AMAZING NEWS: 5/17/15

Special Announcement:

Tomorrow – 5/18/15 – Amazing Stories will publish an interview with Cat Rambo & M.C.A. Hogarth regarding SFWA’s current Indie Author membership program

PRESS RELEASES & NEWSLETTERS (See below for full texts)

Norwescon Wrapup; Wordfire Press Goes Comic Conning

SOCIAL

Why the Human Race Should Be Optimistic

Court Ruling Against Abstinence-Only Sex Ed (in other words, Sex Ed ought to actually teach something)

Are Police Body Cameras Working?

Veteran Arrested for Saving Dog in Closed Car (Can’t tell you how many times I’ve had people paged at WalMart & elsewhere;  called the cops; seriously thought about breaking windows.  Do Not Leave Your Dog Locked In the Car  (Not even if it is a Sad Puppy!)

ENTERTAINMENT

Spaceship Taxonomy 

David Brin on “What Is SF?”  (From Trekspertise) (interesting discussion on the differences between SF & fantasy)

When Velociraptors Attack

Lynch Returns to Twin Peaks Project

Flash Gordon Fan Film

SF Films Debuting At Cannes

INDUSTRY

Perspectives on Publishing

Achieving Diversity in Publishing

Wall Street Journal Covers Puppygate

Tor Editorial Director Steps Down

Berkely Publishing Group Editorial Director Steps Down

Sandifer’s Puppy Roundup (Long, but Complete:  Explicitly NOT Written for Puppies)

SCIENCE

Airship Hopes

Follow the Solar Cell Road, Follow, Follow, Follow…

Ares 3 Landing Zone (NASA/Andy Weir’s The Martian)

Larsen B Ice Shelf Going…Going…Soon Be Gone

Think You Can Design A Space Habitat?

PRESS RELEASES & NEWSLETTERS

Norwescon 38 Distant Horizons, Epic Adventures

Letter from the Chair Wow! What a fantastic convention! Thank you to everyone who came and enjoyed Norwescon 38. Even if you did not volunteer, you still made our community a better place by coming out, sharing your stories, and giving us your energy and enthusiasm.If you did volunteer, THANK YOU! Without volunteers, the convention would be a lot less fun for everyone.I am very excited about our Guests of Honor for next year, and I hope to see you join us at Norwescon 39 from March 24th-27th 2016. Volunteer Notes Well, we have almost closed out another convention with the help of so many people!  This year saw over 500 hours of volunteer help at the convention, and we would like to give a huge THANK YOU to everyone who volunteered.  If you volunteered, or even if you are just thinking about volunteering in the future, please join us at the Volunteer Picnic, July 18, at Steel Lake Park from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. in the covered picnic area closest to the beach.  Thank you all again, and we will see you next year! Election Results The Elections for the officers of Norwescon 39 (2016) were held on Saturday May 9th.There were 249 ConCom members in the validated Org Chart.  Of those, 139 ConCom (55%) registered for votes this year. Our Quorum number needed to make the election valid was 80 ballots (57% of 139 eligible voters).  We reached quorum with 97 ballots received (70% of the eligible voters).  And without further ado, here are the results (Winners are indicated by bold and underline.)   GOH Selection Committee William Sadorus Gregory Gadow Lori Atwell Jackie Nordquist No Preference None of the Above   Vice-Chair Jeanine Swanson Katrina Marier   Chair Kathy Bond   Congratulations to Kathy, Jeanine, Gregory, and William, and thank you to everyone who participated in this year’s election.   This year’s Election Chair was Rob Stewart. Our ballot counters included four members of the Business team who did yeoman’s work recounting when one of the races was decided by one vote. Norwescon 38 Art Show Report We hope that you all had a chance to come by the art show to see the art and possibly take some home with you. We had a great time this year and we hope that you did, too.In our never ending drive to improve the art show, we added biding stickers that allow us to scan your information into our art show system. It is a step forward for us; however, as with any new thing, there are growing pains. We will be looking at how to better integrate the stickers into our processes to ensure you all have an enjoyable buying experience.We would like to thank our hard working staff for everything they did to make this a successful year; we could not have done any of this without them. Our Art Show Apprentice Award went to Moe LaCoss for all of her hard work, and an honorary award goes to Michael Ormes who works tirelessly on setting up and taking down the art show panels every year. We also want to thank all of the wonderful artists for participating in this year’s show. We had 80 artists participating with 2785 pieces of art entered into the show and record sales.And of course we thank Julie Dillon for being our Artist Guest of Honor; she was such a pleasure to work with and was wonderful to our membership and other artists. Her art was amazing and the true focal point of the show. We hope to see you all again next year. Doug and Pat Booze Norwescon Art Show LOCUS AWARDS June 26-28th Norwescon is a proud sponsor of the LOCUS Awards which will be held at the Best Western Executive Inn, a few blocks from the Seattle Center.   The Locus Awards is considered one of the premier science fiction awards and events in the science fiction community, and Seattle is fortunate to be its host city.   For more information on this event schedule and registration information please go toLocusMag.com. Locus Magazine digital edition We are pleased to announce Norwescon 38 membership also includes a digital subscription to Locus Magazine, for the May 2015 issue.  You may access the digital copy which will be available on May 1st by going to Locusmag.com.

