 2012, spoke to me about her experiences with the organization.
"The main problem SFWA is facing is the same problem that happens at every volunteer organization: Siloing and burnout," Kowal said. "You solve both of those problems with management that communicates and delegates. The first time I was in office we had a problem with our executive director, who was widely loved but had consolidated power as a way of solving problems. We had to let her go. Then the organization hired Kate, who solved many of our problems. When I came back into office, I was concerned because I again saw some of the red flags I'd seen with the previous executive director, including not delegating work."
Kowal noted that during the covid pandemic, Baker was phenomenal. Kowal added Baker was also extremely good at catching balls dropped by other people. But on the flip side, Kowal said Baker wasn't good at releasing that work back to other staff and volunteers.
Kowal added that she was not sharing anything that she hadn't already discussed with Kate.
As a counterpoint, Jeffe Kennedy told me she had "tremendous faith in Kate Baker" and added she's been a great executive director. "Kate did everything she was supposed to do," Kennedy said. "I was always 100% happy with her work."
When asked about these issues, Baker emailed a statement that said in part,
"I always invite constructive feedback on my performance, and it was my understanding that I was delegating tasks proficiently among other things. I have also empowered people in multiple areas to excel in the work they've been hired or volunteered to do and because the organization has grown quite considerably, especially in the last few years, I have specifically reached out and tried to help staff and volunteers with their own tasks when they've become too much. For our organization to not only survive but thrive, the spirit of cooperation and understanding is absolutely paramount to success, especially in a volunteer organization."
Mary Robinette Kowal closed this part of our discussion by saying, "There is a difference between the person and the job. Anyone who makes serious errors in judgment are making them in the job. But as people they are all people I love and am fond of."
Kowal also said that SFWA needs to recognize that the organization is now an extremely large 501(c)3 and should emulate how other similarly sized nonprofits function, which perhaps includes having a paid presidency. She said she'd also love to see the creation of an advisory committee to help the board do candidate searches to fill new and empty positions.
Kowal added that one of the things she worked on while in office was distributing power.
"We changed the publication team so it was a three person team," she said. "We did the same with the Nebula Conference, and had a separate team that handled the ceremony. When they lost the conference team, they moved the programming 'in house,' which meant the Executive Director and the President did it. The ceremony team has gotten pared back to a tiny crew. I came back to help for one year and we couldn't get answers like 'what's our budget?' I try not to second-guess decisions but I have a lot of questions about why we're back to the Executive Director and the Deputy doing everything. It's not sustainable."
Jeffe Kennedy agreed that the organization is experiencing growing pains, noting that SFWA went from one paid staff member to five. She said that to support this growth in the coming years, new systems must be put into place, otherwise it is like "adding onto a house using only plywood and a tarp."
Anthony Eichenlaub, SFWA's new interim president, acknowledged the organization's overall staffing issues, including the need to quickly fill the currently empty positions. "But I don't see that as the biggest problem," he said, "It's a much bigger problem to make sure that the people we hire do not immediately get burned out. We need to make sure they feel empowered and that the structures we need are in place to do that."
What Are the Solutions?
Again, everyone I spoke with emphasized how important SFWA's work was along with wanting the organization to succeed. People also mentioned many of SFWA's successes in recent years, including advocacy work like the high profile #DisneyMustPay campaign, Griefcom, Writer Beware, the organization's long-running emergency medical fund, health-insurance consultations for members in the USA, the Nebula Conference, the Nebula Awards, and the SFWA mentorships.
People also mentioned what is perhaps the most important work of SFWA: bringing together SF/F writers.
"SFWA matters because as writers we tend to be separate, working in our own houses and not connecting with the rest of the world," said Anthony Eichenlaub. "SFWA gives us not only that connection with each other but also a way to say, 'I'm at a point in my career where I want to help other writers.' And SFWA gives us a lot of tools to do that. That's why I joined."
As SFWA's interim president, Eichenlaub said he is working with the board to address the issues raised in this report.
"We're focusing on the NDA as a first step," he said. "I don't believe that it was created with the intention of stifling communication, but that appears to be what it's done. Once we have a solution that we're sure still protects the very narrow set of data that needs to be protected (medical fund, legal fund, griefcom), then we will start looking at conflict and complaint resolution policies and a proper whistleblower policy. Not everything can be solved with policy change. It will take time, but a cultural shift might also be needed. That's a trickier problem to solve, but after I sent my letter to the membership I saw an enormous outpouring of support. SFWA members want this to work. They haven't given up, and neither have I."
The next SFWA board meeting takes place today and it's likely the first steps on addressing these problems will be taken at that time. It's also worth noting that the current SFWA board and officers were not responsible for the mess, having only assumed office on July 1. So I’m personally hoping they will fix what has been going on.
Based on my interviews with people, here are my recommendations for what needs to be done:
The board must immediately deal with Terra LeMay's severance package. How SFWA treats its staff is a big indication of how the organization treats everyone.
SFWA must empower staff and volunteers to make decisions on their own so they can succeed in their work. The president and executive director must delegate work to staff and volunteers and ensure SFWA has a supportive work environment.
SFWA must create long-term change to ensure the organization has an overall sense of transparency and communicates effectively with members and the public. As one person told me, "Discord is not a replacement for good public communications."
SFWA must also ensure better communications between officers, staff, and the board. As part of this, the SFWA board should consider having their meetings open to any member and recording the meetings (which used to be done).
SFWA must terminate the overly broad NDAs signed by staff, board members, and many volunteers.
SFWA should examine how other large nonprofits manage their work and staff. This could mean that the position of SFWA's president might become a full-time, paid position in the future.
Sarah Pinsker, who served on the SFWA board for seven years that ended in 2021, said she didn't remember experiencing such dysfunction while on the board and wouldn't have stayed all that time if that had been her experience.
"I was honestly shocked at the chaos of the last few weeks," she added. "But I think the organization is important and does good work and I hope they can sort through the current mess and move forward again."
A few weeks ago I stepped down as the manager of SFWA’s annual auction because the staff turnover and lack of communication made me fear I’d again be forced to do most of the work by myself. I did most of the work by myself on last year's auction and it both negatively affected my health and nearly burned me out.
Despite that, I still believe in SFWA’s vision and mission. And nothing I’ve learned in my interviews and research for this report has changed my opinion. I’m convinced SFWA can overcome these issues and emerge stronger than ever. And when SFWA turns all this around I look forward to again volunteering with the organization.
As Mary Robinette Kowal told me in our interview, "It is unpleasant right now, but it's also not because of the failure of SFWA's vision. These are just managerial problems and managerial problems can be solved."
I totally agree.