The Scribblies Explained

The Scribblies were a fantasy fiction group of writers formed in the U.S. city of Minneapolis in January 1980. Members included Nate Bucklin, Emma Bull, Steven Brust, Kara Dalkey, Pamela Dean, Will Shetterly and Patricia Wrede.[1] At the time, they shared the same editor and literary agent.[2]

These authors all contributed short stories in the Liavek anthologies. Liavek was a shared-world series edited by Emma Bull and Will Shetterly.[3]

The name "Scribblies" is a joke inspired by the Industrial Workers of the World, "the Wobblies". It also derives from Prince William Henry, Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh's comment to Edward Gibbon upon receiving the second (or third, or possibly both) volume(s) of Gibbon's The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire "Another damned thick book! Always scribble, scribble, scribble! Eh, Mr. Gibbon?"

Notes and References

  1. Novel Spaces, http://novelspaces.blogspot.com/2010/07/guest-author-patricia-wrede-group-of.html Patricia C. Wrede, "A Group of One's Own" 31-Jul-2010, retrieved 21-Aug-2014
  2. Ringel . Faye. 1994 . The Scribblies: A Shared World . Extrapolation . 35 . 3.
  3. Encyclopedia of Fantasy, John Clute and John Grant, St. Martin's Press, 1997, p. 845