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WordFire Press hits the road with a group of outstanding authors at numerous pop-culture shows across the country.This year at Denver Comic Con, May 23–25, 2015, WordFire Press will be releasing three exclusive books for the first time. The books include Chemical Burn, by Quincy Allen, Enter the Janitor by Josh Vogt and Escape from Planet Pleasure from Mario Acevedo. Stop by the booth and get one of the fifty exclusive editions.WordFIre guests for Denver Comic Con include Kevin J Anderson, Rebecca Moesta, Peter J Wacks, Quincy Allen, Josh Vogt, Mario Acevedo, DJ Butler, Dan Wells and Sarah A. Hoyt. After Denver, come see WordFire Press at Dallas FanExpo May 29–31, 2015. With Kevin J Anderson, Peter J Wacks, Rhiannon  Paille, Josh Vogt, Quincy Allen John D. Payne.With special guests, Tor Books authors Cat Adams and Kathleen Baldwin. Featured Book—Wild Blue U: The Cadet by Doug Beason The Cadet, Book 1 of the Wild Blue U saga, chronicles the founding years of arduous training of America’s future leaders as they prepare to serve in such places from the jungles of Vietnam to the deserts of the Middle East. The Cadet is an accurate, historical saga of the Academy based on factual events – but populated with sympathetic, larger-than-life characters that will appeal to prospective candidates, military members, and the reading public alike. NewsWordFire Press just signed an agreement with Australia’s Satalyte—WordFire Press publishers Kevin J. Anderson and Rebecca Moesta—signed an agreement with Australia’s Satalyte Publishing to print and distribute their novels in Australia. The first titles will be available at Supanova Sydney June 20–21, where Anderson and Moesta are the two featured author guests.WordFire Press books are available in electronic form worldwide, but shipping and long-distance printing issues have made it problematic and prohibitively expensive to distribute their print editions in Australia. The partnership with Australia’s Satalyte Publishing, however, will smooth the way. WordFire publisher Kevin J. Anderson says, “We’ve been discussing the possibilities with Satalyte for some time, but our upcoming appearance at Supanova is an opportunity we just can’t pass up. This partnership gets our books out to Australian and New Zealand readers, with Satalyte operating as our contact there.” This Month’s Featured Authors Quincy J. Allen a cross-genre author, he has been published in multiple anthologies, magazines, and one omnibus. Chemical Burn, a finalist in the RMFW Colorado Gold Contest, is his first full novel. Jake Lasater: Blood Ties, a steampunk western fantasy novel, is due out in 2015. He works part-time as a tech-writer by day, does book design and eBook conversions for WordFire Press by night, and lives in a cozy house in Colorado that he considers his very own sanctuary—think Batcave, but with fewer flying mammals and more sunlight. Josh Vogt A full-time freelance writer, Josh Vogt has been published in dozens of genre markets with work ranging from flash fiction to short stories to doorstopper novels that cover fantasy, science fiction, horror, humor, pulp, and more. He also writes for a wide variety of RPG developers such Paizo, Modiphius, and Privateer Press. His debut fantasy novel, Forge of Ashes, adds to the popular Pathfinder Tales line. WordFire Press has launched his urban fantasy series, The Cleaners, with Enter the Janitor (2015) and The Maids of Wrath (2016). You can find him at JRVogt.com. Mario Acevedo  is the author of the bestselling Felix Gomez detective-vampire series from HarperCollins. His debut novel, The Nymphos of Rocky Flats, was chosen by Barnes & Noble as one of the best Paranormal Fantasy Novels of the Decade and was a finalist for a Colorado Book Award. His novel, Good Money Gone, co-authored with Richard Kilborn, won a best novel 2014 International Latino Book Award. His short fiction and essays have been published by Arte Publico Press and appeared in Modern Drunkard Monthly, Exquisite Corpse, and Now Write! Mario lives and writes in Denver, Colorado.

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