SFWA Interim President Chelsea Mueller Resigns After One Week At Post And Incoming Replacement Implies Sci-Fi Org Has Legal Troubles

SFWA may be completely folding under its own weight after more than a decade of political activism miring the once prestigious sci-fi organization

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association is in complete collapse. Over the last two weeks, President Jeffe Kennedy quit, which prompted a message from the board alerting members that many volunteers and paid employees had left SFWA under nebulous circumstances. Now, just one week after Kennedy resigned, interim President Chelsea Mueller quit, and more details emerged showing the club to be in massive trouble.

SFWA created its own problems, going from what once was a union of professional science fiction authors that worked to ensure publishers were honest in contractual dealings with writers, to an organization with very little purpose in the Amazon self-publishing age. As it devolved, the active members and board went from some of the most hard-working and respected in the sci-fi publishing industry to relative nobodies who were larping at being professional authors at a hobbyist rate of income. The hobbyists were not capable of running an organization but turned SFWA into a political club that was little more than a private online forum for aspiring writers to complain. 

The club has lowered its membership standard in recent years. It used to require an active member to have at least $5,000 of sales on one book over a year’s time or for an author to sell three short stories in one year to a professional market, a standard that is not difficult to meet as an actual professional, but it now only requires showing $1,000 of total sales lifetime. 

As the membership requirements degraded, so did the quality of the organization. Many members in recent years have been disillusioned by the organization. A woman who goes by Bree on BlueSky with the pen name Kit Rocha said, “Yeah I joined SFWA, realized it had been a terrible mistake because I don't care enough about the opinions of the shitheads to tolerate their romance nonsense, and let my membership lapse.”

Author Piper J. Drake echoed the sentiment saying, “This. Yup. Ditto.” 

Matters escalated just before Glasgow Worldcon, as Jeffe Kennedy, long-time president of SFWA despite not being a science fiction writer, abruptly resigned as President. She was replaced by Chelsea Mueller, who appears to be an amateur YA Horror writer, who went completely silent publicly on BlueSky during Worldcon, and then abruptly quit sending this letter to SFWA members:

 Dear SFWA Members and the SFF Community,

It is with a heavy heart that I must resign my role on SFWA’s Board of Directors effective immediately. I love this organization, its mission, and most of all, its volunteers and members. My life has changed dramatically since I ran for the Vice President position earlier this year.

Many of you may already know, but 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.

With the immense change happening in our organization right now and the need to respond swiftly, thoughtfully, and with full attention, I’d be doing a disservice to SFWA by remaining in a key role that could cause lag in acting quickly and appropriately.

Burnout is a constant refrain within our volunteers, and I can see why. Since taking an officer role on the board on July 1, I’ve worked nearly the hours of a full-time job. So many tasks for our officers could be off-loaded to appropriate staff members if we reviewed our structure. I have shared input with the Executive Director and the Board around what roles I think the organization may need moving forward to better balance the load and allow the Board of Directors to act as a steering governance body instead of an operational one.

One of my main initiatives for this term was to see our official website overhauled to improve navigation and discoverability. I have already prepared a document for a Request for Proposal (RFP) to begin that process (though it needs input and validation from the InfoSys and Accessibility committees). If the continuing board wants to move forward with the RFP, I am willing to advise on the process to select a vendor and negotiate pricing.

Also, because it feels inappropriate to leave during this time and ignore the current situation, I will depart by saying that I believe our staff—current and past—care deeply about SFWA and deserve respect, kindness, and fairness. I will debrief with whomever I need on the board in order to pass on the limited knowledge I’ve gained in these last few weeks on the priority matters at hand.

I thank you all for your trust in me, the stories you write, and the expertise you share. I’ve learned so much from our members, and it’s been an honor to serve you on the board the last year.

Respectfully,

Chelsea Mueller

SFWA replaced Chelsea Mueler with Anthony W. Eichenlaub as their new interim president. He has pronouns in his X profile, but at least for the first time in several years, it seems SFWA has appointed someone who actually writes science fiction and has some readership, given that his top-reviewed books on Amazon have several hundred reviews. 

Eichenlaub sent this message to members: 

 I ask that you think of one thing that you can do to help SFWA move forward. Not one hundred things that someone else can do, but one thing that you can do. Maybe you can think of a way to improve communication on a committee that you are on. Maybe you can lend your unique expertise when the next volunteer call comes out for a targeted task force. Maybe the only thing you can do is vote in the upcoming special election. On that note, we will be sending more information on this election in the coming weeks, and we ask that you please vote.

Don’t get me wrong, though. I still want that list of a hundred things that we can do. I’ve seen dozens of great suggestions in the past few weeks, and I do not want that to stop.

Because I have stepped into the interim President role and was not elected on a platform, I feel like it might be good if I share a little bit about my philosophy for the Board. I believe that the Board’s duty is to provide direction, both ethical and strategic. I believe that the Board should rely heavily on the expertise and efforts of employees and volunteers to accomplish the organization’s mission. In its current state, Board members take on too much. This leads to Board member burnout and it leads to reduced involvement in member volunteers. It also takes autonomy away from the volunteers still involved, which I believe is one of several causes for volunteer burnout. This is a vicious cycle that we need to break.

That said, I am treating this short-term position as my primary job. I currently have the privilege of financial security and a lack of hard deadlines. I do not expect your next elected President to follow suit, but I do believe that at this critical point the extra attention will benefit SFWA.

I believe in transparency. There are limits, of course, but I believe that when we hit a limit to what can be ethically, legally, or safely disclosed, I at least owe you a reason. Please hold me to that.

The Board will be sticking to the agenda topics that were previously scheduled, and I am looking forward to the upcoming Town Hall on September 10th. I’m also planning to write more letters to the membership with updates on what SFWA is currently doing.

Still processing all of this? Me too.

The only way that I know of to move forward in a constructive and productive way is to find that one thing that might make things better. My one thing is accepting this position as interim President. It’s a big one, but yours doesn’t have to be. I’m going to need all the help I can get.

Sincerely,

Anthony W. Eichenlaub

Even though the message speaks of “transparency,” most of the public online chatter about SFWA among members is from people who have no idea what’s happening with the organization.  It’s led many to speculate that there are wrongdoings going on that spell massive legal troubles for the sci-fi organization because of Eichenlaub’s cryptic message.

Uncanny Magazine editor Michael Damian Thomas has given the most clarity so far on what happened with the situation, posting to X, “One employees left & wasn’t replaced. One employee asked for accessibility accommodations, didn’t get them, gave 90 days notice, & then was immediately shut out of their SFWA email account. (That one gets more and more complicated.)”

He then said, “Multiple committees seem to have had members forced out or resigned, including Griefcom. There is a general pattern of these committee members saying there was little or no communication from the Board. Now we have multiple Board members resigning. Lots of claims about NDA stuff.”

Followed by, “A check was issued to a charity antho and then the antho was told to not cash the check and destroy it, as the payment was in error. There is a lot going down!”

With accessibility issues via the American Disability Act (ADA), SFWA may be in legal trouble beyond what it can manage. Coupled with a potential charity scam, the entire organization is at risk of folding if what Thomas says is true.

What do you think of SFWA’s recent collapse and no one wanting to be in charge? Leave a comment and let us know. 

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